UW-Madison Calendars

Each year, more women than men die from heart disease. Heart disease is the No. 1 killer of women in the world. Nearly one in every two women will develop heart disease at some time during her life. These are some of the reasons it is important for every woman to understand her risk and take action to reduce heart disease risk. What can you do? Stop smoking, exercise every day, and reduce blood pressure and cholesterol to ideal levels, with medication if necessary.

Nancy Sweitzer, MD, PhD, FACC

Cardiovascular disease: The unexpected risk

Heart disease is the leading cause of death among women, and ongoing research is providing new ways to understand the heart and how it functions. Dr. Sweitzer will discuss landmark breakthroughs in the understanding and treatment of heart disease, including the groundbreaking Framingham heart study. She will identify the risk factors most important to women. She also will share the tools women can use to estimate their risk of heart disease and ways to decrease that risk.

Nancy Sweitzer, MD, PhD, FACC
Director, UW Health Heart Failure Management Program

Sweitzer earned her medical degree and a doctorate in physiology in 1993 from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her career includes fellowships in cardiology, heart failure and cardiac transplantation at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. She joined the University of Wisconsin Cardiovascular Medicine Division in 2001 as an assistant professor of medicine and was appointed director of the Heart Failure Program.

As a physician-scientist, Sweitzer studies the physiology of heart failure. She also is interested in cardiovascular abnormalities associated with aging. She studies how to prevent heart failure through interventions that slow the vascular stiffening connected with age, hypertension, diabetes and obesity. As director of the Heart Failure Program, she is involved in several multicenter trials of therapy or interventions in heart failure. In 2001, she won a Harvard Medical School teaching award for Best Lecturer in Integrated Human Physiology.
Date / Time: Tuesday, June 16, 2009
5:30-7:00 p.m.
Location: University of Wisconsin Foundation
1848 University Avenue
Madison, Wisconsin

$10 for each evening; $25 for the series