Dr. Teresa Woodruff of the Women’s Health Research Institute has been a consistent voice advocating for sex-based research.  Recently, Dr. Woodruff consulted with CBS on an upcoming feature to shed light on the importance of sex as a research variable—due to the imbalances between male and female research subjects resulting in inadequate health care for women. In a reaction to the FDA recalling the recommended dosage for women taking Ambien, CBS announced today that their 60 Minutes feature this Sunday will investigate drug dosage differences between men and women.

If you live in a northern climate, winter increases your risk of the flu, head colds, and respiratory illnesses.   These are somewhat expected.   But winter also brings some less considered infections that you may get if you are lucky enough to go on a winter vacation in a warm climate.  For example:  Leptospirosis is endemic to Hawaii especially from October to February and is harmful to animals and humans.   Coccidioidomycosis (valley fever) is a fungus found in the southwest U.S. and Mexico.

If you’re not already aware, today is World Cancer Day.  World Cancer Day was founded by the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC) to support the goals of the World Cancer Declaration which calls upon government leaders and health policy-makers to significantly reduce the global cancer burden, promote greater equity, and integrate cancer control into the world health and developmental agenda.