More education key to reducing heart disease in women, doctor says

Angie Wagner

Tuesday, Aug. 10, 1999 | 8:56 a.m.

Heart disease is the No. 1 killer of women, but it doesn't have celebrities wearing ribbons on their shirts or organizations investing in major prevention campaigns.

"What's so exciting and romantic about cardiovascular disease?" Dr. Carol Wilkerson of Alexandria, Va., asked Monday during the annual convention of the National Medical Association, which represents about 20,000 black doctors.

"It depends on what the popular disease of the decade is - what celebrity has that disease."

While heart disease kills more women than breast cancer, many people probably wouldn't have guessed that. Dr. Anne Taylor believes that's because heart disease hasn't gotten much attention, and women are more scared of getting breast cancer than heart disease.

Black women, who Taylor said are more hesitant to seek medical care, especially need to acknowledge the risk of heart disease. Black women are known to develop heart disease and die from it at higher rates than white women, she said.

"Women need to be educated that this is their disease," said Taylor, a professor of medicine at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.

Taylor is among about 2,000 doctors attending the NMA's convention this week.

She said doctors need to pay more attention to risk factors that can cause heart disease - obesity, hypertension, diabetes.

"Physicians don't really know who's at risk. They need to be more aware that cardiovascular disease it the No. 1 cause of death in women. I don't think the numbers are widely circulated," Taylor said.

Wilkerson said she believes heart disease doesn't get much attention from the media and health organizations because it's not the "it" disease that gets people excited about prevention campaigns.

"You hardly ever hear about cardiovascular disease," she said.

Even the National Institutes of Health hasn't given heart disease the same attention as other diseases.

According to the NIH, in 1996 it spent $851.6 million for research on heart disease, a disorder blamed for 732,400 deaths in 1994. The agency spent $1.4 billion in 1996 for research on AIDS, a disease that caused 42,100 deaths in 1994.

Taylor said education and more research are key to changing the public's perception of heart disease.

"We need to be trained to think about cardiovascular disease in the same way as cancer," she said.

The NMA convention continues through Friday.