1. b. Coronary heart disease is the No. 1 cause of death for American women, not the second most prevalent.

The latest statistics (for 1995) show that women’s deaths from heart disease outpaced men’s by 50,000. Yet many women still consider heart disease a man’s malady and may ignore telltale symptoms, said Kathy Berra, MSN, ANP, RN, clinical trial director at the Stanford Center for Research in Disease Prevention in California. Women and men need to familiarize themselves with nontraditional symptoms such as unusual fatigue or shortness of breath during daily activities, heartburn, or jaw pain or discomfort, she said.