Los Angeles,
01
February
2019
|
13:33 PM
America/Los_Angeles

Cedars-Sinai Celebrates Women’s Heart Health Day

Hundreds of Employees and Guests Dressed in Red, Got Screened for Heart Disease and Heard About the Latest Breakthroughs During Today’s 14th Annual Linda Joy Pollin Women’s Heart Health Day

Cedars-Sinai employees and guests kicked-off Heart Health Awareness Month today during the 14th annual Smidt Heart Institute Linda Joy Pollin Women’s Heart Health Day event. Attendees wore red and gathered together in a symbolic heart shape for a group photo in honor of today being National Wear Red Day and to demonstrate support for heightened awareness of heart disease risk factors as well as increased public education about gender differences in heart disease.

“Today is an opportunity to get educated about your heart health so you can take better care of yourself and your families,” said C. Noel Bairey Merz, MD, director of Cedars-Sinai’s Barbra Streisand Women’s Heart Center and the Linda Joy Pollin Women’s Heart Health Program in the Smidt Heart Institute.

In addition to posing for a group photo, attendees participated in free blood pressure screenings and cardiac risk assessments, enjoyed a heart-healthy lunch and then heard from Cedars-Sinai physicians who led a panel discussion about new medical discoveries in women’s health.

“The average American woman has a 30 to 40 percent lifetime risk of developing cardiovascular disease,” said Bairey Merz. “But we can improve those statistics if we change our lifestyle with diet and lifestyle – and take medications like statins when appropriate. We have to help deploy this vital information to the loved ones in our lives.”

The discussion was moderated by Amie Mangola, country music singer-songwriter and a patient in the Barbra Streisand Women’s Heart Center.

“Every woman needs to know the facts about women’s heart conditions,” said Mangola, who at 35 thought she was suffering from a heart attack. “Because of the education and expert care I received at Cedars-Sinai, I am finally healthy and happy to share, pregnant.”

Noel Bairey Merz, MD, director of the Barbra Streisand Women's Heart Center
The average American woman has a 30 to 40 percent lifetime risk of developing cardiovascular disease. But we can improve those statistics if we change our lifestyle with diet and lifestyle – and take medications like statins when appropriate. We have to help deploy this vital information to the loved ones in our lives.
Noel Bairey Merz, MD, director of the Barbra Streisand Women's Heart Center

 

Margo Minissian, PhD, ACNP, research scientist, cardiology nurse practitioner in the Barbra Streisand Women’s Heart Center in the Smidt Heart Institute, Balaji Tamarappoo, MD, PhD, medical director of cardio-oncology in the Smidt Heart Institute at Cedars-Sinai, assistant director of research in the Cardiac Imaging department and associate medical director of Cedars-Sinai’s Biomedical Imaging Research Institute, Eynav Accortt, PhD, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Cedars-Sinai and Janet Wei, MD, cardiologist in the Smidt Heart Institute, also spoke at the event.

Longtime women’s health advocate Irene Pollin, MSW, PhD (honorary), established the Linda Joy Pollin Women’s Heart Health Program to honor the memory of her daughter and to support women’s heart research and education.

The Barbra Streisand Women’s Heart Center in Cedars-Sinai’s Smidt Heart Institute provides risk assessment, diagnosis and heart disease care at a medical center ranked third in the nation for cardiology and cardiac surgery by U.S. News & World Report.

The Barbra Streisand Women’s Heart Center is an international leader in research and public education about gender differences in heart disease symptoms, diagnoses and treatments. The center helps women reduce their chances of heart disease through a preventive approach, including state-of-the-art testing.

Although heart disease has killed more U.S. women than men since 1984, most medical research has been focused exclusively on men, and women are largely unaware that they are at risk. Only one in five American women believes that heart disease is the greatest threat to her health, according to the American Heart Association. Research has shown men and women often experience different forms of heart disease. Men who experience a heart attack often feel a tingling in their left arm and chest pain, while women’s symptoms may include extreme fatigue, nausea and back pain.

 

Summary

Click here to read about one woman's journey from heart attack to heart health.