Women Health News

Exercise training for patients with pulmonary hypertension was shown to be safe and to improve quality of life, according to an analysis by UT Southwestern Medical Center cardiologists of studies involving more than 400 participants. Pulmonary hypertension is a type of high blood pressure that affects the lungs and heart, making it hard to breathe, or making one weary or … [Read more...]

The loss of muscle strength and function, what's known as sarcopenia, is a natural part of aging. It's also a growing public health concern because of the risk for falls, injury and decline in quality of life. That's why an Iowa State University researcher is working to slow or reverse the progression of sarcopenia. Rick Sharp, a professor of kinesiology, is testing the … [Read more...]

Just like attempts at influencing hairstyles or clothing can backfire, adults who try to guilt middle-schoolers into exercising won't get them to be any more active, according to a new study by University of Georgia researchers. The study, which appears in the September issue of the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, found students who don't feel in … [Read more...]

High-intensity training (HIT) is often recommended as a way to improve cardiovascular fitness in men and women. HIT exercise can have a positive effect on a person's maximum oxygen consumption (VO2max) and mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) capacity, the pathway that cells use to metabolize energy. However, studies on these exercise regimens have focused on … [Read more...]

Pedalling like Chris Froome or Alberto Contador might seem appealing, but Oxford University researchers have found that for most of us it's likely to reduce rather than improve our performance. A team from Oxford's Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences looked at a common measure of aerobic fitness called VO2 max. While it can be measured accurately in a laboratory, … [Read more...]

Washington State University researchers have found that the timing of an animal's sleep can be just as important as how much sleeps it gets. Ilia Karatsoreos, an assistant professor in WSU's Department of Integrative Physiology and Neuroscience, shifted mice from their usual cycle of sleeping and waking and saw that, while they got enough sleep, it was of poorer quality. The … [Read more...]

Ingrown hair, also known as "razor bumps," are a common skin condition, particularly in people whose hair has the tendency to curl back or grow sideways in a hair follicle. The result often looks like acne, consisting of tiny round bumps, some of which have a visible hair trapped inside them. They also can be accompanied by pustules and skin discoloration. Furthermore, they can … [Read more...]

New research published in this month's edition of United European Gastroenterology journal suggests that supplementation with vitamin D may impact on the intestinal barrier dysfunction associated with Crohn's disease, and could have a role in the treatment of the condition. The study is by Professor Maria O'Sullivan and Tara Raftery. Department of Clinical Medicine, Trinity … [Read more...]

Ampligen, the first drug ever seeking approval to treat chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis (CFS/ME), recently hit another roadblock with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). In its long quest to treat 1 million Americans suffering from this debilitating illness, the FDA advisory panel did not recommend the drug to be sold on the market, largely because … [Read more...]

Every day, patients around the country get IV devices placed in their arms, to make it easier to receive medicines or have blood drawn over the course of days or weeks. But these PICC lines, as they're called, also raise the risk of potentially dangerous blood clots. Now, a University of Michigan Medical School team has shown how serious that clot risk really is for … [Read more...]

In a city of 1 million, about 10 to 15 patients a year will come to the emergency department with indistinct complaints that hide a potentially fatal blood disease. "They usually come in the middle of the night, and the symptoms can be very nonspecific," said X. Long Zheng, M.D., Ph.D., professor and division director of Laboratory Medicine in the Department of Pathology, … [Read more...]

Though the belief that DNA determines weight is highly debated, it appears to be shaping people's lives. A new study finds that those who believe that weight is outside of their control have less healthy BMIs, make poorer food choices, and report lower levels of personal wellbeing than those who don't. This study was published in Health Education and Behavior, a Society for … [Read more...]

The aging process is associated with declines in brain function, including memory and how fast our brain processes information, yet previous research has found that higher levels of cardiorespiratory fitness in older adults leads to better executive function in the brain, which helps with reasoning and problem solving. Higher cardiorespiratory fitness levels have also been … [Read more...]

The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender/Transsexual, Queer/Questioning (LGBTQ) community is a growing and medically-underserved minority population in the United States, with 3 to 12 percent of the population estimated to identify as LGBTQ. Moffitt Cancer Center researchers published one of the first articles that describe the current knowledge about cancers that may … [Read more...]

Since 1994, researchers at Case Western Reserve University have studied mothers--some who used cocaine while pregnant and others who did not--to understand how the drug affected their children's cognitive and social development. Their latest findings suggest a link between prenatal cocaine exposure and an adolescent's likelihood to have sexual intercourse before age … [Read more...]

In-depth interviews conducted by researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine of 20 young women attending an urban sexually transmitted disease clinic have documented a variety of unexpected, unintended sexual encounters linked to their alcohol use before sex occurs. Links between alcohol use and risky or deleterious sexual encounters are not necessarily … [Read more...]

Depression and personality disorders are the most common diagnoses among Belgian psychiatric patients requesting help to die, on the grounds of unbearable suffering, finds research published in the online journal BMJ Open. Drugs, given either by mouth or administered intravenously, are used to perform euthanasia in Belgium, where the practice has been legal since … [Read more...]

A follow-up of nearly 60,000 women who received a synthetic vaginal mesh sling for the treatment of stress urinary incontinence finds the risk is low for needing a second surgery for mesh removal or revision (about 1 in 30 women ten years after surgery), according to a study published online by JAMA Surgery. Female stress urinary incontinence (SUI) is a common condition that … [Read more...]

The burgeoning field of optogenetics has seen another breakthrough with the creation of a new plant-human hybrid protein molecule called OptoSTIM1. In South Korea, a research team led by Won Do Heo, associate professor at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and group leader at the IBS Center for Cognition and Sociality, together with Professor … [Read more...]

Frequent sexist wisecracks, comments and office cultures where women are ignored are just as damaging to women as single instances of sexual coercion and unwanted sexual attention, according to a new study out today in The Psychology of Women Quarterly (a SAGE Journal). "Norms, leadership, or policies, that reduce intense harmful experiences may lead managers to believe that … [Read more...]

Young women who are attracted to both sexes or who are unsure about who they are attracted to are more likely to develop an eating disorder than those attracted to only one sex, according to a new study from Drexel University. However, the results of the study suggest that females attracted to the same-sex are no more likely to experience disordered eating symptoms than … [Read more...]

Novel research reveals that the risk of acute gout attacks is more than two times higher during the night or early morning hours than it is in the daytime. The study published in Arthritis & Rheumatology, a journal of the American College of Rheumatology (ACR), confirms that nocturnal attacks persist even among those who did not consume alcohol and had a low amount of … [Read more...]

Researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have identified a new immune disorder--DOCK2 deficiency--named after the mutated gene responsible for the disease. An international team of collaborators studied five children, four boys and one girl, from different ethnic backgrounds who had experienced debilitating infections early in life. The children were … [Read more...]

Roflumilast, a drug recently approved in the United States to treat severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), increases the production of a protein that causes inflammation, which possibly results in patients developing a tolerance to the drug after repeated use and makes the drug less effective, according to researchers at Georgia State University, Kumamoto … [Read more...]

Final results of the randomized intergroup EORTC, LYSA (Lymphoma Study Association), FIL (Fondazione Italiana Linfomi) H10 trial presented at the 13th International Conference on Malignant Lymphoma in Lugano, Switzerland, on 19 June 2015 show that early FDG-PET ( 2-deoxy-2[F-18]fluoro-D-glucose positron emission tomography) adapted treatment improves the outcome of early … [Read more...]

Lightly stimulating the brain with electricity may improve short-term memory in people with schizophrenia, according to a new study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. The procedure, known as transcranial direct current stimulation, involves placing sponge-covered electrodes on the head and passing a weak electrical current between them. It is … [Read more...]

More than six million American women and girls struggle with endometriosis, a chronic condition that causes pain before and after their periods. It can also cause infertility. In some cases, endometriosis is difficult to diagnose, but a new imaging method may shed light on difficult to detect cases. Twenty-eight year old Susie Veech has spent more than half her life in the … [Read more...]

Researchers from the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston have found that patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease receiving home oxygen have a higher risk of burn injury. This study was published on March 30 in Mayo Clinic Proceedings. Aside from smoking cessation, no other medical intervention has improved survival and quality of life for patients … [Read more...]