If women needed another good reason to get the right amount of sleep for their good health, besides helping them fight arthritis, the perimenopausal interval in a woman's life appears to demand it, according to a British study.

Researchers discovered the anomaly while comparing the health of some 3,000 men and women without cardiovascular disease for any links between sleep duration and hypertension. Unfortunately, the correlation between a lack of sleep -- less than six hours per night -- and hypertension affected only women, not men.

Overall, women who skipped on their sleep were 66 percent more likely to battle hypertension than those who slept more than six hours nightly. Moreover, this problem was experienced more than two-fold among women who were transitioning into menopause than those who were already past their child-bearing years.

All the more reason to check out these tips for improving your waking health by getting more sleep. (By the way, none of the items on this extensive sleep checklist require that you take a drug.)

Journal of Hypertension December 25, 2009

Warwick Medical School (UK) January 11, 2010

Seemingly by the second, science is coming to a better understanding of how specific genes affect your overall health, not to mention your driving skills. The very same can be said for a far more serious problem: Improved tracking of the genetic changes that may signal the unfortunate progression of cervical cancer to a treatment-resistant state, according to a recent study.

Past research has demonstrated that cervical cancer cells undergo numerous genetic changes but never traced how these alterations affect its progression to a lethal phase. Norwegian scientists discovered these genetic changes -- sets of biological processes and known trademarks of cancer linked to the loss or gain of specific genes along with genes linked to radiotherapy and chemotherapy resistance -- after examining and treating more than 140 patients diagnosed with cervical cancer.

Although the more widely common use of the Pap test has significantly reduced the number of American women diagnosed with cervical cancer over the past half-century, this brand of cancer remains a very deadly one, based on figures compiled by the National Cancer Institute. More than a third of the 11,000 women who were diagnosed with cervical cancer died from it in 2005 (the most recent year cancer stats are available), representing 2.5 percent of the total number of cancer deaths among American women. The news is far worse on the worldwide stage, however, as cervical cancer is the second leading cause of cancer among women and accounts for some 300,000 deaths every year.

Although there is much debate about the latest guidelines issued by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and whether women are being "overscreened" for cervical cancer and breast cancer, the most important message at the heart of Cervical Health Awareness Month is to be screened. If you have questions, EmpowHER and the National Cervical Cancer Coalition are good places to find answers.

EmpowHER January 4, 2010

ScienceDaily November 15, 2009

PLoS Genetics November 2009 Free Full Text Article

Because simple solutions are often the best ones, no doubt, premenopausal women with irregular menstrual periods will like the results of this small study that could change the timing of their breast MRI scans, provide clearer images and significantly reduce repeat scans.

Typically, physicians pay no attention to scheduling a premenopausal woman's breast MRIs in relation to her irregular menstrual cycles, a practice that often leads to multiple scans and non-diagnostic tests, according to scientists, although research has demonstrated performing these scans during the follicular phase of the ovarian cycle reduces breast tissue enhancement and improves results.

Based on blood work taken from patients with irregular periods, determining a woman's serum progesterone concentration with simple blood testing optimizes the scheduling of breast MRIs. In fact, among the 11 women who participated in the study, none needed a second scan.

American Journal of Roentgenology, Vol. 193, No. 6, pp. 1738-1740, December 2009

ScienceDaily November 20, 2009

healthfinder.gov November 20, 2009

You probably recall a study we posted last month about the declining odds of surviving cancer among people who were married but separated from their spouses after receiving their diagnosis. Apparently, gender plays a key role when married couples face a cancer diagnosis, often leaving women out in the cold.

Although the rate of separation or divorce among cancer patients was similar to the general population (11.6 percent), scientists discovered divorce or separation was six times more common when a woman received the bad news, after monitoring more than 500 patients divided among three groups who were diagnosed with cancer or multiple sclerosis from 2001-06.

Overall, divorce was the probable outcome when the wife was the patient in two of the three groups monitored (multiple sclerosis and those with tumors not connected to the central nervous system) by at least 93 percent. Age was also a factor: The older a female cancer patient, the more likely her relationship would end.

Conversely, less than 3 percent of male patients became divorced or separated from their wives after a cancer diagnosis during the course of the study.

The tiny sliver of good news to be found in this study stems from longevity. The longer a couple was married, the more likely their relationship would survive the problems cancer presented them.

Cancer, Vol. 115, No. 22, pp. 5237-5242, November 15, 2009

Newsweek November 16, 2009

Yahoo News November 11, 2009

EurekAlert November 10, 2009

An interesting piece in the New York Times raised some very different opinions about the real need for yearly mammograms for women under age 50 from experts in the field.

The American Cancer Society seems to want it both ways. In an interview with the Times, its chief medical officer claimed the practice of medicine had exaggerated the real benefit of mammograms. Later on, citing seven studies that showed how mammograms lowered the mortality risks of women, the organization suggested that women over age 40 should still keep having them even though these exams can "miss cancers that need treatment, and in some cases finds disease that does not need treatment."

The conversation began after a Journal of the American Medical Association report questioned whether medicine should rethink its guidance on mammograms, noting such screenings are ideal for finding slow-growing tumors that don't need treatment, but not for spotting deadly and aggressive variations of breast cancer before they spread. Yet, mammograms pick up tumors that grow at a medium rate, and women may benefit the most from this.

On the other hand, however, an article posted on rt-image.com is a worrisome reminder about two studies conducted this year that found many female cancer survivors were skipping their annual mammograms. And, in one such study, childhood cancer survivors were avoiding them despite being at a greater risk of breast cancer.

To our wonderful readers, if you're female north of 40, or a cancer survivor of any age, what say you?

New York Times November 2, 2009

Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. 302, No. 15, pp. 1685-1692, October 22, 2009

Image, the source for radiology professionals November 2, 2009

Image source: Dr. Dwight Kaufman, division of cancer treatment/National Cancer Institute

Children may face cancer even before they leave their mother's womb, an extremely rare scenario but a legitimate risk according to a case study of a Japanese woman and her baby daughter who developed leukemia.

By using advanced genetic fingerprinting techniques, British researchers determined the baby's leukemia cells had developed in the mother and that both patients shared the very same mutated cancer genes. Also, this genetic detective work proved that the baby couldn't have developed leukemia on her own because she didn't inherit these genes from her mom.

So why didn't the infant's immune system ward off cancer cells on its own? The leukemia cells lacked bits of DNA that would've given them their own unique genetic identity, thus the infant's immune system didn't recognize them as a foreign and harmful invader. This lack of recognition allowed the leukemia cells to migrate through the mother's placenta to her child's bloodstream.

Before you start worrying about the health of your baby or grandchild, here's some perspective: There have been only 17 recorded cases (typically melanoma or leukemia) in which a mother and baby shared the same cancer.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 106, No. 42, pp. 17882-17885, October 20, 2009

BBC News October 12, 2009

WebMD October 12, 2009

Despite a lack of evidence, a growing number of women are choosing to remove a healthy breast after being diagnosed with cancer in the other breast, according to a study of nearly 70,000 New York women who had mastectomies. Overall, some 6,300 women (9 percent) opted for a mastectomy for preventive (prophylactic) reasons.

The numbers were low at the beginning -- fewer than 300 diagnosed with breast cancer opted for this treatment in 1995 -- but more than doubled by the end of the 11-year study in 2005 to nearly 700.

Preventive mastectomies aren't a panacea, however. For one, removing the second breast may be considered preventive, but there's no evidence that removing an unaffected breast improves a woman's long-term survival, according to researchers. And, for women who don't have an elevated genetic risk of breast cancer, encompassing 95 percent of all breast cancer patients, the odds are very low -- 10-20 percent -- of developing cancer in the second breast over a generation. Plus, there may be complications, including nerve damage, bleeding and infection.

Cancer September 28, 2009

MSNBC September 28, 2009

EurekAlert September 28, 2009

Over the next decade, obesity may supercede smoking and hormone replacement therapies to become the leading factor that contributes to cancer among women -- maybe trailing only smoking -- in Europe, according to a report presented at a recent joint meeting of health organizations in Berlin.

Based on a statistical model that estimated the number of cancer diagnoses attributed to obesity in 30 European nations, 70,000 cases out of some 2 million could be blamed on obesity in 2002. Six years later, the estimated number of cancer cases blamed on obesity or being overweight exploded by a horrific 77 percent to at least 124,000.

With obesity stats climbing even higher in America, may cancer become a more prevalent outcome? Although some studies argue obesity may be responsible for as many as 20 percent of cancer cases domestically, only 41,000 new cases were cited in a 2004 National Cancer Institute FactSheet for 2002. That said, more cancer deaths, in which obesity or being overweight was a factor, were reported among women (20 percent) than men (14 percent).

And, despite a very optimistic report issued by the American Cancer Society, the rising rates of obesity in America may threaten future declines in breast cancer diagnoses among women.

European Cancer Organisation September 24, 2009

Bloomberg.com September 24, 2009

Bloomberg.com September 30, 2009

MSNBC.com September 24, 2009

If you answered the question posed in the headline above as anything more than a miniscule double-digit percentage, based on Americans faithfully following the five low-risk criteria cited in the latest National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHANES), you may be badly mistaken about the current state of the nation's collective health, not to mention your own.

Fact is, the number of American adults (age 25-74) who don't have the five low-risk factors for heart disease -- taking non-smoking status, no obesity issues, normal blood pressure, cholesterol numbers below 200 and a lack of a diabetes diagnosis into account -- sits at just 7.5 percent, a huge drop from the 10.5 percent reported in the previous NHANES report, collected from 1988-94. In other words, 92.5 percent of all Americans have some elevated risks for heart disease.

Generally, tobacco use is falling, a collective reduction in cholesterol levels appears to be leveling off but BMI, diabetes and blood pressure stats are "headed in the wrong direction," according to the study. And, although the health of both sexes is trending the same, significantly more women than men followed low-risk factors across the board.

Also contributing to the drastic reversal in the latest NHANES survey: An overall imbalance connecting sharp drops in physical activity to the growing amounts of food Americans consume.

Circulation September 14, 2009

Science Daily September 18, 2009

Time.com September 14, 2009

Add mushrooms to the list of natural weapons women may use to reduce their risks of breast cancer, according to a Chinese study.

Researchers discovered the beneficial effect of mushrooms when they compared the diets of more than 1,000 Chinese women breast cancer patients between ages 20-87 with a similar amount of healthy females.

Women who ate at least 10 grams (roughly a third of an ounce) or more of fresh mushrooms daily slashed their odds of developing breast cancer by about two-thirds. And, consuming 4 grams (0.14 ounces) of dried mushrooms contributed to a 50-percent reduction of breast cancer risks.

How can mushrooms reduce a woman's breast cancer risks? Scientists believe mushrooms may interact with the body in the same way as breast cancer drugs called aromatase inhibitors do, that lower the amount of estrogen in the body.

These overwhelmingly positive results may have been partially responsible for spurring California researchers to launch a study to learn if consuming a mushroom extract twice daily over the course of a month may protect breast cancer survivors from a second bout of the disease.

International Journal of Cancer, Vol. 124, No. 6, p. 1404-1408, March 15, 2009

Telegraph.co.uk March 16, 2009

Reuters March 13, 2009

Female breast cancer patients may greatly reduce their risk of skin problems related to radiation therapy by drinking a daily glass of red wine, further enhancing the reputation of its natural antioxidant properties, according to a new study.

Italian researchers measured the beneficial effects of natural antioxidants found in red wine on some 350 breast cancer patients in hopes of finding a cheaper, safer alternative to expensive treatments with harmful side effects that may protect tumor cells along with healthy ones.

Patients who consumed a glass of wine every day experienced a significantly reduced incidence of Grade 2 or higher acute skin toxicity (13.6 percent), compared to those who drank no wine at all (38.4 percent).

Interestingly, drinking too little or too much wine affects skin toxicity as well (by as much as 35 percent for those who consume two glasses a day and nearly 32 percent for patients drinking just half a glass).

International Journal of Radiation Oncology Biology Physics, Vol. 74, No. 5, pp. 1501-1509, August 2009

Nursing Times.net August 15, 2009

healthfinder.gov August 14, 2009

Newswise.com August 13, 2009

Long-term breast cancer survivors may be alarmed by new risks associated with the commonly prescribed drug tamoxifen, uncovered by scientists studying the history of long-term tamoxifen use among some 1,100 female breast cancer survivors between ages 40-79 from 1990-2005.

Not unexpectedly, patients who took tamoxifen for at least five years enjoyed a reduced risk of a less-aggressive kind of second breast cancer (estrogen-receptor or ER positive breast cancer) compared to those receiving a placebo by 60 percent. Moreover, tamoxifen users were 40 percent less prone to develop a new tumor in the second breast.

On the downside, tamoxifen use by breast cancer survivors over the long term increased their risks of ER negative second cancer – tumors that weren’t estrogen-sensitive -- by a whopping 440 percent.

To the good, however, while these tumors were harder to treat, their occurrence was rare: Only one out of every seven patients developed them. What’s more, patients who had taken tamoxifen for four years or less weren’t affected at all.

Despite these latest findings, the American Cancer Society doesn’t advocate changing drug protocols or restricting use of the go-to breast cancer drug at all, noting, “The net benefit for tamoxifen is huge.”

Cancer Research August 25, 2009

Science Daily August 26, 2009

New York Times August 25, 2009

WebMD August 25, 2009

Although the origins of ovarian cancer are murky at best, Danish researchers may have uncovered a link between this deadly form of cancer and hormone therapy. Regardless of when or for how long women were treated, the estrogen dosage or the specific treatment regimen, women who have taken hormone therapy at some point in their lives may have an elevated risk of ovarian cancer.

While reviewing the health records of some 900,000 Danish women between ages 50-79 from 1995-2005, researchers found 31 percent of the patients had used or were using hormonal therapies. And, nearly half of the women currently using hormone therapy (46 percent) had been following their treatment regimen for more than seven years.

The number of ovarian cancers identified during an eight-year follow-up period amounted to 3,068 cases, with the majority linked to epithelial tumors (2,681). Women who actively took hormone therapies elevated their risk of ovarian cancer by 38 percent, compared to those who never used it.

Unfortunately, when scientists narrowed their focus to epithelial tumors, the numbers worsened: Ovarian cancer risks rose significantly among women who were currently using hormone therapy (44 percent) and those who had stopped using it (15 percent), compared to those who avoided such therapies.

Although current or previous use of hormone therapies resulted in a 5 percent increase overall -- not a huge number -- women should take into account the high fatality rate among ovarian cancer patients when considering hormone therapy, researchers said.

Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. 302, No. 3, p. 298-305, July 15, 2009

ScienceDaily July 15, 2009

WebMD July 14, 2009

A breast cancer patient's survival could depend on how his or her genetic makeup inhibits the effect of certain chemotherapy treatments including cyclophosphamide, according to a study of some 590 women in Norway and the U.S. A specific variant in the SOD2 gene that produces an important protein guarding against cellular damage from free radicals may lessen the effect of some breast cancer drug therapies.

This variant modifies the function and structure of the MnSOD enzyme (that typically protects cells from damage created by reactive oxygen species that form during cellular metabolism). Previous research has found this enzyme's ability to neutralize these reactive oxygen species may affect the action of some chemotherapy drugs.

This latest study observed the effect of this variation on the survival rates of breast cancer patients who underwent chemotherapy as compared to those who didn't. Although two forms of chemotherapy worsened a female's survival, the presence of the SOD2 gene had no effect on the lifespan of patients receiving no chemo at all. In addition, three different kinds of common chemotherapy drugs also affected the survival rates of breast cancer patients with the SOD2 variant negatively.

Researchers anticipate the development of tests to assist doctors in screening for these variations and targeting safer, more effective chemotherapy strategies.

Clinical Cancer Research, Vol. 15, No. 12, p. 4165-4173, June 15, 2009

Cancer.gov June 9, 2009

Cyclophosphamide (Cytoxan) is a trademark of Micromedex.

Image source: National Cancer Institute

Exposure to dioxins infiltrating the food system may impair a mom's ability, not only to breastfeed her baby, but produce enough milk, and can affect the health of millions of women and their children worldwide, according to a new study.

After tests on the breast tissue of mice exposed to dioxin (created by the incineration of municipal and medical waste that gets scattered by the winds to pollute farms and land where livestock grazes), researchers learned these chemicals may stall the natural development of mammary cells as soon as six days into a pregnancy. Also, the toxic spread of dioxin hindered the early induction of milk-producing genes at the nine-day mark.

The problem stems from dioxins binding to aryl hydrocarbon receptors (AhR) when they enter the body, thus turning on genes specifically geared for detoxification. Unfortunately, this binding limits the body's ability to fight infection. In fact, the damage to cells involved in milk production was so great that mice were unable to feed their offspring.

Researchers were unable to ascertain, for now, if the damage caused by dioxin was focused directly in the breast or over a female's entire body, but manifests itself differently in fatty mammary tissue. Further research will answer those questions as well as determine if there's any link between breast cancer and dioxin.

Toxicological Sciences June 5, 2009

Science Daily June 14, 2009