Her Guide to a Heart Attack: Recognizing Female Heart Attack Symptoms

On a Monday morning in April, Merle Rose, a New Jersey woman, experienced what some doctors call "female heart attack symptoms;" a feeling of indigestion and extreme fatigue. Later, she had nausea, vomiting and fainting.
But she never had chest pain-a "typical" male heart attack sign. When she got to the emergency room, doctors couldn't find any sign of heart attack and Rose says, "They would have sent me home."
As Rose's experience shows, many doctors-and women themselves--still don't realize that female heart attack symptoms can look very different than those of men. In fact, according to a study of women's early heart attack signs published in Circulation, women have more unrecognized heart attacks than men and are more likely to be, "mistakenly diagnosed and discharged from emergency departments."
In the emergency room, physicians had assumed she had a gastrointestinal illness. But at the time, no one told Rose that she had suffered a heart attack.
When an outside cardiologist recommended by Rose's regular doctor ordered testing that uncovered major blockages, doctors still made no mention of heart attack, she says.
So when did she finally get word? Not until several months later, when she visited a new female cardiologist. This doctor told her in retrospect that she had suffered a textbook case of undiagnosed female heart attack.
"That's the first I ever heard," Rose says. "This doctor told me, 'They didn't connect the dots.'"

Female Heart Attack Symptoms: What are They?

These chest-related heart attack signs often appear in men, and many women get them, too:

• Pressure, fullness or a squeezing pain in the center of the chest, which may spread to the neck, shoulder or jaw;
• Chest discomfort with lightheadedness, fainting, sweating, nausea or shortness of breath;

Is it harmful to cook or store food in aluminum foil?

We do not recommend cooking or storing food in aluminum foil-even though there is no strong scientific evidence showing these practices to be harmful to your health. We have three reasons for making this recommendation. First, even though research studies don't show the food use of aluminum foil to be harmful, they clearly show migration of small amounts of aluminum from the foil into the food. For example, in one study conducted in Italy about 2-6 milligrams of aluminum was found to move over into food from aluminum foils, cookware, and utensils. Even if this amount has not been show to pose health harm, we don't like our food containing a potentially problematic metal that wasn't naturally supposed to be there.
Second, we believe that the jury is still out on aluminum with respect to chronic long-term health problems. (We're talking here about exposure to aluminum from all sources, including the environment, certain workplace settings, personal care products, etc.) Potential connections have been found between certain cancers and aluminum exposure, and also between aluminum exposure and Alzheimer's disease. Infertility connections have also been found. We don't see any reason to add potential exposure through the use of aluminum foil with food.
Finally, we don't like the consequences of aluminum foil manufacturing for our planet. Aluminum remains on the federal government's list of priority toxins for the United States, and its mining, manufacture, and post-use disposal pose significant problems for our environment. From our perspective, while aluminum foil is definitely lightweight, flexible, and convenient, these upsides don't come close to outweighing the downsides here.

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Will I lose the health benefits of tea by adding milk?

Although this area of research still remains an area of controversy, we do not believe that there is reliable evidence to show that key health benefits will be lost if milk is added to tea. While there are not many studies in this area, here is what we know.
Teas like green tea are typically valued for their unique phytonutrients, including catechins and other polyphenols that function as antioxidants and that can provide special support for our cardiovascular system. These phytonutrients can support our cardiovascular system in many different ways, and it is important to preserve them in the tea that we drink. In one German study, the addition of milk to green tea was found to interfere with one of these support mechanisms (although not with others). A study by the United Kingdom Tea Council showed no effect on the availability of these phytonutrients when milk was added to black tea, and a third study in India showed some mixed effects in this regard. Taken as a group, we do not believe these studies demonstrate consistent loss of key health benefits when milk is added to tea. For individuals who enjoy their tea both with and without milk and are not lacking in any of the nutrients that milk provides, it might make sense to leave out the milk given the research controversy in this area. For individuals who only enjoy their tea with milk, or who may be lacking in the nutrients that milk provides, we do not believe it makes sense to eliminate the milk based on current research.
We haven't seen research on milk substitutes (including soy milk, almond milk, hazelnut milk, or rice milk) and their impact on tea's phytonutrients. Nor have we seen research on the consumption of other dairy products (like hard cheeses or cottage cheese) alongside of tea. Until more research is available in this area, we recommend an approach very similar to the one described above for cow's milk. As always, we encourage you to purchase certified organic teas and milks, and in the case of cow's milk, to choose lower fat (2% or less) products.

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Drink Water to Curb Weight Gain? Clinical Trial Confirms Effectiveness of Simple Appetite Control Method

Drinking more water before meals can help promote weight loss, new research suggests. (Credit: iStockphoto/Lise Gagne)


Has the long-sought magic potion in society's "battle with the bulge" finally arrived? An appetite-control agent that requires no prescription, has no common side effects, and costs almost nothing? Scientists report results of a new clinical trial confirming that just two 8-ounce glasses of the stuff, taken before meals, enables people to shed pounds. The weight-loss elixir, they told the 240th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS), is ordinary water.

"We are presenting results of the first randomized controlled intervention trial demonstrating that increased water consumption is an effective weight loss strategy," said Brenda Davy, Ph.D., senior author on the study. "We found in earlier studies that middle aged and older people who drank two cups of water right before eating a meal ate between 75 and 90 fewer calories during that meal. In this recent study, we found that over the course of 12 weeks, dieters who drank water before meals, three times per day, lost about 5 pounds more than dieters who did not increase their water intake."



"People should drink more water and less sugary, high-calorie drinks. It's a simple way to facilitate weight management."