Women and men share many of the same health problems, but with more focus on women in medical research, we now know that some problems, such as heart disease, may affect women differently from men. While often taking care of families and spouses, women need to make sure they are addressing their own health and prevention measures.
The news that one of America's TV icons is suffering from cancer brought sadness. Learning the type of cancer she had made some squeamish.
Middle-aged and older women who have migraines with auras -- the flashing lights, a certain smell, or other sights or sounds that can signal oncoming pain -- appear to have a higher risk of strokes and heart attacks than their migraine-free peers, a new study suggests.
Two federal agencies warned consumers Friday not to eat raw Nestle Toll House refrigerated cookie dough.
Five years from now, there's an excellent chance you won't have the same health insurance you have (or don't have) right now. That's because members of Congress are gearing up to reform the U.S. health care system, and unlike in 1993 when then-first lady Hillary Clinton tried her hand at changing the medical system, this time the important players -- doctors, insurance companies, pharmaceutical manufacturers -- seem to be on board. You heard a lot about health care reform this week, and you'll be hearing even more in the months to come. It's an incredibly confusing, complex issue, so in this week's Empowered Patient, we break it down for you with 10 frequently asked questions about health care reform.
Your period comes at the same time every month ... except when it doesn't. Suddenly, without warning, you're early or late, or your flow is heavy, light, or nonexistent (and you know you're not pregnant!). You and millions of women understandably wonder, Is this normal or is something terribly wrong?
If home is where the heart is, a new survey suggests that most people aren't sure exactly where they live. More than half of people cannot pinpoint the exact location of the human heart on a diagram, and nearly 70 percent can't correctly identify the shape of the lungs, according to the survey.
Henry Joseph Madden was a good student and track team member in high school, but he had a secret: He sometimes wore his mother's pantyhose and underwear under his clothes.
Your desk is a mess, and you can forget about completing your to-do list -- you don't even have one. Your mind darts from one thought to the next. And that handbag you've been madly searching for on your way out the door? Yes, it's already on your shoulder.
The death rate due to cancer has declined in the United States in recent years, largely due to better prevention and treatment. In fact, 650,000 lives were spared from cancer between 1990 to 2005, according to new statistics from the American Cancer Society.
Diana Adam, 35, and her husband wanted to have a second child this year. The timing just seemed right. She had a job as a software engineer at a big market research company near San Francisco, California, and it had good benefits -- including paid maternity leave. He was looking for a faculty position after finishing his Ph.D. in sociology but had a steady job as a lecturer at a state university. Their first child, a boy, was three.
Women with breast cancer in the United States have an average age of 63 when they are diagnosed, and the disease is more common in older women than younger.
This Mother's Day, skip the flowers and forget the chocolate (unless it's dark)! Give your mom something she really needs -- the gift of good health.
Amber Mori drives a forklift in a warehouse in Gaithersburg, Maryland. As a working mom, she's on the go 24/7. But twice a week, Amber transforms into "Cykosis," a fishnet-wearing, skatin' diva, who bumps and jabs her way around a roller rink.
Myriad Genetics, a Utah-based company, vowed Wednesday to "vigorously defend" itself against a legal challenge to its patents on two human genes linked to breast and ovarian cancers, its attorney told CNN.
I was scrolling through family photos on my computer, admiring my two beautiful babies, when I spotted a disturbing trend: My laptop was open in almost all of the pictures. There's my daughter, at 8 months, playing at my feet while I typed away on the couch. There's me and my son, a year later, with the laptop at my side as I held him in my arms.
When Lana Phillip, now 45, decided to breast-feed her baby, she never imagined she would continue for three whole years.
Variations within women's genes could predict risk for ovarian cancer, a new study has found.
Nursing school seemed like a good idea to Tracy Kidd, but not just because she was interested in medicine.
When Julian Asher listens to an orchestra, he doesn't just hear music; he also sees it. The sounds of a violin make him see a rich burgundy color, shiny and fluid like a red wine, while a cello's music flows like honey in a golden yellow hue.
Attention, single dudes: Women want you to make them laugh.
It may seem obvious that men perceive women in sexy bathing suits as objects, but now there's science to back it up.
A middle-of-the-night fight, a surprise pullout from the Grammy Awards, leaked photos, a police investigation -- new pieces of the puzzle of the alleged assault of pop singer Rihanna by her boyfriend Chris Brown have been emerging since early February.
Twins? Triplets? Octuplets? Sounds like a lot of stress to handle more than one baby at once.
This week, Giyen Kim, 34, reached a personal milestone: She has lost 10 pounds since the beginning of the year.
Not everyone wishes others well in fulfilling their New Year's resolutions.
Barbara Rademacher said she had the "best day I can imagine" two weeks ago when two co-workers independently approached her to ask whether she had lost weight. They told her she looked good.
Doctors don't have to tell 18-year-old "Rose" (who doesn't want to reveal her real name) the importance of using a condom every time she has sex.
"Snack on four almonds and a third of a cup of nonfat cottage cheese for a nutritious afternoon boost that will have you cruising the house with your nine-month-old!"
"Now stay in bed and go to sleep," my husband, Bill, said as he hugged our 3-year-old son, Davey, good night. "If you don't, I'm gonna talk in my troll voice all day tomorrow."
A blow to the head that at first seems minor and does not result in immediate pain or other symptoms can in fact turn out to be a life-threatening brain injury, experts tell CNN.
Eighty-year-old Margie Graf is a health care success story, representing the kind of disease-preventing, cost-saving treatment the Obama administration envisions as it seeks to expand Americans' access to doctors.
The average cost of medical care for a premature or low birth-weight baby for its first year of life is about $49,000, according to a new report from the March of Dimes Foundation.
After his sister nagged him for eight years to go to the doctor, Kurt Berger finally had a physical late last year. Then in January, he received a phone call from his doctor: Tests showed he had prostate cancer.
Just days after giving birth to her second child, Dr. Jane Dimer drove herself home from the hospital to find her then-husband in bed with another woman. He threw Dimer down the stairs, and she never saw him again until court.
A 28-year-old man from Michigan decided to donate a kidney to a total stranger, setting into motion a kidney swap that over many months has resulted in 10 people getting a donor organ--and the process is still ongoing.
Attention red wine drinkers: Drinking moderate amounts of any kind of alcohol (including wine, beer, and liquor) is associated with a slightly increased breast cancer risk -- and the rosy-hued beverage is no exception.
Headaches, big and small, are among the most common health complaints. Almost 90 percent of women and about 70 percent of men get tension headaches, the Mayo Clinic says. Yet doctors still don't know much about what causes them.
When a marriage is rocky, it can make both partners feel depressed.
Your saliva is doing all kinds of useful things for you all the time -- for instance, helping you chew and taste food. It's also home to more than 600 species of bacteria, which are harmlessly enjoying the moisture of your mouth.
When Susannah Reid learned she had an extremely rare and aggressive cancer at age 41, she was hit with a double whammy.
Attention, libation lovers: Middle-aged women who indulge in just a few alcohol-containing drinks each day may have a higher risk of cancer than those who drink less often, according to a report released Tuesday in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Dr. Jane Miller remembers the first -- and the last -- time she implanted four embryos into a patient getting in-vitro fertilization.
One morning a couple of months ago at Westchester Medical Center, Dawn Verdick gave Daniel Flood one of her kidneys.
The woman who received the first-ever near-total face transplant in the United States told her doctor she has regained her self-confidence, said Dr. Maria Siemionow, head of plastic surgery research at the Cleveland Clinic and leader of the transplant team.
Anita Dunham's first heart attack started with a mysterious pain in her arm -- and, suddenly, the 34-year-old felt as if she couldn't breathe. After she got dressed, she could barely speak because the pain was so great in her arms and chest.
U.S. breast cancer cases have dropped in women aged 50 to 69 in recent years because many women have stopped taking hormone therapy, according to a study in The New England Journal of Medicine.
When Maria Rubeo closed her arm, she felt something "very big -- like a lemon."
Ever wonder how your fingers can tell that silk feels different from paper, which feels different from wood?
In what is being heralded as a "first-ever procedure," surgeons removed a healthy kidney through a donor's vagina, the Johns Hopkins Medical Center has announced.
As more details of the mother who gave birth to octuplets come to light, ethicists are debating the moral quandaries involved.
After the birth of octuplets this week, some doctors are questioning the ethics and medical practice that contribute to extreme multiple births.
Dr. Joann Manson, author of Hot Flashes, Hormones, and Your Health, suggests asking yourself three questions before going to the doctor.
Five days after giving birth to her daughter, Rhonda Monroe laid Dominique back in her crib after nursing, sat down and had a heart attack.
Barbara Rademacher of Rogers, Arkansas, has found that she loves to document events on camera. Now, she's turning the camera around and focusing on improving herself for 2009.
Only about one in 10 workers who lose their job opt to keep their employer-sponsored health insurance through the safety-net program COBRA, most likely because the premiums are too expensive, according to an analysis released Friday by the Commonwealth Fund, a private foundation that supports independent research on health care issues.
People with a stable mood and better capacity to handle stressful situations without anxiety have a reduced risk of developing dementia, according to a study published this week in the journal Neurology.
At 90, Melvin Seeman's daily objective is to enjoy every moment of life to its fullest.
"Sometimes you can forget about the preciousness of life," hospital spokesman Allen Poston thumbed onto his Blackberry after peering into an operating room where a team of 15 doctors and medical staff separated conjoined twins in six hours in surgery.
Seven states and two organizations have sued the Bush administration in an attempt to block a federal regulation that would further protect health care workers who refuse to perform abortions or other medical procedures because of religious or moral reasons.
If movies and soap operas are anything to go by, sex can be dangerous for people with heart conditions.
Not too long ago, millions of postmenopausal women were taking estrogen as part of hormone therapy to protect their hearts, prevent cancer, and keep their brains sharp.
When mothers-to-be and their doctors schedule repeat elective Caesarean sections before the 39th week of pregnancy, the baby is up to twice as likely to experience serious respiratory problems and other complications, according to a study published Wednesday in The New England Journal of Medicine.
As many as one in eight teens in the United States may take a virginity pledge at some point, vowing to wait until they're married before having sex. But do such pledges work? Are pledge takers more likely than other teens to delay sexual activity?
Tuesday morning, Silvia Saldana was driving to work on a two-lane road in Cabin John, Maryland, when a wall of water came rushing toward her. Her first instinct was to make a U-turn to get out of the water's path, but it was too late. The water was gushing too quickly.
A treasure map to a baby?
Conventional wisdom says women talk a lot more than men. But a study from the University of Arizona finds when it comes to how many words are uttered during waking hours, women and men are actually pretty close in the number of words they say. The study was published in the July 6, 2007, issue of the journal Science.
Women who have used the bone-building drug Fosamax are nearly twice as likely to develop the most common kind of chronically irregular heartbeat as those who have never used it. Patients, especially those with family history of heart problems, should talk to their doctor about whether the drug is the appropriate option for them. The study was published in the Archives of Internal Medicine in April 2008.
A staggering 99 percent of all cervical cancers are caused by the human papillomavirus (HPV), according to the American Cancer Society. For 50 years, the Pap test has been the gold standard for detecting cervical cancer. But there's a new kid on the block: the HPV DNA test.
For the 150,000 American women entering menopause each month, the mood swings, hot flashes and libido changes that often accompany a drop in estrogen can leave them feeling like they need help. In the past, hormone replacement therapy was often used to help ease symptoms, but compelling research has shown a significant drop in breast cancer cases among women over 50 after they stopped hormone therapy. This leaves many women asking, how do I manage menopause?
Genital human papillomavirus, or HPV, which infects the skin and mucous membranes, is the most common sexually transmitted disease. About 20 million Americans have the virus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. HPV is the major cause of cervical cancer, which kills about 250,000 women worldwide each year. In the United States, cervical cancer will be diagnosed in about 12,000 women this year, and 4,000 will die, the CDC says. Women get Pap smears to detect cervical cancer and now have the option of preventing it with a vaccine. Gardasil, developed by Merck, works to protect against four strains of HPV, including two connected to 70 percent of cervical cancers.
As an intern 20 years ago, Dr. Sandy Christiansen said, she was repeatedly denied the opportunity to perform some medical procedures that other interns performed.
The chances of surviving ovarian cancer appear to vary dramatically depending on the levels of two tumor proteins, suggesting that this type of cancer may have a more nuanced outlook than the grim statistics indicate.
Women at high risk for breast cancer are generally advised to have one mammogram and one magnetic resonance image scan every year, and they usually schedule them around the same time, along with a hands-on examination by a doctor. The idea is to get three different views of what's going on in the breasts.
Estrogen therapy is about the last thing you'd expect a doctor to prescribe for a woman with breast cancer: The hormone is famous for coaxing tumors to grow, not shrink. But in a new study, one out of three postmenopausal women with advanced cancer who were given a daily dose of estrogen saw their tumors slow to a stop, and in some cases, even get smaller.
Jo-Lynne Shane is furiously looking for ways to spend $500 in the next three weeks. If she doesn't, that money will disappear at the stroke of midnight December 31.
The sweet smell of sugar cookies baking filled the air in Kris Shock's kitchen.
Some research suggests that the risk of leg and lung blood clots may be higher for women who use the birth-control patch instead of the pill. The Food and Drug Administration said it updated the label on the Ortho Evra birth-control patch in January 2008 to reflect the results of one study that found women using the patch faced twice the risk of clots, compared with women on the pill. But a second study found no difference in risk between the two forms of birth control.
Do more frequent mammograms pick up some breast cancer tumors that might have gone away without treatment? Possibly, according to a controversial study published this week in Archives of Internal Medicine. However, experts caution that the research raises an interesting question, but can't definitively answer it.
Panic attacks are associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular events and death in postmenopausal women. The study appeared in the October 2007 issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the Journal of the American Medical Association Archives Journals. The landmark "Women's Health Initiative Study" 1997-2000, was funded in part by GlaxoSmithKline, which makes the anti-anxiety medicine Paxil.
Four flawed genes have been discovered by scientists studying the genetic underpinnings of breast cancer. Researchers looked at more than 50,000 women across four continents and found that genetic mutations were a common thread among those who developed breast cancer. The research was published in Nature in May 2007. The flawed genes are FGFR2, TNRC9, MAP3K1 and LSP1.
A CDC data analysis from 2000-2004 shows nearly three-quarters of new mothers are breastfeeding their babies. But federal officials say they're quitting too soon, and using infant formula too often. The survey shows that less than a third of new moms are feeding their babies exclusively breast milk at three months after birth. At six months, just 11 percent are feeding only breast milk. Infant formula doesn't do the same job of protecting babies against diseases or childhood obesity.
A 2007 study indicates that women who have migraines with auras are at increased risk for stroke. The study, led by researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, looked at 1,000 African-American and white women from ages 15 to 49 and was published in the journal Stroke in August 2007.
Research suggests that women who take folic acid supplements for at least one year before they become pregnant can cut their risk of having a premature baby by half. Researchers at the January 2008 meeting of the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine unveiled a study that suggests taking folic acid supplements for at least one year reduced early premature delivery rates by 50 percent to 70 percent, regardless of age, race or other factors. Of particular note is the drop in very early premature births. Those babies are at the greatest risk of complications such as cerebral palsy, mental retardation, chronic lung disease and blindness.
A low-fat diet may reduce the risk of ovarian cancer in healthy postmenopausal women, according to results from a Women's Health Initiative study from October 2007. One in 60 women will get ovarian cancer, and more than 15,000 will die from it this year. Until now, little research has shown what women can do to lower their chances of getting this deadly disease. The study suggests a small reduction in overall cancer risk among the women who ate less fat.
Regular physical activity may lower a woman's overall risk of cancer, suggests a new government study -- but only if her workouts don't cut into a good night's sleep. Otherwise, lack of shut-eye appears to cancel out much of exercise's protective benefits.
A new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has found that infants born as a result of assisted reproductive technology, or ART -- such as in vitro fertilization and the use of donor eggs -- are two to four times more likely to be born with certain types of birth defects than infants conceived naturally. But, the study's lead author says, the overall risk is still relatively low.
Postmenopausal women who have lost interest in sex may be able to bring their libidos back to life with a testosterone patch, according to new research published this week in The New England Journal of Medicine.
High blood pressure is truly a silent killer. In fact, a heart attack or stroke may be the first sign that you even have a problem. That's why it's so important to get your blood pressure checked every time you go to the doctor -- especially if you're a woman.
When a woman goes through breast cancer treatment, the shape of her chest changes, hair falls out and eyebrows thin. She'd probably tell you she's had better days.
To kill time in the obstetrician's waiting room, Lora Jacobsen and her husband, Dustin, discuss names for their future child. Then they read old parenting magazines left in the waiting room. As the minutes tick by -- 30 then 45 then more than 60 -- they play games and check e-mail on their cell phones.
Depressed moms-to-be are more likely than nondepressed women to have a preterm birth, and the worse their mood, the greater their risk, says a new study published in Human Reproduction. In fact, women in the study who were severely depressed during early pregnancy more than doubled their risk of giving birth to premature babies.
When a woman goes through breast cancer treatment, the shape of her chest changes, hair falls out and eyebrows thin. She'd probably tell you she's had better days.
Let's face it: Your mom, your sister-in-law, your co-worker, your best friend from college -- someone you know has had breast cancer. Someone you care about has sat white-faced, clutching the kitchen phone, or in a doctor's office, and gotten the scary news that every woman dreads -- news that one out of eight of us will hear in our lifetime, 250,000 of us this year alone.
About one in seven men has a combination of genes -- one new and one first discovered in 2001 -- that increases his risk of male pattern baldness sevenfold, compared to men without the combination.
Can taking aspirin or ibuprofen reduce your risk of getting breast cancer? One of the largest studies of its kind suggests that the answer might be yes.
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