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<\/a>Have You Seen This Lately?<\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n Have you seen a lot of red ribbons lately?\u00a0 Been accosted at the grocery store to donate to heart disease?\u00a0 Or perhaps you’ve received 500 unsolicited address labels asking for an in-kind contribution?\u00a0 Nope.\u00a0 Neither have I.\u00a0 You would be hard pressed to know that February is National Heart Month.<\/strong>\u00a0 Contrast this with the month of October – National Breast Cancer Awareness month.\u00a0 Every billboard, key chain and toilet seat has a pink ribbon on it.\u00a0 I’ve written previously about the “pimping of the pink” (https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/?p=5582<\/a>).\u00a0 My problem isn’t with the much-needed research on breast cancer.\u00a0 After all, I have some very close friends that are alive today because of the advances made in breast cancer treatments.\u00a0 My issue is with the ubiquitous pink ribbon<\/strong> that corporations and individuals use to solicit money when, in fact, very little of the money collected actually goes to research.\u00a0 And in the mean time, money that could be used to fund research for other medical diseases gets squandered.<\/p>\n In fact, heart disease (heart attacks and stroke) kills more women than breast cancer.<\/strong>\u00a0 According to an article in Harvard Health<\/i> Publ<\/span>ishing<\/em>, in a survey conducted by the American Heart Association, about half of the women interviewed knew that heart disease is the leading cause of death in women, yet only 13% said it was their greatest personal health risk. If not heart disease, then what? Other survey data suggest that on a day-to-day basis, women still worry more about getting breast cancer \u2014 even though heart disease kills six times<\/strong> as many women every year. Why the disconnect?<\/p>\n The survey answers may have been influenced by who and when women are afflicted with these diseases.\u00a0 In the survey researchers found that breast cancer affects body image,<\/strong> sexuality, and self-esteem in ways that a diagnosis of heart disease does not. Also, heart disease tends to show up at an older age (on average, a woman’s first heart attack occurs at age 70), so the threat may not seem all that real<\/strong> to younger women. Most 50-year-old women know women their age who’ve had breast cancer but none who’ve had heart disease.\u00a0 In fact, the latest report from the CDC indicates that cancer is<\/em> the leading cause of death in women under the age of 65.\u00a0 After that, heart disease kills more women than cancer by far.<\/p>\n The American Heart Association came up with the February awareness initiative to bring some light to all of these issues.\u00a0 And specifically, they have targeted women with the Go Red For Women<\/strong> campaign.\u00a0 Their website provides lots of interesting facts and resources – it’s well worth your time to become familiar with it.\u00a0 Unfortunately, whoever came up with the website name didn’t think things through because it reads “goredforwomen.com”\u00a0 which, when read quickly, can also read Gored For Women<\/strong>.\u00a0 Perhaps the AHA needs to hire the marketing geniuses that launched all those pink ribbons.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Suzanne Sparrow Watson Have you seen a lot of red ribbons lately?\u00a0 Been accosted at the grocery store to donate to heart disease?\u00a0 Or perhaps you’ve received 500 unsolicited address labels asking for an in-kind contribution?\u00a0 Nope.\u00a0 Neither have … read more![\"\"](\"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/woman-with-heart-attack-300x200.jpg\")
<\/a>So, perhaps there is also an “ageist” aspect to all this.\u00a0 After all, no one who dies while receiving a Social Security check<\/strong> is classified as an unexpected death.\u00a0 Sure, 70 is the new 50 but I’m not sure on average our bodies are aware of this new social phenomenon.\u00a0 So older women face two hurdles: age and sex.\u00a0 The American Heart Association survey also found that many women say their physicians never talk to them<\/strong> about coronary risk and sometimes don’t even recognize the symptoms, mistaking them instead for signs of panic disorder, stress, and hypochondria. \u00a0 According to that same Harvard<\/em> article,\u00a0 a woman’s symptoms are often different from a man’s, and she’s much more likely than a man to die<\/strong> within a year of having a heart attack. Women also don’t seem to fare as well as men do after taking clot-busting drugs or undergoing certain heart-related medical procedures. Research is only now beginning to uncover the biological, medical, and social bases of these and other differences.<\/p>\n