Heart Disease Kills Women - Here's What a Cardiologist Wants You to Know

Heart disease is the number one killer of women in the United States. Not breast cancer. Heart disease. And most women still don't know their symptoms, their risk factors, or the three numbers that could change the outcome. In this episode, Dr. Bayo sits down with Dr. Njeri Kuria, a cardiology fellow at Loma Linda University Medical Center, to give women the information they should have been getting at every appointment. This episode covers women's heart attack symptoms, cardiovascular disease prevention, heart health across every decade of life, and what women with autoimmune diseases, a history of pregnancy complications, or perimenopausal symptoms need to know about their cardiac risk right now. Dr. Kuria breaks down why women's symptoms are so often missed or dismissed, what pregnancy reveals about long-term heart health, and what to ask your doctor when every test comes back normal but something still doesn't feel right. In this episode you'll learn why heart attack symptoms in women rarely match the textbook and how to describe what you're actually feeling, why pregnancy is considered your first cardiac stress test and what preeclampsia, gestational hypertension, and gestational diabetes predict about your future cardiovascular risk, what peripartum cardiomyopathy is and why it is frequently mistaken for postpartum exhaustion, how chronic inflammation from autoimmune diseases like lupus and rheumatoid arthritis raises your risk for ischemic heart disease, the three numbers that drive cardiovascular disease, blood pressure, LDL cholesterol, and A1C, and what they should look like in your 30s, 40s, and 50s, what lipoprotein A is, why it can change after menopause, and when to ask about a coronary calcium score, what microvascular disease and endothelial dysfunction are and what testing exists when a stress test, echo, and angiogram all come back normal, and why women wait longer than men to call 911 and longer in the ER once they arrive and what to do about both. Follow Dr. Njeri Kuria on social media @njeri.mdFollow Dr. Bayo at @doctor.bayo. Find a provider who will listen at CliniciansWhoCare.com.