Coffee Helps Older Women Ward off Mental Decline

This is a good news for senior women who are afraid to suffer dementia.

Coffee 'protects female memory'
Caffeine may help older women ward off mental decline, research suggests.

French researchers compared women aged 65 and older who drank more than three cups of coffee per day with those who drank one cup or less per day.

Those who drank more caffeine showed less decline in memory tests over a four year period.

The study, published in the journal Neurology, raises the possibility that caffeine may even protect against the development of dementia.


The results held up even after factors such as education, high blood pressure and disease were taken into account.

Caffeine is a known psychostimulant, but this study appears to suggest its effects may be more profound.

However, lead researcher Dr Karen Ritchie of the French National Institute for Health and Medical Research warned against jumping to premature conclusions.

She said: "While we have some ideas as to how this works biologically, we need to have a better understanding of how caffeine affects the brain before we can start promoting caffeine intake as a way to reduce cognitive decline.

"But the results are interesting - caffeine use is already widespread and it has fewer side effects than other treatments for cognitive decline, and it requires a relatively small amount for a beneficial effect."

The study, which involved 7,000 women, did not find that caffeine consumers had lower rates of dementia.

Dr Ritchie said: "We really need a longer study to look at whether caffeine prevents dementia; it might be that caffeine could slow the dementia process rather than preventing it."

She said it was not clear why the protective effect did not seem to apply to men.

"Women may be more sensitive to the effects of caffeine. Their bodies may react differently to the stimulant, or they may metabolize caffeine differently."

Rebecca Wood, chief executive of the Alzheimer's Research Trust, said that with no cure for Alzheimer's disease yet available, research into possible protective factors was important, particularly as the disease is expected to become more common.

She said: "This study does not suggest that caffeine actually lowers rates of dementia in women, but since memory seems improved, it may be that it is slowing it down.

"However, research over a much longer period is still needed to establish fully what the affects of caffeine are in both men and women and whether it could reduce a person's risk of dementia or slow down its progress."

Dr Susanne Sorensen, head of research at the Alzheimer's Society, said drinking coffee and tea had both been tipped as possible ways of delaying the onset of dementia.

However, she said: "These types of studies are complex because coffee and tea drinking can be linked to so many other social and life style factors."

Story from BBC NEWS:

Study shows that Coffee protect women against age-related memory decline

A study conducted among 7,000 men and women in France showed that older women can prevent age-related memory decline by drinking more coffee.

This is the excerpt of the news from Reuters.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Drinking more than three cups of coffee a day helped protect older women against some age-related memory decline, French researchers said on Monday, giving women more reason to love the world's most popular stimulant.

Men did not enjoy the same benefit, they said.

"The more coffee one drank, the better the effects seemed to be on (women's) memory functioning in particular," said Karen Ritchie at the French National Institute of Medical Research, whose work appears in the journal Neurology.

The researchers followed more than 7,000 men and women in three French cities, checking their health and mental function and asking them about their current and past eating and drinking habits, their friends, and their daily activities.

They used this information to sort out the specific role caffeine played in these women's lives.

They found that women who drank more than three cups of coffee per day, or its caffeine equivalent in tea, retained more of their verbal and -- to a lesser extent -- visual memories over four years.

menstrual+cycle,women,menopause,hormones

Smoking may cause Early menopause

Smoking can cause early menopause or death. Take your pick.


NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Women who smoke are more likely to begin menopause before the age of 45 years, which puts them at increased risk of osteoporosis and heart disease, Norwegian researchers report.

Among a group of 2,123 women 59 to 60 years old, those who currently smoked were 59 percent more likely than non-smokers to have undergone early menopause, Dr. Thea F. Mikkelsen of the University of Oslo and her colleagues found. For the heaviest smokers, the risk of early menopause was nearly doubled.

However, women who were smokers, but quit at least 10 years before menopause, were substantially less likely than current smokers to have stopped menstruating before age 45.

There is evidence that smoking later in life makes a woman more likely to have early menopause, while smokers who quit before middle age may not be affected, Mikkelsen and her team note in the online journal BMC Public Health. They investigated the relationship further and determined if exposure to second-hand smoke might also influence the timing of menopause.

The researchers found that nearly 10 percent of the women went through menopause before age 45. About 25 percent were current smokers, 28.7 percent were ex-smokers and 35.2 percent reported current passive exposure to smoke.

As mentioned, the current smokers were 59 percent more likely to have reached menopause before age 45, while early menopause was nearly twice as common among the women who smoked the most.

But women who had quit smoking at least a decade before menopause were 87 percent less likely than their peers who currently smoked to have gone through menopause early.

Compared with married women, widows were also at increased risk of early menopause, as were women who said they were in poor health. More educated women were less likely to go into menopause early, but they were also less likely to be smokers.

High social participation also cut early menopause risk. The researchers found no link between coffee or alcohol consumption or passive exposure to smoke and early menopause risk.

"The earlier a woman stops smoking," Mikkelsen and her team conclude, "the more protection she derives with respect to an early onset of menopause."

SOURCE: BMC Public Health, July 7, 2007.


menstrual+cycle,women,menopause,hormones

WOMEN

This is an e-mail forwared to me by Bayi.

They smile when they want to scream.
They sing when they want to cry.
They cry when they are happy
and laugh when they are nervous.


They fight for what they believe in.
They stand up against injustice.
They don't take "no" for an answer
when they believe there is a better solution.



They go without new shoes
so their children can have them.
They go to the doctor
with a frightened friend.


They love unconditionally.
They cry when their children excel
and cheer when their friends get awards.
They are happy when they hear
about a birth or a new marriage.


Their hearts break when a friend dies.
They have sorrow at the loss of a family member,
yet they are strong when they think
there is no strength left.

They know that a hug
and a kiss
can heal a broken heart.


Women come in all sizes,
in all colors and shapes.
They'll drive, fly, walk, run or e-mail you
to show how much they care about you.

The heart of a woman is what makes the world spin!
Women do more than just give birth.
They bring joy and hope.
They give compassion and ideals.
They give moral support to their family and friends.


Women have a lot to say and a lot to give.
=====

women,men





.

Men Talk More than Women-Study said

This article from SF Gate debunked the myth that women talk more than men.

Forget Chatty Cathy -- let's talk about Chatty Charlie.

Men, it turns out, talk just as much as women.

Sure, maybe guys talk more about cars and sports and the new iPhone, and women talk about their feelings, but at the end of the day, each sex uses an average 16,000 words a day, say researchers who studied the conversational habits of 396 men and women for six years.

"I was a little surprised there wasn't any gender influence, because this stereotype of women talking more is such a powerful, popular idea," said Richard Slatcher, a doctoral candidate in psychology at the University of Texas and one of the authors of the study. "But we were able to directly test the notion, and it's totally unfounded."

The study, results of which were published today in the journal Science, debunks an age-old assumption that women aren't just the fairer sex, they're the chattier one, too. Tony Bennett sang about it in "Girl Talk" in the 1960s: "The weaker sex, the 'speaker' sex we mortal males behold, but though we joke, we wouldn't trade you for a ton of gold."

The stereotype is so pervasive that even scientists have long assumed that women talk more, and they incorporated that assumption in psychological gender profiles.

When UCSF psychiatrist Louann Brizendine published "The Female Brain" last year, one statistic in particular jumped off the pages and became the main talking point among radio-show hosts and Internet bloggers -- women, Brizendine wrote, use an average of 20,000 words a day; men use only 7,000.

Brizendine ended up taking out that detail after the first printing -- she's on the 13th now -- when she couldn't back it up, but the number has stuck with popular culture. Brizendine said she's happy to see it officially disproved.

"My book is really more about hormones, and that one line has been taken out of context. It's fascinating," she said. "Anytime you talk about sex differences, it's controversial. But the bottom line is, there are more similarities than differences between men and women."

The important question now, she said, is how the stereotype started in the first place.

Psychologists don't know exactly where the myth came from, but Brizendine speculates it probably took hold in the 1950s or so, when men worked the 9-to-5 jobs and women stayed home with the kids. At the end of the day, men would come home to wives who wanted to talk about the children, the house and finances -- basically, what felt like a lot of nagging, said Brizendine.

The stereotype has been perpetuated in modern days by the idea that women tend to be more open to talking about their feelings, which just makes men clam up during emotional discussions, said Matthias Mehl, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Arizona and one of the authors of the study.

"The woman wanting to talk about a problem suddenly becomes 'women always want to talk, and men never want to talk,' " Mehl said.

Or, to put a slightly different spin on it, "maybe the lack of male desire to listen to women is why the myth has persisted," Brizendine said. It might not just be men who are frustrated, she said.

Because conversations about relationships are often emotionally charged and intense, they take on more importance, as far as presumed word counts go, than they deserve, Mehl said.

"Because they feel so important, people overgeneralize from these conversations" and assume women are the ones doing the talking, Mehl said.

Mehl's study is not the first to analyze how much men and women talk, and previous studies have also suggested that there isn't much difference between the sexes. But earlier studies almost always recorded people in unnatural settings -- sitting in a lab having a conversation, for example, when everyone knew scientists were listening.

The new study used audio clips from university students who agreed to be recorded for several days sometime between 1998 and 2004. The recording equipment amounted to mini-recorders and lapel microphones designed for studies that require listening to natural language use. The devices would turn on automatically for 30 seconds every 12.5 minutes, and the subjects could not control -- and did not know -- when the equipment was turned on or off.

Researchers then transcribed the snippets of conversation, counted the words used and extrapolated from that number to get an idea of how many words each person used in a day.

There are some potential drawbacks to the study, namely that because it used only university students, it might not apply perfectly to men and women of all age groups and education levels. But Mehl said if there were important biological differences between men and women's verbosity, they would have registered at least somewhat in the study.

As it was, women spoke on average about 546 more words each day than men, but that number was found to be not statistically significant.

Based on the study results, some stereotypes about conversational habits seemed to hold true, Mehl said. Researchers didn't actually count the types of words people used, but he said men tended to talk more about sports and technology and women about their feelings.

Previous studies have noted that women use more emotionally expressive language and describe things in relational terms -- they use more pronouns, for example, said Slatcher. Men talk about more concrete things, he said.

Montira Warran of San Francisco said she's sure Slatcher's study is very scientific, but in her family, the women definitely out-talked the men. But, she added, she comes from a family of mostly women -- and the men didn't stand a chance.

"We had mostly headstrong women in my family who needed to get their point across, and the men would just say, 'OK,' " Warran said. "I think it's that women want to make sure they're heard."

San Francisco resident Doug Wilkins said he's read books and studies on gender conversational patterns, and he's noticed trends in the way men and women talk. Men, he said, are more likely to lecture, and to practice one-upmanship when they talk to other men. Women are more cooperative when they talk, he said.

And it's definitely true, he said, that men talk just as much as women.

"For every guy you know who only goes 'yep,' 'fine,' 'nope,' there's a guy who will walk up to strangers on the street and just start lecturing at them," Wilkins said.

women,men

Menopause could start at age 35

Women believe that menopause start at mid 40's. But it is not so according to this news. It could start as early as 35.

Stressful job 'hastens' menopause
Stressful working conditions may hasten the onset of the menopause, a study from France suggests.

Researchers writing in the American Journal of Epidemiology looked at 1,500 post-menopausal women.

The average menopause age of the nearly 9% who reported "high strain" work was 51 - one year earlier than what was taken as the average age of onset.

But one British fertility expert cast doubt on any relation between stress and earlier menopause.

"High-strain" jobs were categorised as those which demanded at least one of the following: the need to rush, perform several tasks at once, or frequent interruptions when working.

However the impact of these conditions was minimised when the woman in question had a high degree of control over the work she did.

Hormone theory

Some women have difficulty managing their time, the stress of which may upset the hormone balance in their bodies and "affect the ageing of the ovaries", said Dr Bernard Cassou, who led the research.

Smoking, which has long been held to have an impact upon timing of the menopause, was seen to affect onset among those who smoked more than 10 cigarettes each day.

But the chairman of the British Menopause Society said the stress angle of the study went against all the research he was aware of.

"People who want to find links do, but there's a vast body of research which shows there is no evidence of a connection between stress and the menopause," said Professor John Studd.

The menopause generally takes place between the ages of 45 and 55, but for a few women it can start as early as 35 - or as late as 60.

It occurs when levels of the female hormones oestrogen and progesterone fall and the body stops releasing eggs.

menstrual+cycle,women,menopause,hormones

Vagina Monologues Not

And I thought, this vagina making business is only for sex-change or transgender operation. The latest news is about the reconstruction of vaginas for women.

Excerpt of the news:

An Italian doctor has reconstructed vaginas for two women born with a rare congenital deformation, using their own cells to build vaginal tissue in the lab for the first time.

Dr. Cinzia Marchese of Rome’s Policlinico Umberto I hospital, giving details of the operations on Wednesday, told Reuters a 28-year-old woman who underwent the first such operation a year ago now has a healthy vagina.

“She has got married and is living a normal life,” said Marchese, whose study has been published in the journal Human Reproduction.

The second operation was carried out on a 17-year-old girl on Tuesday and the first signs are that the cells taken by biopsy from the area where her vagina should grow and provide mucosal tissue.

Mucosal tissue is found inside the vagina, the mouth and elsewhere in the body and has important attributes distinct from ordinary skin.

The two women had a condition called Mayer-Von Rokitansky-Kuster-Hauser Syndrome, or MRKHS for short, which affects an estimated one in 4,000 to 5,000 female infants.

Read the entire news here.

menstrual+cycle,women,natural vagina,women's health

Botox and Botox Alternatives

Botox is very popular not only to movie stars and celebrities but also to working women who like to look good. Aside from there is no need for surgical operation to remove wrinkles, it is affordable to those who feel the necessity of the injections without having to dip so much from their pockets.


This Forbes article discusses the popularity of Botox as wrinkle remover.


As of 2006, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, more than 4.1 million Botox procedures were performed last year,

According to Navin Geria, vice president of research and development for the Spa Dermaceutical Products Group, a New Jersey-based consumer product development company that specializes in custom development of anti-aging skincare and products for dermatologists and spa chains, a new range of anti-aging technology called cosmeceuticals (cosmetics that companies say possess drug-like affects) will go a step further. Over a period of time, he says, they will visibly reduce wrinkles and prevent future wear and tear.

The DNA nanotechnology of Juneva of Switzerland produced a product called DNA Skin Optimizer Fluid, which promises to help aging skin cells to renew and duplicate themselves by targeting the nuclei.

The stem-cell technology produced Amatokin, which retails for $173 for 1 ounce. It is said to target stem cells, and in doing so claims to renew old skin, reduce wrinkles and even out tone.

menstrual+cycle,women,botox,women's health

No More Monthly Visitor

There at least three days in a month when women suffer "wet days". With the new birth control pill that would be launched this July, the monthly wetness would be over.

Here is the news.

TRENTON, New Jersey - Women looking for a simple way to avoid their menstrual period could soon have access the first birth control pill designed to let women suppress monthly bleeding indefinitely.

The US Food and Drug Administration is expect to announce approval Tuesday for Lybrel, a drug from Wyeth which would be the first pill to be taken continuously.

Lybrel, a name meant to evoke "liberty," would be the fourth new oral contraceptive that doesn't follow the standard schedule of 21 daily active pills, followed by seven sugar pills — a design meant to mimic a woman's monthly cycle. Among the others, Yaz and Loestrin 24 shorten monthly periods to three days or less and Seasonique, an updated version of Seasonale, reduces them to four times a year.

Gynecologists say they've been seeing a slow but steady increase in women asking how to limit and even stop monthly bleeding. Surveys have found up to half of women would prefer not to have any periods, most would prefer them less often and a majority of doctors have prescribed contraception to prevent periods.

"I think it's the beginning of it being very common," said Dr. Leslie Miller, a University of Washington-Seattle obstetrician-gynecologist who runs a Web site focused on suppressing periods. "Lybrel says, 'You don't need a period.'"

While that can be done easily — sometimes more cheaply — by skipping the sugar pills or replacing birth-control patches or vaginal rings sooner, doctors say the trend is fueled mainly by advertising for the new options. They expect plenty for Lybrel's July launch, although Madison, N.J.-based Wyeth says it will market to doctors first.

Analysts have estimated Lybrel sales could reach $40 million this year and $235 million by 2010. US sales of Seasonique, launched last August, hit $6.1 million in the first quarter of 2007. Predecessor Seasonale, which got cheaper generic competition in September, peaked at about $100 million. Yaz, launched last August, had first-quarter sales of $35.6 million; Loestrin 24, launched in April 2006, hit $34.4 million in the first quarter.

Still, some women raise concerns about whether blocking periods is safe or natural. Baltimore health psychologist Paula S. Derry wrote in an opinion piece in the British Medical Journal two weeks ago that "menstrual suppression itself is unnatural," and that there's not enough data to determine if it is safe long-term.

Sheldon J. Segal, a scientist at the nonprofit research group Population Council, wrote back that a British study found no harm in taking pills with much higher hormone levels than today's products for up to 10 years.

"Nothing has come up to indicate any unexpected side effects," said Segal, who co-authored the book "Is Menstruation Obsolete?"

Most doctors say there's no medical reason women need monthly bleeding and that it triggers health problems from anemia to epilepsy in many women. They note women have been tinkering with nature since the advent of birth control pills and now endure as many as 450 periods, compared with 50 or so in the days when women spent most of their fertile years pregnant or breast-feeding.

Dr. Mindy Wiser-Estin, an obstetrician-gynecologist in Little Silver, N.J., has long advocated menstrual suppression.

She has seen a big increase in the last year in patients asking about it, but has one concern that leads her to encourage younger women to take a break every 12 weeks. About 1 percent of oral contraceptive users become pregnant each year, and young women taking continuous pills who have never been pregnant may not recognize the symptoms, she said.

"They may not know it in time to do something about it," Wiser-Estin said.

Barr Pharmaceuticals of Woodcliff Lake, N.J., whose subsidiary Duramed already is developing a lower-estrogen version of Seasonique, said its research with consumers and health care providers indicates they feel four periods a year is optimal, said spokeswoman Amy Niemann.

Wyeth obviously thinks otherwise.

"It allows women to put their menstrual cycle on hold" and reduces 17 related symptoms, from irritability to bloating, based on one small study, said Dr. Amy Marren, director of clinical affairs for Wyeth Pharmaceuticals.

Marren said Lybrel contains the lowest dose of two hormones widely used in birth-control pills, ethinyl estradiol and levonorgestrel.

That might cause too much breakthrough bleeding, already a problem with some newer pills with low hormone doses, said Dr. Lee Shulman, a Chicago obstetrician-gynecologist who chairs the board of the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals.

In testing of Lybrel, 59 percent of women ended up with no bleeding after six months, but 18 percent of women dropped out of studies because of spotting and breakthrough bleeding, according to Wyeth.

"You're now basically trading scheduled bleeding for unscheduled bleeding, and I don't know whether American women will buy into that," Shulman said.

menstrual+cycle,women

10 Minute Exercise Can lower High Blood Pressure for Overweight Women

A study supported by hard medical data showed that women do not necessarily have to go to the gymn for a couple of hours running in the treadmill or lifting weights. Even a ten-minute exercise that can improve their fitness may lower blood pressure thus lowering the overall risk of early death.

This is the news from MSNBC.

The study is the first to reinforce using hard medical data what other studies have suggested — that exercise does not have to be an all-or-nothing venture, Dr. Timothy Church of Louisiana State University and colleagues said.

“This information can be used to support future recommendations and should be encouraging to sedentary adults who find it difficult to find the time for 150 minutes of activity per week, let alone 60 minutes per day,” the researchers wrote in their report, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

While virtually everybody knows that exercise is good for you, 20 percent of U.S. adults admit they do no exercise whatever and most do not get as much as is recommended.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and National Institutes of Health recommend at least a half hour on most days a week of moderate exercise to reduce the risk of heart disease, stroke and cancer.

The Institute of Medicine, which advises the federal government, says people need to get themselves slightly out of breath for closer to an hour every day.

Housework, playing in the park
But Church and colleagues wanted to see whether women overwhelmed at the idea of that much work might be helped by something they consider a little more manageable.

They studied 427 overweight women with high or borderline-high blood pressure who had an average age of 57.

The volunteers were randomly assigned to continue their normal lives or to exercise 75 minutes a week, 135 minutes a week or 190 minutes a week. This works out to just what the NIH and CDC recommend, half as much as recommended, and 150 percent of what they recommend.

“The women in this study walked on treadmills and rode stationary cycles, but any activity of comparable energy expenditure would produce similar results,” said Dr. Steven Blair of the University of South Carolina, who worked on the study.

“Any type of moderate intensity physical activity should provide comparable benefits to those seen in our study. And that’s good news. This can include work around the house and yard, swimming, playing in the park with your grandchildren, or other activities that are of a similar intensity to brisk walking.”

menstrual+cycle,women,high blood pressure,women's health

Mammogram

I had three cyst operations in my breasts in my early 20's so that whoever OB-GYNE who looked in my health records recommend me for a mammogram.

Last year, I was recommended to a program which gives free mammogram check-up. The result required me to have an ultra sound of my breast to double check a lump that the mammogram machine detected in my right breast.

Although the ultrasound test yielded a benign cyst, the doctor schedule me for another breast examination after six months.

This news therefore caught my interest.

After rising steadily for decades, the proportion of U.S. women getting mammograms to screen for breast cancer has dropped for the first time, federal researchers are reporting today.

The overall rate at which women are undergoing regular mammograms fell 4 percent between 2000 and 2005, marking the first significant decline since use of the breast X-rays started expanding rapidly in 1987, the study by the National Cancer Institute and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found.

The reasons remain unclear, but researchers speculated that it could be due to factors such as increasingly long waiting times to get appointments, waning fears about breast cancer, the drop in hormone use after menopause, and the ongoing debate over the benefits and risks of the breast exams.

Regardless of the cause, the trend is worrying breast cancer experts, who credit mammograms with playing a crucial role in reducing the death toll from breast cancer, the second leading cause of cancer and cancer death among U.S. women.

"This is very troubling," said Nancy Breen, who led the analysis published online today by the American Cancer Society's journal Cancer. "If women are not getting mammograms, then their cancer may not be diagnosed until later stages, which could translate into higher mortality from breast cancer."

Breast cancer strikes more than 200,000 women each year and kills more than 40,000. But the odds of surviving have been rising, in part because more women are being diagnosed with the help of mammograms at the earliest, most treatable stages. Breast cancer experts have been growing increasingly concerned, however, by reports that mammography rates had leveled off and perhaps started to fall. The new research is the first to document the trend nationally.

Breen and her colleagues analyzed data collected by the National Health Interview Survey, an ongoing survey of about 40,000 adults conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics to track health trends.

Data from about 10,000 women surveyed showed that the mammogram rate plateaued in 2000, began to fall in 2003 and continued to decline through 2005, the survey's most recent year. The proportion of women in the National Health Interview Survey who said they had gotten a mammogram in the last two years declined from 70 percent in 2000 to 66 percent in 2005, according to the paper that will be published in the June 15 issue of the journal.

Most alarming, the drop was greatest -- 6.8 percent -- among women ages 50 to 64, the age group most likely to benefit.

This is also the group most likely to take hormones after the onset of menopause, a practice that fell dramatically in 2002 after a federal study found that hormone therapy raised the risk of breast cancer, heart attack and stroke.

Breen and her colleagues were also surprised that the drop was especially steep -- 6.3 percent -- among more affluent women.

"One possibility is women who stop using HRT (hormone replacement therapy) believe their risk of breast cancer has declined and so they don't feel the need for mammography," Breen said. "Another possibility is they may not be going to their doctors as often for their hormones and so are not being told it's time for a mammogram. That's a concern because just because they are not taking HRT does not mean they are not at risk."

Another possible explanation is that a worsening shortage of mammography facilities is making it more frustrating to get an appointment.

Breen and others speculated that some of the drop might be due to the ongoing debate over the benefits of mammography. Some experts question the blanket recommendation that all women routinely undergo mammograms starting at age 40, saying the risks of unnecessary treatment and anxiety from false alarms might outweigh the benefits for some women at low risk.

"Some women are beginning to balance the risks and the benefits," said Carolina Hinestrosa of the National Breast Cancer Coalition, an advocacy group. "If women are making a careful determination and an informed decision after weighing the risks and benefits, I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing."

But others argued that the benefits have been well-established, particularly for women over age 50. Even though other methods, such as MRIs, are showing promise, mammograms remain the only widespread screening method proven to pay off.

"Too many women and clinicians are misunderstanding the 'controversy' about mammography," said Constance Lehman, a professor of radiology at the University of Washington. "A mammogram is the best thing a woman can do to reduce her chances of dying from breast cancer."

Another possible explanation is that rising survival rates among breast cancer patients are making women more complacent.

"Women may also be feeling, 'Well, the death rates are dropping in the population so I don't need to get screened,' " Breen said. "That's kind of missing the point. One reason death rates are dropping is because screening rates were so high."

menstrual+cycle,women,high blood pressure,women's health

Brooke Shields urges action on moms' depression

After giving birth, women suffer from post partum depression. I got a friend who after every child delivery, she would isolate herself from the rest fo the members of the family. The baby is taken cared of by her mother. Without any nedication or therapy, she would bounce back to her normal life after the said period. But another friend who suffered PPD was not that lucky. She became detached for a long time that the family thought she would never recover.

Brooke Shields is now advocating for a legislation to help the mothers suffering from PPD.

WASHINGTON - Brooke Shields says postpartum depression is more prevalent than anyone wants to admit, and that it's time for lawmakers to pass legislation to help new mothers.

"There is an entire population of women suffering," the actress told George Stephanopoulos in an interview broadcast Sunday on ABC's "This Week."

"And it's time, I believe, for Congress to step in and prevent that, and actually save lives and save potential tragedy," she said.

Shields made headlines last year when she acknowledged taking antidepressants after her first child was born — and Tom Cruise publicly criticized her for using the drugs.

She told Stephanopoulos that she experienced acute postpartum depression after the birth of her first daughter, and it was devastating to her family.

"I had gone through numerous attempts to have a baby, and then I finally did have this perfect, beautiful, healthy baby, and it all but destroyed me," she said.

She said a bill being considered by Congress would be "an easy gift to give to women.

menopausal,post partum depression,pap smear

Are you afraid of menopause?

For many women, menopause is scary based on the stories they have heard from their mothers, aunts and older friends.

Dr. Rebecca Singson, an ob-gyne has tips to stay healthy and sane during the menopausal stage.

This is the outline form. For the detailed ones, go to this article.

1. Visit a gynecologist annually on your birthday, to get tested for CBC, Urinalysis, Blood Chemistry Panel 23, Chest X-ray, Treadmill test, Transvaginal Ultrasound and Pap Smear, if not hysterectomized. Bilateral Mammography and Fecal Occult Blood for colon cancer screening.

2. If you started sex by 18 years old and have had five sexual partners or have had any partner who was promiscuous, have an HPV test (Human Papillomavirus ) aside from Pap Smear. The HPV test is far more accurate than a Pap Smear, which can miss cervical cancer up to 50 percent of cases.

3. Have a Bone Densitometry once in three years to detect osteoporosis.

4. If you are having hot flashes, mood swings, irritability, anxiety, depression, sleeplessness, fatigue, memory loss, low libido, and skin or vaginal dryness, you may need hormone replacement therapy.

5. If you are afraid to use hormone replacement therapy because results you can take synthetic hrt.

6. Or take the natural bioidentical hormones are plant-based which don’t necessarily carry the same risk.

7. If you have osteopenia or osteoporosis, with all symptoms stated in Tip No. 4, your best bet for correction is hormone replacement therapy. However, if you just have osteopenia or osteoporosis without all the symptoms stated in Tip No. 4, take an anti-bone resorption drug.

8. Take 1,500 mg of calcium every day.

10. Do brisk walking two to three times your normal pace at a minimum of 40 minutes a day.

menopausal,calcium,pap smear

Indian Women are Required to Reveal Details of Menstrual Cycles

What bloody hell these people want to know about the details of the "bloody moments" of women ?

Outrage at India menstrual form
By Monica Chadha
BBC News, Mumbai

Women civil servants in India have expressed shock at new appraisal rules which require them to reveal details of their menstrual cycles.

Under the new nationwide requirements, female officials also have to say when they last sought maternity leave.

Women civil servants say the questions are a gross invasion of privacy. One told the BBC she was "gobsmacked".

Annual appraisals and health checks are mandatory in India's civil service. The ministry was unavailable for comment.

But one of its most senior bureaucrats was quoted in the press as saying the new questions had been based on advice from health officials.

'No words'

The questions at the root of the controversy are on page 58 of the new appraisal forms for the current year issued by the federal Ministry for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions.



Women officers must write down their "detailed menstrual history and history of LMP.

Women working in the civil service told the BBC the government had no need for this kind of personal information.

Ms Gokhale said she had also served in the personnel department at the ministry which drafted the new forms and, while the health of officials was always a concern, asking such questions never crossed their minds.

Maharashtra's joint secretary for general administration, Seema Vyas, agreed that the new questions were uncalled for.


According to Satyanand Mishra,Personnel department secretary:

"Menstrual cycles are a natural phenomenon, they are not an aberration. One does not object to questions related to fitness levels - they are important as they can affect work.

"But there is no need for these details as this does not have any bearing on our work," she told the BBC.

"When we apply for maternity leave, we put in the appropriate application and the government already has those records so why ask again?"


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ovulation,menstrual cycle

When Women are Fertile

A study conducted about women's preference for men revealed that a woman prefers a more masculine man.

A woman prefers a more masculine man when she is fertile and looking for a fling rather than a mate for life, according to a new study.

The finding suggests the value that women place on masculinity changes with context and with women’s reproductive cycles and immediate goals. A woman's preference for manly men also was found to vary based on how attractive she rated herself.

And some of a woman's sex drive might involve tricks in the brain over which she has no control.

Previous research has shown that women view facial masculinity—square jaws and well-defined brow ridges—as good characteristics for short-term partners, while more feminine traits are perceived as better for long-term mates. Another study found that women smell better to men at certain points in their menstrual cycles.

A new look
In the new study, researchers asked women who were at different points in their menstrual cycles (and who were not on the pill) to rate their own attractiveness. Then researchers presented them with image pairs representing “feminized” and “masculinized” versions of the same male body. The women were asked to choose the body they thought was most attractive for a short-term relationship and then again for a long-term relationship.

Some of the women performed the experiment again at the opposite point in their cycle.

Fertile women chose the masculine version of each image 15 percent more often, on average, than women who were not fertile, said lead researcher Anthony Little, a psychologist at the University of Stirling in Scotland. The effect was strongest if they were looking for a short-term partner rather than a long-term one, and if they considered themselves attractive.

These findings, to be detailed in an upcoming issue of the journal Hormones and Behavior, reveal that “preferences are not absolute,” Little said.

women,
ovulation