Diet, Exercise Help Menopausal Women

(WebMd.com) - Good news for women at or nearing menopause -- there's a simple way to help protect your arteries that doesn't cost a dime in prescriptions.

Simply getting more exercise and tweaking your diet to reduce fat and cholesterol can offer protection against the increased risk associated with the aging female heart. If you've heard it once, you've heard it a hundred times -- eat right and get in shape -- but now there's evidence that doing so does more whittle your waistline. It also slows progression of atherosclerosis, the thickening of artery walls caused by cholesterol buildup and linked with heart disease and stroke risks.

It's the first time research has shown those effects in women approaching menopause, according one of the study's authors, Kim Sutton-Tyrell, DrPH, of the University of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of Public Health. "Diet and exercise really work. Not only do they result in lower weight and cholesterol levels, the result is also a slowing of disease progression," says Sutton-Tyrell in a news release.

Although women have a lower risk of heart disease than men do, as women approach menopause their risks of heart disease increase and start to equal or even surpass the risks of heart disease seen in men.

Read more...