April 23, 2025 • 9 mins
Heart health is vital to longevity, good mental health, energy & stamina. But despote what you may think, women have it worse than men. Alyson Poling is the Executive Director of the American Heart Association of Greater Cincinnati explains why women are at a higher risk, have a higher death rate than men, and what you can do to improve your heart health.
American Heart Association website
American Heart Association website
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is iHeart Cinci, a Tri state public affairs program
produced in Cincinnati about the people and organizations here in
the Tri State that make a difference. My next guest
is here from the American Heart Association, which has for
the last.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
One hundred years research heart disease.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
And related illnesses, bringing answers to medicine to make our
lives better.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
My guest is Alison Pohling.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
She's the executive director and vice president of the Greater
Cincinnati American Heart Association.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Welcome to iHeart Cincy.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Still number one killer of women cardiovascular disease, Alison, Why
is that?
Speaker 3 (00:36):
Lots of ideas.
Speaker 4 (00:38):
Yes, women still die over and above the total amount
of men who are dying of cardiovascular diseases and stroke,
so it is.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
One of every three women.
Speaker 4 (00:50):
And to put this into scale, you know, heart disease
and people think of cancer as a large killer. If
you were to combine all forms of cancer, heart disease
would still be killing more specifically women. And honestly, the
why is very nuanced, but there's light at the end
(01:10):
of the tunnel. We do know research will help us
understand more.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
And so when it comes to our.
Speaker 4 (01:18):
History of research, men fortunately have been studied for quite
a long time, well well over a century, but women
have only been studied as their own subset of the
human race.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Since nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
And so we are just at about thirty years and
we need to catch up. There's a huge gap and
what we know about men and what we know about women.
And with women, you think of life cycle, think of
you know, having children and then post children and then
or if you don't decide to have children, then you
think of menopause.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
We have a lot of life cycles and.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
Our bodies are just very and so research will help,
and specifically research on all types of women.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
I'll wrap it up.
Speaker 4 (02:07):
By saying only three percent of what we know now
has been done on black and brown women. So just
a lot of catching up to do, and we're very
heavily focused on that the gap in research.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
And this is a passion project for you as well.
You said you have a personal reason why you're so
committed to educating the public about heart disease.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
I do, yes. So I love my job.
Speaker 4 (02:30):
I love leading our American Heart Association in Greater Cincinnati.
But I am myself a mom of three and my
first pregnancy I ho was having twins, and I had preclamcia,
which is a fancier way to say you're really sick
and you have pregnancy induced hypertension or very high blood
(02:51):
pressure that's typically uncontrolled.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
And we know women get this.
Speaker 4 (02:56):
We also know if you have a complicated pregnancy or
a complic hated birth, you were at a very high
chance of developing heart disease or a stroke later.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
But again we don't know why. And so for me personally,
I want to know why.
Speaker 4 (03:11):
I want to know what else I could be doing
in addition to lifestyle change and trying to be the
healthiest version of myself.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
So yes, very personal.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Well I'm sorry you went through that, but I'm glad
that you have the passion that you have for the
Heart Association here in Cincinnati.
Speaker 4 (03:25):
Yeah, me too, And honestly, just normalizing the conversation.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
Even a couple of years ago, until I.
Speaker 4 (03:33):
Had that happen to me and then found out the
big correlation to heart disease, I wasn't really talking about it.
And now when we have our go Red for Women gatherings,
so many other women are pulling out those personal stories,
and I think that's even a step in the right direction.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
Is normalizing the conversation.
Speaker 4 (03:54):
And it can be scary to talk about your own
health and background, but knowledge is power.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
I'm wondering if there's not a lot of like just
acceptance of well, something's going to get you and it
just makes sense that your heart would give out, how
can we really make a difference.
Speaker 4 (04:10):
Oh yeah, and I love that you brought that up,
because yeah, that might be what someone's thinking.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
It's don't you want to live as long as you can?
So what we.
Speaker 4 (04:20):
Do know is that where you live social determinants of health,
literally where you're.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
From, what you have access to, what.
Speaker 4 (04:29):
Gender you were born, really predisposes to higher forms of
cardiovascular disease and stroke. And so, yeah, you're going to die, right,
death and taxes and we know that's for sure, but
it's robbing folks of a lot of healthy years.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
And so do you want to live to fifty? And
in our area the average age of.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
Sixty three and if you zip codes over it can
be eighty five because they.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Had access to certain things. So I would say, yeah,
I do.
Speaker 4 (05:01):
Especially being a mom that I actually would love twenty
plus more years of being around.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
So that's how I would answer that.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
When do young women and girls really need to start
thinking about these heart issues.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
Yeah. First is as young as you can.
Speaker 4 (05:21):
We are in we as in the Heart Association, are
in schools at young ages working on jump rope for
heart and hoops for heart and eating the rainbow. We
do a tremendous amount of work against vaping in tobacco.
So at a very young age, we want you thinking
about your healthy heart and healthy brain. The other reason
(05:43):
why it's so important, many many people use the term
heart attack.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
A heart attack is when there's a blockage sutting.
Speaker 4 (05:50):
Cardiac arrest is when the heart actually quits beating so
that electrical part of the heart isn't working. The two
can go hand in hand. You can have one and
have the other, or one can cause the other.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
But what's really scary and why we got to know.
Speaker 4 (06:05):
About this at a young age, is setting cardiac arrest,
the type that your heart stops, the type that DeMar
Hamlin had, the NFL player here in Cincinnati that we
all saw.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
You have to be shocked back into rhythm. Someone has
to do CPR. You are already technically dead, so they
need to bring you back.
Speaker 4 (06:23):
And I liken this to learning at a very young age,
learning to stop, drop and roll, knowing what to do
in a fire, You pull the emergency, you call.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
The fire fighters.
Speaker 4 (06:36):
I knew that as a very young child, and yay,
fires are not killing massive amounts of people anymore.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
We were able to fix that.
Speaker 4 (06:44):
The same actually is true with setting cardiac arrest. It
is the number one out of hospital killer, three hundred
and fifty thousand a year.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
And what's exciting and horrible.
Speaker 4 (06:54):
We know how to help someone live through it, but
people don't know how to to do it. So that's
another huge personal passion of mine is that at a
very young age, in the future, students will know, just
like they do with stop, drop and roll, to call
nine to one one, push hard and fast in the
center of the chest and.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
Go and get that AED and we'll save lives.
Speaker 4 (07:17):
And then in twenty years someone will be talking about
this and sudden cardiac arrest won't be that number one killer.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
So where do you start if you decide you want
to start to worrying about your heart.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
Health, Knowing your numbers if you're doing nothing else, nothing
else on your radar would be what I would suggest,
and what I mean by that your numbers is knowing
how much do you a what is your blood pressure,
what is your cholesterol? Those baseline numbers of where are
you starting from? We call them Life's essential eight. You
(07:52):
could google this extremely quickly and it pops right up.
But we know about eighty percent of the time where
heart disease is coming from, and a lot of them
are tied to those risk factor numbers. And if those
numbers are not where they need to be working on
correcting them. I mean that would be first and foremost
when we all know it's small steps. There's no major
(08:13):
life change needed. Walking two to three times a week,
which is what we suggest you know about the amount
of time a movie would be on for the whole week.
That is enough to help your heart be more healthy
and your brain be more healthy. So knowing your numbers
for yourself and then externally speaking, can you share this
(08:33):
with someone, If it's a woman, can you share that
message with her that she is at a very you know,
increased risk and we don't know enough when it comes
to research, So really take care of yourself.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
Ask questions we'll catch up on research.
Speaker 4 (08:49):
Or ask about CPR and AED at your kids' youth
league soccer, at your place of business in your neighborhood.
So those would be the two calls to action for
personal and for external facing.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
That's great advice.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Well listen, Allison, I really appreciate you taking time to
talk to us about that.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Give us the website. Is it heart dot org?
Speaker 4 (09:11):
Yep, heart dot org would get you eventually to the
greater Cincinnati and we can help you from there.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
It was my pleasure to talk to you.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Thank you, You're welcome. Thank you, and thanks to you
for listening.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
If you want to hear this show again or any
of the other shows about issues in the Tri State
highlighting awesome people who give back to this community, just get.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
The iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
It's free in your app store, search for podcasts and
find my name, Sandy Collins.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Until next week. iHeart Cincy is a production of iHeartMedia, Cincinnati.
This is iHeart Cinci, a Tri state public affairs program
produced in Cincinnati about the people and organizations here in
the Tri State that make a difference. My next guest
is here from the American Heart Association, which has for
the last.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
One hundred years research heart disease.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
And related illnesses, bringing answers to medicine to make our
lives better.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
My guest is Alison Pohling.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
She's the executive director and vice president of the Greater
Cincinnati American Heart Association.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Welcome to iHeart Cincy.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Still number one killer of women cardiovascular disease, Alison, Why
is that?
Speaker 3 (00:36):
Lots of ideas.
Speaker 4 (00:38):
Yes, women still die over and above the total amount
of men who are dying of cardiovascular diseases and stroke,
so it is.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
One of every three women.
Speaker 4 (00:50):
And to put this into scale, you know, heart disease
and people think of cancer as a large killer. If
you were to combine all forms of cancer, heart disease
would still be killing more specifically women. And honestly, the
why is very nuanced, but there's light at the end
(01:10):
of the tunnel. We do know research will help us
understand more.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
And so when it comes to our.
Speaker 4 (01:18):
History of research, men fortunately have been studied for quite
a long time, well well over a century, but women
have only been studied as their own subset of the
human race.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Since nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
And so we are just at about thirty years and
we need to catch up. There's a huge gap and
what we know about men and what we know about women.
And with women, you think of life cycle, think of
you know, having children and then post children and then
or if you don't decide to have children, then you
think of menopause.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
We have a lot of life cycles and.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
Our bodies are just very and so research will help,
and specifically research on all types of women.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
I'll wrap it up.
Speaker 4 (02:07):
By saying only three percent of what we know now
has been done on black and brown women. So just
a lot of catching up to do, and we're very
heavily focused on that the gap in research.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
And this is a passion project for you as well.
You said you have a personal reason why you're so
committed to educating the public about heart disease.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
I do, yes. So I love my job.
Speaker 4 (02:30):
I love leading our American Heart Association in Greater Cincinnati.
But I am myself a mom of three and my
first pregnancy I ho was having twins, and I had preclamcia,
which is a fancier way to say you're really sick
and you have pregnancy induced hypertension or very high blood
(02:51):
pressure that's typically uncontrolled.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
And we know women get this.
Speaker 4 (02:56):
We also know if you have a complicated pregnancy or
a complic hated birth, you were at a very high
chance of developing heart disease or a stroke later.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
But again we don't know why. And so for me personally,
I want to know why.
Speaker 4 (03:11):
I want to know what else I could be doing
in addition to lifestyle change and trying to be the
healthiest version of myself.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
So yes, very personal.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Well I'm sorry you went through that, but I'm glad
that you have the passion that you have for the
Heart Association here in Cincinnati.
Speaker 4 (03:25):
Yeah, me too, And honestly, just normalizing the conversation.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
Even a couple of years ago, until I.
Speaker 4 (03:33):
Had that happen to me and then found out the
big correlation to heart disease, I wasn't really talking about it.
And now when we have our go Red for Women gatherings,
so many other women are pulling out those personal stories,
and I think that's even a step in the right direction.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
Is normalizing the conversation.
Speaker 4 (03:54):
And it can be scary to talk about your own
health and background, but knowledge is power.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
I'm wondering if there's not a lot of like just
acceptance of well, something's going to get you and it
just makes sense that your heart would give out, how
can we really make a difference.
Speaker 4 (04:10):
Oh yeah, and I love that you brought that up,
because yeah, that might be what someone's thinking.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
It's don't you want to live as long as you can?
So what we.
Speaker 4 (04:20):
Do know is that where you live social determinants of health,
literally where you're.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
From, what you have access to, what.
Speaker 4 (04:29):
Gender you were born, really predisposes to higher forms of
cardiovascular disease and stroke. And so, yeah, you're going to die, right,
death and taxes and we know that's for sure, but
it's robbing folks of a lot of healthy years.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
And so do you want to live to fifty? And
in our area the average age of.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
Sixty three and if you zip codes over it can
be eighty five because they.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Had access to certain things. So I would say, yeah,
I do.
Speaker 4 (05:01):
Especially being a mom that I actually would love twenty
plus more years of being around.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
So that's how I would answer that.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
When do young women and girls really need to start
thinking about these heart issues.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
Yeah. First is as young as you can.
Speaker 4 (05:21):
We are in we as in the Heart Association, are
in schools at young ages working on jump rope for
heart and hoops for heart and eating the rainbow. We
do a tremendous amount of work against vaping in tobacco.
So at a very young age, we want you thinking
about your healthy heart and healthy brain. The other reason
(05:43):
why it's so important, many many people use the term
heart attack.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
A heart attack is when there's a blockage sutting.
Speaker 4 (05:50):
Cardiac arrest is when the heart actually quits beating so
that electrical part of the heart isn't working. The two
can go hand in hand. You can have one and
have the other, or one can cause the other.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
But what's really scary and why we got to know.
Speaker 4 (06:05):
About this at a young age, is setting cardiac arrest,
the type that your heart stops, the type that DeMar
Hamlin had, the NFL player here in Cincinnati that we
all saw.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
You have to be shocked back into rhythm. Someone has
to do CPR. You are already technically dead, so they
need to bring you back.
Speaker 4 (06:23):
And I liken this to learning at a very young age,
learning to stop, drop and roll, knowing what to do
in a fire, You pull the emergency, you call.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
The fire fighters.
Speaker 4 (06:36):
I knew that as a very young child, and yay,
fires are not killing massive amounts of people anymore.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
We were able to fix that.
Speaker 4 (06:44):
The same actually is true with setting cardiac arrest. It
is the number one out of hospital killer, three hundred
and fifty thousand a year.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
And what's exciting and horrible.
Speaker 4 (06:54):
We know how to help someone live through it, but
people don't know how to to do it. So that's
another huge personal passion of mine is that at a
very young age, in the future, students will know, just
like they do with stop, drop and roll, to call
nine to one one, push hard and fast in the
center of the chest and.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
Go and get that AED and we'll save lives.
Speaker 4 (07:17):
And then in twenty years someone will be talking about
this and sudden cardiac arrest won't be that number one killer.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
So where do you start if you decide you want
to start to worrying about your heart.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
Health, Knowing your numbers if you're doing nothing else, nothing
else on your radar would be what I would suggest,
and what I mean by that your numbers is knowing
how much do you a what is your blood pressure,
what is your cholesterol? Those baseline numbers of where are
you starting from? We call them Life's essential eight. You
(07:52):
could google this extremely quickly and it pops right up.
But we know about eighty percent of the time where
heart disease is coming from, and a lot of them
are tied to those risk factor numbers. And if those
numbers are not where they need to be working on
correcting them. I mean that would be first and foremost
when we all know it's small steps. There's no major
(08:13):
life change needed. Walking two to three times a week,
which is what we suggest you know about the amount
of time a movie would be on for the whole week.
That is enough to help your heart be more healthy
and your brain be more healthy. So knowing your numbers
for yourself and then externally speaking, can you share this
(08:33):
with someone, If it's a woman, can you share that
message with her that she is at a very you know,
increased risk and we don't know enough when it comes
to research, So really take care of yourself.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
Ask questions we'll catch up on research.
Speaker 4 (08:49):
Or ask about CPR and AED at your kids' youth
league soccer, at your place of business in your neighborhood.
So those would be the two calls to action for
personal and for external facing.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
That's great advice.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Well listen, Allison, I really appreciate you taking time to
talk to us about that.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Give us the website. Is it heart dot org?
Speaker 4 (09:11):
Yep, heart dot org would get you eventually to the
greater Cincinnati and we can help you from there.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
It was my pleasure to talk to you.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Thank you, You're welcome. Thank you, and thanks to you
for listening.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
If you want to hear this show again or any
of the other shows about issues in the Tri State
highlighting awesome people who give back to this community, just get.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
The iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
It's free in your app store, search for podcasts and
find my name, Sandy Collins.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Until next week. iHeart Cincy is a production of iHeartMedia, Cincinnati.
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