A New Way to Look at Health for Girls and Women – Key Facts
Women’s health matters to everyone. Whether you are a young women, mother, grandmother, “girl dad”, husband, brother, or bestie, it’s important to support your health or the health of the women you love at every stage of life.
- Hormones affect a woman’s whole body, not just her reproductive system. Changes in estrogen and other sex hormones across a woman’s life can shape the health of her heart and blood vessels.
- Changing hormone levels can impact women and girls’ heart health. So it is important that these hormonal changes are addressed and assessed in relation to cardiovascular health throughout a woman’s life.
- Connecting three areas of a woman’s health that are usually treated separately -- hormonal health, mental and emotional health, and heart health. These need to be looked at all together.
Female-Specific Life Stages
Building Blocks
Colorful foods, daily movement, good sleep, and feeling safe and supported.
This is a time for planning healthy habits. Guidance for heart health in this stage is similar for boys and girls: healthy habits and good information during childhood help shape heart health for life long before any heart risk may occur.
Learning Your Ryhthm
Cycles take time to settle. Very heavy or very irregular periods deserve a conversation with a healthcare professional.
This is a time for planning healthy habits. Guidance for heart health in this stage is similar for boys and girls: healthy habits and good information during childhood help shape heart health for life before any heart risk may occur.
- This is the earliest time point doctors may see signals that are specific to females. As estrogen rises, differences in cholesterol, body fat, and blood vessel flexibility begin to show up. A first period before age 10 is now recognized as an early marker of higher heart risk that can prompt closer monitoring.
- Mental health differences appear here too. How you feel emotionally, how life stress affects you, and your eating behaviors can influence your heart health. By about age 17, girls have at least twice the odds of depression compared with boys, closely tied to the changes of puberty. Eating disorders also become more common.
- Watch an overview of this Female Life Stage (S1) (Video)
A Built-in Stress Test
Periods and pregnancy complications can reveal future heart risk. Share your period and pregnancy history with a healthcare professional.
- Your menstrual cycle is a vital sign or clue for your heart health. Similar to abnormal levels of blood pressure or heart rate, irregular, missed, or very heavy periods can be a marker of heart risk and should be checked out a healthcare professional.
- Ask your doctor about few specific conditions with heavy or irregular periods: Heavy menstrual bleeding is common and is the leading cause of iron deficiency, which can affect heart health. Polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome (PMOS — the condition formerly called polycystic ovary syndrome, or PCOS) affects about 10–13% of women and is linked to higher heart risk.
- Watch an overview of this Female Life Stage (S2) (Video)
A Turning Point
By 40, start the conversation with your healthcare professional about symptoms, sleep, mood, blood pressure and cholesterol.
- This is not a simple drop in estrogen. Hormones swing up and down, often rising before they fall. This usually begins around age 47 but varies by a lot and can start even before age 40.
- This is a turning point when heart risk starts to speed up. LDL (“bad”) cholesterol and a particle called Lp(a) tend to rise, and blood vessels can stiffen. That makes this an important window to know your numbers and act early.
- Symptoms are common and can carry heart meaning. Hot flashes, night sweats, poor sleep, and mood changes affect most women in this stage. Severe hot flashes have been linked to higher heart risk.
- Watch an overview of this Female Life Stage (S3) (Video)
Protecting the Years Ahead
Know your numbers, stay active, and connected, and act fast on warning signs.
- This stage covers a large proportion (about 40%) of a woman’s life. This is a stage that deserves ongoing attention to heart health.
- Most first heart attacks, strokes, and heart failure show up here — but the risk may have been building for years. Recognizing symptoms of heart disease that require attention is even more important in this stage as it becomes more common. It is also why prevention in the earlier stages matters so much.
- Brain health is part of the picture. Stroke and dementia are the 3rd and 4th leading causes of death in U.S. women, and about two-thirds of Americans with Alzheimer’s disease are women.
- Watch an overview of this Female Life Stage (S4) (Video)
