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I miss my mother very much and her passing has given me a strong motivation to make people aware of the dangers of heart disease and the many simple ways to prevent it. The odds are that many of you are personally impacted by heart disease, whether you yourself live with it, or someone you know and care about does.
So why doesn’t everyone know this? My mother might be here today if we had been aware of it. Did you know that 267,000 women die each year from heart attacks, which kill six times as many women as breast cancer?
In memory of my mother, Irene, I would like to raise awareness of how serious heart disease really is and how we can do simple things to prevent it. Please talk to your doctor about getting your homocysteine level tested, and consider donating to the cause at www.womenheart.org. Irene would thank you. I thank you. Thanks for reading this—I hope it helps you or someone you know. If you have any thoughts on how we as an industry can raise awareness, please e-mail me at grace@gracemcnamarainc.com. You can read more about Irene by clicking here and help raise awareness about heart disease. Grace McNamara |
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I ♥ Irene
After my mother’s stroke, I was tested for heart-disease factors and discovered that I had an elevated level of homocysteine. What in the world is homocysteine? Being a fairly health-conscious person, I had always focused on diet, exercise, cholesterol, and blood pressure, all of which were under control. But I had never heard of homocysteine, and soon discovered that it is an amino acid that can cause cholesterol to change and damage arteries when the levels are high. It can increase the risk of blood-level blockages that could potentially lead to stroke. Normal homocysteine levels are somewhere between 5 and 10—mine was at 20.2—unquestionably on the high side. Fortunately, all I needed to do to attain a normal level was take supplements of folic acid, vitamin B6, and B12. Within three months, my homocysteine level dropped to a safer 9.