Heart disease stalking the women.

(From New Straits Times (Malaysia))

Byline: Rajen M.

JUST ask any woman the disease she fears most and the answer would be breast cancer. She may even cite the scary statistics: That breast cancer strikes one in every eight women. Yet, women have to fear heart disease more - at least three times more.

In the United States, one in 2.5 women will die from heart disease and stroke. In 2005, the American Heart Association (AHA) released a very shocking statistic: Heart disease kills more women than all the forms of cancer combined. That even includes breast cancer.

ONE EVERY MINUTE Heart disease kills 500,000 American women a year - more than one every minute. Heart disease, not breast cancer (40,000 deaths annually), is the No 1 killer of women. Yet, people think that heart disease is a man's disease. Statistics gleaned from Mount Sinai Medical Centre show that actually more women (6.9 million) than men (6.7 …