December 2010

Alcohol and Breast Cancer

While the role of alcohol consumption has been established as a risk factor for breast cancer, most of the research has focused the relationship on hormonally sensitive breast cancers.  A new study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute takes a look at the risk of alcohol and breast cancer subtype.  While the study reconfirmed a higher breast cancer risk from alcohol overall and a higher risk for hormone-receptor positive cancers, it found that the associated alcohol/breast cancer risk was observed in invasive lobular cancer but not for invasive ductal cancers.

Older Adults and Anxiety Disorders

Anxiety caused by stressful events like moving or losing a job is a normal part of life. Anxiety disorders, on the other hand, are characterized by persistent, excessive and disabling fear and worry and get progressively worse if left untreated. It is estimated that anxiety disorders affect between 3 and 14 percent of older adults in a given year. To provide an older audience with additional information, NIHSeniorHealth, the health and wellness website for older adults from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has added a topic about anxiety disorders (http://nihseniorhealth.gov/anxietydisorders/toc.html).

Women and Bleeding Disorders

Bleeding disorders refer to conditions that keep your blood from clotting properly after a cut or injury.   Women generally notice a problem because of heavy or abnormal menstrual periods.  Heavy bleeding or menses is one of the most common problems women report to their doctors.   In the U.S., one out of every five women report heavy bleeding.

Signs of a possible bleeding disorder include:

Highly Active Women Gain Less Weight than Men

People will gain significantly less weight by middle age – especially women – if they engage in moderate to vigorous activity nearly every day of the week starting as young adults, according to new Northwestern Medicine research.

Women particularly benefitted from high activity over 20 years, gaining an average of 13 pounds less than those with low activity; while men with high activity gained about 6 pounds less than their low-activity peers. High activity included recreational exercise such as basketball, running, brisk walking or an exercise class or daily activities such as housework or construction work.

Study Shows Gender Difference in Sleep Interruptions

Working mothers are two-and-a-half times as likely as working fathers to interrupt their sleep to take care of others.

That is the finding of a University of Michigan study providing the first known nationally representative data documenting substantial gender differences in getting up at night, mainly with babies and small children. And women are not only more likely to get up at night to care for others, their sleep interruptions last longer—an average of 44 minutes for women, compared to about 30 minutes for men.