(BlackDoctor.org) -- After a critically acclaimed run in Las Vegas and just before joining the cast of the demanding competition Dancing with the Stars, sultry songstress Toni Braxton came down with a new heart problem: microvascular angina. As surprising as this news may come to some, it was not that surprising to her medical team, as this is not her first brush with heart disease. In 2004, Braxton had a brush with pericarditis -- inflammation of the tissue surrounding the heart. People with microvascular angina, also known as cardiac syndrome X, suffer pain when doing strenuous exercise. Even with her setbacks, 40-year-old Braxton overcame her obvious hurdles by becoming a top-rated dancer during her... more http://blackdoctor.org/articles.aspx?count...
Is there a lesson here for other people? The value of people learning about microvascular angina from Toni Braxton is that middle-age women just don't believe they have heart disease. They feel pain with exercise, and don't do anything about it. "The message here is if you have discomfort when exercising, that is abnormal. There is something wrong and you should look into it. Overwhelmingly, this turns out to be coronary artery disease, but occasionally it is cardiac syndrome X. It would be good if more women knew about this.
