Women's Health News

RSS

Family Planning 2020 Reference Group announced last month

Writing in the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's "Impatient Optimists" blog, Jennifer James, founder of Mom Bloggers for Social Good, highlights the Family Planning 2020 Reference Group, announced last month with the aim of ensuring the commitments made at the 2012 London Family Planning Summit are honored.

24 Jan 2013

NIH panel recommends name change for polycystic ovary syndrome

An independent panel convened by the National Institutes of Health has concluded that the name of a common hormone disorder in women, polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), causes confusion and is a barrier to research progress and effective patient care. The current name focuses on a criterion - ovarian cysts - which is neither necessary nor sufficient to diagnose the syndrome.

24 Jan 2013

Boosting estrogen levels may help reduce urinary infections in menopausal women

Estrogen levels drop dramatically in menopause, a time when the risk of urinary tract infections increases significantly.

24 Jan 2013

Study examines associations between blood calcium and ovarian cancer

A new study from Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center is the first to report that high blood calcium levels might predict ovarian cancer, the most fatal of the gynecologic cancers.

24 Jan 2013

Sex rated as highly arousing and pleasurable whether or not condoms and lubricants are used

A new study published in The Journal of Sexual Medicine reveals that within a nationally representative study of American men and women, sex was rated as highly arousing and pleasurable whether or not condoms and/or lubricants were used. Condoms and lubricants are commonly used by both women and men when they have sex.

23 Jan 2013

KLF6-SV1 gene variant drives the spread of breast cancer

A team of researchers led by Goutham Narla, MD, PhD, at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and University Hospitals Case Medical Center, and collaborators at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine and Erasmus Medical Center, have discovered a gene variant that drives the spread of breast cancer.

23 Jan 2013

Tall, thin women face increased risk of infection with nontuberculous mycobacteria

Tall, thin women face a greater risk of infection with nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM), cousins of the organism that causes tuberculosis, according to researchers at National Jewish Health. Women with NTM infections also showed a weakened immune response associated with their fat cells, in a paper published in the Jan. 15, 2013, issue of The American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care.

23 Jan 2013

Taking antiepileptic drug valproate during pregnancy affects the IQ of children

Research published in The Lancet Neurology shows that taking the antiepileptic drug valproate during pregnancy affects the IQ of children up to the age of six.

23 Jan 2013

State abortion restrictions having impact

In Kansas, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Texas, new laws limiting abortion providers spur changes for clinics and patients.

23 Jan 2013

Sex, condoms and lubricants: an interview with Dr Debby Herbenick

Condoms and lubricants are widely used by both women and men and so they are part of many people’s sexual experiences. They are used for both pleasure-related reasons as well as, in the case of lubricants, comfort and making sex easier for people. The use of condoms of course reduces the risk of pregnancy or infection.

23 Jan 2013

Viewpoints: Looking back at landmark Roe V. Wade decision

Opinion writers reflect on the 40th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision regarding abortion.

23 Jan 2013

On Roe anniversary, poll finds wide support for abortion access

A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll finds that 70 percent of Americans think the landmark Supreme Court case should stand. But those against abortion continue their battle to overturn the decision with a new generation of leaders and state-by-state strategies to restrict the procedure.

23 Jan 2013

Latin American nations taking steps to improve access to abortion

Noting this month marks the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court's landmark case on the issue of abortion, writer and advocate Mandy Van Deven writes in a GlobalPost commentary that the decision "provided a framework for sexual and reproductive rights used by advocates from San Francisco to Santiago, and the past year yielded significant progress on abortion rights in Latin America."

23 Jan 2013

Sex rated as pleasurable with or without condoms and lubricants

23 Jan 2013

Viewpoints: A 'fail safe' and a 'time bomb' in health law; Reason for 'optimism' about health costs?

Although Republicans are eager to repeal the entire 2010 healthcare reform law, they started the new session of Congress last week by taking aim at one provision in particular: the Independent Payment Advisory Board, a yet-to-be-named group of 15 presidential appointees from various healthcare disciplines that could play a key role in limiting the growth of Medicare spending. Critics argue that it's a bad idea and even un-American to put so much power in the hands of unelected bureaucrats.

23 Jan 2013

Study details exactly how Her2 gene promotes progression and spread of breast cancer cells

Research led by Dr. Suresh Alahari, the Fred Brazda Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans and its Stanley S. Scott Cancer Center, details exactly how the Her2 cancer gene promotes the progression and spread of breast cancer cells.

23 Jan 2013

SLU team discovers molecular pathway that contributes to triple-negative breast cancer

In research published in the Jan. 17 issue of The Journal of Cell Biology, a team led by Susana Gonzalo, Ph.D., assistant professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at Saint Louis University, has discovered a molecular pathway that contributes to triple-negative breast cancer, an often deadly and treatment resistant form of cancer that tends to strike younger women.

23 Jan 2013

Pregnant women with hypertensive disorders more likely to develop end-stage renal disease

Women with hypertensive disorders in pregnancy are at higher risk of chronic kidney disease and end-stage renal disease compared with women without the disorders, according to a study in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).

22 Jan 2013

Physical activity policies: an interview with Dr Nick Cavill

Our bodies were designed to be active. The human body is not meant to spend long periods of time sitting but that’s what our modern lives have led us to do. The result has been the increase in obesity seen across the world, and up to 20 other conditions including cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

22 Jan 2013

Closer monitoring and regulation required for surrogacy arrangements

COUPLES seeking to build a family, and surrogate mothers overseas who help them, are in danger of emotional, physical and financial exploitation unless UK authorities monitor and regulate the field much more closely, according to a University of Huddersfield professor who has published the results of a detailed investigation.

22 Jan 2013