February isn’t just for valentines — it’s also American Heart Month, a time to focus on cardiovascular health. Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States for both men and women, inclusive of all races and ethnic groups. Penn Medicine cardiologist Dr. Helene Glassberg ’89 has dedicated her career to preventing and treating cardiovascular disease, especially in women.
After earning her bachelor’s in molecular biology at Lehigh, Glassberg went on to Temple University Medical School. She was leaning toward specializing in oncology when an event changed the trajectory of her training: A young woman who had just had a baby suffered a massive heart attack, requiring an emergency heart transplant.
“It blew me away that such a young, viable person with a newborn could have a heart transplant and survive. That was really high-impact for me — I changed gears rather quickly to cardiology,” Glassberg says.
After doing her residency and cardiology training at Boston City Hospital (now Boston Medical Center) and working there for several years, the Hazleton, Pennsylvania, native wanted to come back to her home state to be close to family. She accepted a job at Temple University and started a clinic focused on the prevention of heart disease.
“I sought out advice from Dan Rader ’81 M.D., who is famous for his work in cholesterol. After I worked with him for some time, he asked if I would be interested in joining him at the University of Pennsylvania, where he had a huge prevention program going. I started working there, splitting my time between general cardiology and prevention. I soon became even more interested in prevention, and that was a natural segue into prevention of heart disease in women.”
For her work in women’s heart disease prevention and treatment, Glassberg was named the 2019 Woman of Heart by the Go Red for Women campaign of the American Heart Association (AHA). She has become very involved in raising awareness of heart disease in women and is now on the executive leadership team for Go Red for Women and president-elect of AHA in Philadelphia.
Glassberg says both the medical community and women in general are getting better at identifying and preventing heart disease, “but we’re not done. Women tend to put their families before themselves when it comes to routine checkups. Their kids go to the pediatrician, they urge their husbands to get their cholesterol and blood pressure checked but don’t necessarily do the same for themselves. So these risk factors for heart disease go unchecked for too many years in women.”
The medical community can miss cardiac diagnoses in women because, she says, “They don’t always come in with the ‘elephant sitting on my chest’ symptom. Nausea, windedness, atypical chest pain are more likely symptoms. And there’s a general misconception that women present later or don’t have as much heart disease as men.”
So what’s the most important thing for women (or men) to do to prevent cardiovascular disease?
“Know your numbers,” Glassberg says. “Know your blood pressure, cholesterol, sugar, body mass index. Most cardiac risk factors are modifiable. You can’t change your genes, your age, or your sex, but you can control hypertension, diabetes, tobacco use, cholesterol, obesity, and sedentary lifestyle.”
For women, it’s also important to “know yourself. Women do tend to ignore cardiovascular symptoms that aren’t the ‘elephant on their chest.’ If you’re having unusual symptoms, and especially if you think it’s your heart, get it checked.”
“Women tend to put their families before themselves when it comes to routine checkups. Their kids go to the pediatrician, they urge their husbands to get their cholesterol and blood pressure checked but don’t necessarily do the same for themselves. So these risk factors for heart disease go unchecked for too many years in women.”
Glassberg also says it’s vital for everyone to know CPR, which saves lives. Contrary to popular belief, that doesn’t have to mean taking a class and becoming certified.
“There’s a great two-minute video on the AHA website that shows you how to easily do hands-only CPR,” Glassberg advises. “Outcomes are dismal for people having a cardiac arrest on the street, but they improve very significantly if the person gets bystander CPR.”