Joan Briller
Professor of medicine
Biography
Joan Briller (Photo: Jenny Fontaine)
For decades, heart health awareness focused almost entirely on men, even though heart disease is the number-one killer of women in the U.S.
Dr. Joan Briller, a cardiologist with a research interest in gender differences in cardiac risk factors and therapy, says up to 80 percent of heart disease in women may be preventable.
Briller, who directs UI Health’s Heart Disease in Women Program, notes that the way plaque forms in the arteries is different in females — and that recent studies suggest better ways to prevent and treat heart disease in women.
She has also worked with hundreds of women facing cardiac complications during pregnancy.
