In Valentine's Month, Consider Your Heart

February is the month of hearts. We celebrate love on Valentine's Day, and we go red to remind us that hearts can be broken. February is American Heart Month, and a great reminder that if we want to be around to keep loving all those wonderful people in our lives, we need to indulge in another kind of love: self love. Women are notorious for leaving themselves until last, and as you approach the middle years there is even more competition for your time and energy. We are wrapped up in our lives and families, and it is easy to ignore those subtle signs and symptoms of heart disease.

If it is breast cancer that scares us, it is heart disease that kills us. In our preoccupation about cancers of all sorts, we miss the fact that heart attack and stroke kill more of us than all cancers combined. Women have different symptoms than men, we wait longer to get care, and once we get care we are often not treated as agressively. Remember, you are the best friend you've got when it comes to heading off cardiovascular disease, so find out everything you can about heart disease, and then pass it along. Have a heart to heart with each of your friends -- it's the most loving Valentine's Day gift they will ever get.