Why Women Live Longer
Across the globe, women still live 5 to 10 years longer than men. Founder of the New England Centenarian Study at Boston University explains why 85% of people over 100 years old are women. One large reason is the large advantage women have over men in terms of cardiovascular disease. Women develop symptoms like heart attacks and strokes usually in their 70s and 80s, compared to men who develop them in their 50s and 60s. Doctors long believed the difference was due to estrogen, but studies show that this may not be the case.
Read more about Why Women Live Longer
Two Operations for Urinary Incontinence Offer Similar Results
Two common operations that treat stress urinary incontinence (or SUI) can help women achieve similar dryness levels, according to a large U.S. trial conducted by urologists and urogynecologists. The study has been published by the New England Journal of Medicine and is being presented at the annual meeting of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology.
Read more about Two Operations for Urinary Incontinence Offer Similar Results
Exercise During Pregnancy Benefits Mother and Baby
Exercise up to the end of pregnancy has no harmful effect on the weight or size of the fetus, according to research appearing in the International Journal of Obesity. The study was conducted by Polytechnic University of Madrid and demonstrates the positive relationship between the weight of sedentary mothers before pregnancy and the size of their babies.
Read more about Exercise During Pregnancy Benefits Mother and Baby
A Mother's Stress Can Affect Child Development
The researchers from Imperial College London hope to raise families' awareness of the importance of reducing levels of stress and anxiety in expectant mothers. They say that reducing stress during pregnancy could help prevent thousands of children from developing emotional and behavioral problems.
Read more about A Mother's Stress Can Affect Child Development
Discovery Links Pre-Eclampsia to Diet
Women with the condition pre-eclampsia have been found with red blood cells containing unusually high levels of a compound found in unpasteurized food, according to research published in the journal Reproductive Sciences. The findings are important because they hint at the possibility of this compound, known as "ergothioneine", being an indicator of pre-eclampsia. Further down the line, researchers hope the compound will help them understand the currently unknown cause of the condition.
Read more about Discovery Links Pre-Eclampsia to Diet
HPV Vaccine May Reduce Premature Births
The new vaccine against the sexually transmitted human papilloma virus (HPV) may have the happy side effect of reducing the number of preterm births by an estimated 60 percent among those women surgically treated to rectify HPV tissue damage to their cervixes, a recent study calculated.
Chronic HPV infection can produce serious cellular changes in the cervix that are often a pre-stage to cervical cancer. The remedy is surgical removal of part of the cervix (conisation). But this procedure increases a woman’s risk of premature birth.
Read more about HPV Vaccine May Reduce Premature Births
Awareness Needed of Female Heart Attack Signs
Women need to become far more aware than they are of the signs of a heart attack, which differ significantly from heart attack symptoms in men, many doctors say.
And they desperately need to be educated in how to avoid heart problems in the first place. Why? Because heart disease, stroke and other cardiovascular disorders are the leading killers of women in the United States today.
Read more about Awareness Needed of Female Heart Attack Signs
Doctor Stirs Furor Over "Cure" for Alcoholism
An alcoholism-conquering testimonial by a French cardiologist is helping an obscure muscle relaxant become a lightning rod in the global medical community.
Olivier Ameisen, one of the top heart specialists in France and an associate professor of medicine at Cornell University’s Weill Cornell Medical College, wrote a book that’s now being published in the United States called The End of My Addiction, in which he details how he overcame his dependence on alcohol by self-administering the spasticity drug baclofen (Kemstro or Lioresal).
Read more about Doctor Stirs Furor Over "Cure" for Alcoholism
Racial Gap in Cancer Mortality Stubbornly Persists
In statistics almost unchanged from those in 1981, blacks have been found to be significantly more likely to develop and die of cancer than whites, a recent study revealed. And blacks, once diagnosed with cancer, don’t live as long as their white counterparts.
In a study co-authored by Ahmedin Jemal, strategic director for cancer occurrence at the American Cancer Society (ACS), it was shown that while cancer death rates have fallen for everyone in recent decades, the gap between whites and blacks is about the same as 28 years ago.
Read more about Racial Gap in Cancer Mortality Stubbornly Persists
9 Benefits of Drinking Coffee
For people with sensitive nerves and stomachs, coffee can be an irritant. But for the 87 percent of Americans who drink coffee daily at an average of 8 ounces a day, there are many benefits. Here are nine of them:
Weight loss. Coffee stimulates the metabolism, so it’s hardly surprising that a study at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston found that serious coffee drinkers gained less weight over 12 years than less-serious ones, all other things being equal.
Read more about 9 Benefits of Drinking Coffee