Dr. Conrad Maulfair, director of the Maulfair Medical Center (
www.drmaulfair.com) in Topton, PA, is alarmed – but not surprised – by the poll's findings, saying that most women don't understand that heart disease develops long before the first symptoms appear. "While the symptoms of atherosclerosis, commonly referred to as hardening of the arteries, may appear suddenly as chest pain or a stroke, the disease may have begun 20, 30, or even 40 years earlier."