February is American Heart Health month. Last week was Women's Heart Health Week, which leads me to the question: What month or week of the year hasn't been co-opted by some darned cause or marketing cliche?

Oh well, grumbling aside, I cave into the media deluge of changed information on what's good for women's heart health by writing about the topic this week. But the deluge also leads me to a second question: Why is the industry standard changing all the time? I'm no doctor, though some of my good friends are. Nonetheless, it seems to me that medicine's foray into preventive heart-health medicine must be in its infancy. Otherwise, why would the protocol for medical advice on what's good and what's bad for women's hearts loop-de-loop from year to year and twist itself into pretzel-like contortions?

This week, new guidelines from the American Heart Association and the U.S. government tell us that aspirin is "in," even more "in" than it's been in years when we already thought it was "in." Now, in addition to the daily dose earlier suggested by medical brass for women at higher risk of heart disease, this week's new and improved guidelines tell all women to take an 81-100 mg. dose daily.

The AHA news release advises, "Routine low-dose aspirin therapy may be considered in women age 65 or older regardless of CVD (cardiovascular disease) risk status, if benefits are likely to outweigh other risks. (Previous guidelines did not recommend aspirin in lower-risk or healthy women.) The upper dosage of aspirin for high-risk women increases to 325 mg. per day rather than 162 mg."

Believe it or not, the "aspirin a day" recommendation now falls into the "controversial"-advice category, particularly for women with uncontrolled blood pressure, not to mention women with digestive issues whose stomachs don't take kindly to aspirin.

Other than that, the AHA recommendations fall under the duh-hey heading: Don't smoke, don't drink too much (more than one drink a day, which seems like too much from where I sit), exercise like a banshee, etc.

And the release repeats advice that's been the industry standard since 2002, when the government's Women's Health Initiative abruptly halted a study of women on hormone-replacement therapy: "Hormone-replacement therapy and selective estrogen receptor modulators (SERMs) are not recommended to prevent heart disease in women."

Except that, according to another new study out this week from France, another form of hormone-replacement therapy might help women with severe menopausal symptoms without adding to the risk of blood clots now associated with HRT in American women's minds. Confused? You ought to be.

Data contradicting data is the norm, and not the exception. However, in this case, it looks like it's conflicting data, but it's really not.