'On a quiet Wednesday evening, an unassuming group gathered at G Street WunderBar in Davis, California. Seats filled as a nail-biting Sacramento Kings basketball game played on the TV screens. But the majority of people in the bar weren’t there to watch the game. They were there to learn about matters of the heart.

“In cardiovascular medicine, what we’re focused on is the prevention, the diagnosis and the treatment of diseases of the heart and the vascular system,” said Dr. Amparo Villablanca, a UC Davis professor of cardiovascular medicine and the founding director of the UC Davis Women’s Cardiovascular Program. “Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death for men and for women, and in fact, the number of deaths from cardiovascular disease [in women] outpace those in men...so cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death.”

Despite the statistic noted by Villablanca, only about 56% of women realize heart disease is their leading killer, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.'

Read the full story at College of Letters and Science News