LIFE & HEALTH
Heart Health for Women Lundquist Lurie Cardiovascular Institute New Women’s Heart Health Clinic focuses on specialized care for women in the South Bay. Written by Laura Roe Stevens
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eart disease is the leading cause of death for women in America—striking 1 in 5 females each year. While cardiovascular disease (CVD) was thought to predominately afflict men, we now know women are equally at risk. However, women have different risk factors than men and unique CVD symptoms that are often not taken into consideration. Understanding these differences is critical because gender inequities still exist in the diagnosis and treatment of heart disease. For some conditions, women may be undertreated when compared to their male counterparts. Focused, specialized care is necessary to address this disparity and the unique concerns of our female population. “When we founded the cardiovascular institute in 2006, I began planning women’s heart healthy conferences straightaway because women are simply not aware their symptoms for heart disease are different from men,” says Melanie Lundquist, a philanthropist who, 20
ONCENTER — SUMMER 2022
along with her husband, Richard, established the Lundquist Lurie Cardiovascular Institute. “We have hosted four conferences thus far, and frankly women are still not aware what the symptoms [of female heart disease] are. And if they have been made aware, they often disregard them.” Lundquist is passionate that the symptoms of female heart disease—numbness; wrist, neck, or back pain; indigestion, nausea, and vomiting—need to be posted at every doctor’s office in the nation until they are fully recognized by women. “I have many examples of friends who disregarded symptoms that led to heart attacks. Women need to take these symptoms seriously and let someone drive them to the emergency room if they are experiencing them. It’s best to go to the ER and have them tell you it’s not a heart attack.” Committed to providing the most up-to-date, comprehensive care for women in the South Bay, the Women’s Heart Health Clinic at
Torrance Memorial’s Lundquist Lurie Cardiovascular Institute is working to correct these gender inequalities and educate women on how to recognize female-pattern heart disease symptoms. The clinic provides convenient access to all of the hospital’s diagnostic and treatment resources for heart disease and is designed to help women reduce their chances of heart disease through a preventive approach, including state-of-the-art screening and testing. The clinic also provides thorough cardiovascular risk assessment and preventive care, as well as management of coronary artery disease, microvascular dysfunction, vasospasm, stress cardiomyopathy (broken heart syndrome), heart failure, spontaneous coronary artery dissection, pregnancy-related heart health and other conditions known to affect women. The clinic provides complete cardiovascular care uniquely tailored for women. “Ideally, the best way to treat cardiovascular disease is to prevent it,” says Nadia Jafar Curran, MD,
The Lundquist Lurie Cardiovascular Institute’s newly opened Women’s Heart Health Clinic provides up-to-date comprehensive care for women in the South Bay.
Nadia Jafar Curran, MD, weighs in on cardiovascular disease risks, symptoms and warning signs everyone should know.
