Heart Disease - Women Beware.

Somehow over the years we have nurtured this fallacy that women unlike men are not likely to get serious heart ailments. Nothing could be further from the truth. Apparently women are as prone as men and indeed even in Western countries for a long time this prevalence in women had been underestimated. Perhaps because 'bad habits' associated with heart disease such as smoking, alcohol abuse and other factors were considered a man's 'monopoly,' women were seen as unlikely to suffer from these conditions.

So it wasn't really a surprise when this report from Bernama came in that about 46 per cent of Malaysian women are suffering from heart disease, and those who are menopausal or have their ovaries removed are in high risk of getting it.

Deputy Prime Minister's wife Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor who quoted the Health Ministry's statistics on it, said women above 55 and with family history of having the disease are also among the high-risk group.

"The Health Ministry's statistics show that about 46 per cent of Malaysian women have heart disease, and in 2005, women dying because of it accounted for 22 per cent of deaths among the gender," she told a press conference after officiating the Go-Red campaign at the National Heart Institute here.

Rosmah, who is also the patron of the campaign, said heart disease was usually not detected early due to the community's lack of awareness on it, and this has made it difficult to treat it.

She said that was why the campaign was launched, to raise the awareness among the fairer sex on the country's number one killer of Malaysian women compared to other chronic diseases like cancer, high blood pressure and diabetes.

At the ceremony, Rosmah also launched an official website for the campaign, addressed at GO RED for Women. Apparently this is modeled after the American Heart Association version.

The campaign is a joint effort of the institute, the Health Ministry, Women, Family and Community Development Ministry, and the Youth and Sports Ministry.

Also involved in the campaign are Kumpulan Media Prima Berhad through its television stations TV3, NTV7, 8TV and TV9 as well as radio stations LiteFM, FlyFM and HotFM.
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