Application-Best Practices Research Assignment Paper

Application – Best Practices
Name
Course
Application-Best Practices
Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) is used to refer to all diseases that affect the heart and blood circulation. The diseases here include: stroke, coronary heart disease, heart attack, angina, and congenital heart disease (B Gencel et al., 2012). CVD is normally associated with fats building up inside the arteries and blood clots. Additionally, the disease is associated with damages to the arteries in the eye, brain, kidneys and heart. The disease affects women more after menopause. According to B Gencel et al (2012), menopause never causes CVD; risk factors that happen at the time of menopause are what fuel CVD. After menopause, women build up more fats and they become vulnerable to their past improper health practices such as smoking.
The major factor for cardiovascular disease in postmenopausal women is the decline in estrogen level. Boardman et al. (2015), argues that estrogen helps in keeping blood vessels flexible, relaxing and expanding to facilitate blood flow. Additionally, many changes occur to the body at menopause. Blood pressure rises, bad cholesterol increases while the good ones decrease, and fats in the blood also increase
The research proposed three ways of CVD risk assessment- those that are “at high risks”, “at risk”, and “at optimal risk”. The women at high risks are those that have been documented to be having CVD, chronic kidney disease, diabetes mellitus, or the chronic heart disease whose predicted risks is greater than 20%. For at risk, there is confirmed presence of at least one major CVD risk factor. The women that are at optimal risks have not shown any risk factor and normally exercise healthy lifestyle (Dosi et al., 2014). The article identifies smoking as one of the main risks factors for CVD. Women are discouraged from smoking as it affects their health later on when they reach menopause. Hypertension has also been highlighted as a major risk factor. To manage hypertension, blood sugar of women should be monitored and controlled at all stages of their lives. Those women with hypertension should use angiotensin-converting-enzyme inhibitors and calcium antagonists. Lipids have also been ...