Sex difference in treatment of substance abuse
Posted by on May 25, 2013 - 2:27pm

Did you know there are differences in the physical, psychological, social, and spiritual effects of substance use and abuse on women and men?  Those differences have implications for treatment in behavioral health settings.  The U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration (SAMHSA)  offers two reports that emphasize  gender-specific research and best practices, such as common patterns of initiation of substance use among women and men and specific treatment issues and strategies.   These reports  demonstrate how important it is to advocate for sex and gender based research across all body systems, something  our Institute is striving to make happen.

Get the Guide Addressing Women   |

Get the Guide Addressing Men

Smoking is a risk factor for tooth loss in older women
Posted by on May 21, 2013 - 2:05pm

Smoking can do more than make your teeth yellow. A study indicates smoking can make teeth go away. Researcher Xiaodan Mai of the University at Buffalo in New York found this in data on about 1,100 postmenopausal women. She compared periodontal disease or gum disease with caries or tooth decay as reasons for tooth loss.

Smoking is an important risk factor for tooth loss in older women.  “The more women smoked, the more likely they are to experience tooth loss due to periodontal disease. This pattern was not seen in tooth loss due to caries.”

Mai says tobacco has chemicals that are bad for periodontal health, and also fosters bacteria that are bad.

The study in the Journal of the American Dental Association was supported by the National Institutes of Health.

To learn more about the side effects of smoking, visit:  http://betobaccofree.hhs.gov/health-effects/smoking-health/index.html

Source:  HHS HealthBeat, May 20, 2013

 

Alcohol and bone density in women
Posted by on May 13, 2013 - 12:25pm

The density of bones, measured as bone mineral density (BMD), is strongly related to osteoporosis.  Elderly women with osteoporosis, in particular, are at increased risk of fractures of the hip, arm, and spine; such fractures often relate to severe disability.  With data on alcohol collected as part of a clinical trial on the prevention of osteoporosis, investigators in Finland have related alcohol consumption to changes over three years in BMD.  After those excluded due to incomplete data, data on 300 women were available for analysis.  The majority of women were abstainers or consumed little alcohol.  Nevertheless, the results support much earlier research: regular, moderate drinking is associated with higher levels of BMD (i.e., lower risk of osteoporotic fractures) than is abstinence.

Data from European surveys have shown that women in Finland tend to have high levels of osteoporosis and to drink very little; hence the increase in BMD associated with alcohol intake, even though slight, could be important in this population.  Over the past three decades, there has been an increase in alcohol consumption in Finland, especially a marked increase in the consumption of wine.  Hence, some Forum reviewers thought that the improvement in BMD among drinkers in this study may have been primarily from wine (which may have additional components, other than alcohol, that relate to BMD).  However, the number of subjects was not large enough to test this hypothesis in the present study.  Overall, this study supports the premise that moderate alcohol intake, along with an adequate calcium intake and vitamin D and exercise, may have a favorable influence on the risk of developing osteoporosis

Forum reviewers, as did the authors, noted a number of limitations of the study: a rather small cohort with a very low intake of alcohol, a short duration of follow up, and rather small differences according to whether the women consumed alcohol or not.

Reference:  Sommer I, Erkkilä AT, Järvinen R, Mursu J, Sirola J, Jurvelin JS, Kröger H, Tuppurainen M.  Alcohol consumption and bone mineral density in elderly women.  Public Health Nutr 2013;16:704-712.  doi: 10.1017/S136898001200331X.

Healthy Feet are Happy Feet
Posted by on May 10, 2013 - 12:17pm

Your feet are pretty small, considering they have to support the entire height and weight of your body. But they can cause big problems. So pay some attention to your feet especially with summer coming and you want to wear those cute sandals!

“Feet don’t get any respect,” says Dr. Marian T. Hannan, who studies foot disorders at the Institute for Aging Research at Hebrew SeniorLife. “They’re sort of the Rodney Dangerfield of the human body.”

Each step you take involves a remarkably intricate network of bones, muscles, tendons and ligaments. That complexity—combined with all the weight they carry—accounts for why feet can be so prone to problems, including bone fractures, arthritis and plantar fasciitis, a swelling of the thick band of tissue that runs along the bottom of the foot.

If left untreated, foot problems may worsen. Eventually, the pain could interfere with your ability to do even the most basic things like walking up stairs or down the street. If pain alters the way you walk, it can lead to pain in your knees, hips and back as well. These problems can multiply, limiting your activity and affecting your quality of life.

Several things can contribute to foot pain or numbness.
  • Sports and physical activity can cause your feet to hurt or become numb.
  • Going too far, too fast or not warming up properly before exercise can set you up for painful or numbing injuries.
  • Excess weight puts extra stress on your feet. Poorly fitting shoes and other footwear are common causes of foot problems as well.

Health problems can also affect the feet. Lack of feeling in your feet could be a sign of a serious illness, such as diabetes or a nerve disorder. See your health care provider if you have unusual numbness in your feet or foot pain that is severe, comes on suddenly, or doesn’t improve with simple measures such as rest or over-the-counter pain medications.

“The good news is that most foot disorders are either treatable or modifiable,” Hannan says. “The first thing that you can do is notice and keep track of it to see if there’s a pattern to it.” Once you figure out when you feel pain or numbness, she explains, talk to an expert who can help.

How you walk and move affects your feet. Part of that is inherited. “Not only do our feet look like our parents’ but we also walk like our parents,” Hannan says. But you can modify your gait—either with training or by changing shoes or using shoe inserts or pads.

You can help keep your feet healthy by wearing comfortable, well-fitting shoes. Wash your feet regularly (especially between your toes), wear clean socks and try to rotate your shoes to give them time to air out.

“The more you exercise your feet, the better the blood flow is to the feet, and that’s important for general foot health,” Hannan says.

Walking is a great way to exercise your feet. You can also try specific foot exercises. Sit down and rotate your ankles in one direction, then the other. In bare feet, sit in a chair and curl your toes, then spread them out. This helps stretch and strengthen your feet to help you balance.

Seeing what someone’s foot looks like is incredibly informative, Hannan says. “I think we’re going to be seeing a lot more health care providers paying attention to the feet,” she predicts.

Valproate taken during pregnancy linked to autism risk.
Posted by on May 8, 2013 - 12:08pm

Women who take valproate (Depacon) during pregnancy may increase the risk of childhood autism and its spectrum disorders in their children, a population-based study showed.

In utero exposure to the drug was associated with a five-fold elevated risk of autism and three-fold elevated risk for autism spectrum disorder, Jakob Christensen, PhD, of Denmark's Aarhus University Hospital, and colleagues found.

The absolute risks were 2.5% and 4.4%, respectively, and remained significantly elevated after adjustment for parents' epilepsy and psychiatric disease, the group reported in the April 24 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

"For women of childbearing potential who use anti-epileptic medications, these findings must be balanced against the treatment benefits for women who require valproate for epilepsy control," they concluded.  But "because autism spectrum disorders are serious conditions with lifelong implications for affected children and their families, even a moderate increase in risk may have major health importance," they added.

The American Academy of Neurology recommends avoiding valproate in pregnancy whenever possible due to cognitive and physical birth defect problems for children exposed in utero.

The additional risk of autism and spectrum disorders needs to be included in counseling for women now too, Kimford Meador, MD, and David Loring, PhD, both of Emory University in Atlanta, recommended in an accompanying editorial.

"Because approximately half of the pregnancies in the U.S. are unplanned, delaying discussions of treatment risks until a pregnancy is considered will leave a substantial number of children at unnecessary risk," they warned. "Women of childbearing potential should be informed of the potential risks of fetal valproate exposure before valproate is prescribed."

The drug has an indication for manic and mixed episodes in bipolar disorder and for migraine prevention in addition to seizure control.

Primary source: Journal of the American Medical Association

 

Women physicians earn less than male physicians
Posted by on May 6, 2013 - 1:19pm

The most recent Physician Compensation Report 2013 published by Medscape continues to show that female physicians earn less than their male counterparts. The following graph shows the gap:

To learn more about the report click HERE.

Understanding brain signals may hold promise for treating post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
Posted by on May 5, 2013 - 12:35pm

When the mind is at rest, the electrical signals by which brain cells communicate appear to travel in reverse, wiping out unimportant information in the process, but sensitizing the cells for future sensory learning, according to a study of rats conducted by researchers at the National Institutes of Health.

The finding has implications not only for studies seeking to help people learn more efficiently, but also for attempts to understand and treat post-traumatic stress disorder — in which the mind has difficulty moving beyond a disturbing experience.

During waking hours, brain cells, or neurons, communicate via high-speed electrical signals that travel the length of the cell. These communications are the foundation for learning. As learning progresses, these signals travel across groups of neurons with increasing rapidity, forming circuits that work together to recall a memory.

During waking hours, electrical signals travel from dendrites — antenna-like projections at one end of the cell — through the cell body releasing chemicals at the other end, stimulating adjacent cells.. When groups of cells repeatedly fire in this way, the electrical signals increase in intensity.  Dr. Olena Bukalo and her team examined electrical signals that traveled in reverse from the cell’s axon, to the cell body, and out its many dendrites. The reverse firing, happens during sleep and at rest, appearing to reset the cell and priming it to learn new information.

It was previously known that, during sleep, these impulses were reversed. In the current study, the researchers found that these reverse signals weakened circuits formed during waking hours, apparently so that unimportant information could be erased from the brain. But the reverse signals also appeared to prime the brain to relearn at least some of the forgotten information. If the animals encountered the same information upon awakening, the circuits re-formed much more rapidly than when they originally encountered the information.

“The brain doesn’t store all the information it encounters, so there must be a mechanism for discarding what isn’t important,” said senior author R. Douglas Fields, Ph.D., head of the Section on Nervous System Development and Plasticity at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), the NIH institute where the research was conducted. “These reverse brain signals appear to be the mechanism by which the brain clears itself of unimportant information.”

Their findings appear in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The researchers studied the activity of rats’ brain cells from the hippocampus, a tube-like structure deep in the brain. The hippocampus relays information to and from many other regions of the brain. It plays an important role in memory, orientation, and navigation.

A graphic illustration of a reverse firing neuron is available at: http://www.nichd.nih.gov/news/releases/Pages/031413-neurons-image.aspx.

Source:  NIH

 

Smoking hazardous to your bones!
Posted by on May 4, 2013 - 12:34pm

Women who smoke have weaker bones than women who don’t. And a study indicates that’s also the case for teenage girls, who may be setting themselves up for weaker bones as they get old according to research Larah Dorn of Cincinnati Children's Hospital where she followed this data on 262 health girls..

The researchers say girls who entered adolescence had about the same bone density whether or not they smoked, but the girls who smoked more had gained less bone at the end of adolescence.  Dorn says that’s especially important because the teen years are crucial for building bone for adulthood:

“You’re really laying what we think is an important foundation for bone health across the lifespan of a woman.”

The study in the Journal of Adolescent Health was supported by the National Institutes of Health.

Learn more at healthfinder.gov.

 

Preventing repeat births for teens
Posted by on May 2, 2013 - 12:30pm

Nearly 1 in 5 teen births are repeat births, about 183 a day.  Many repeat births could be prevented through postpartum use of long-acting reversible contraception (LARC) such as IUDs and implants. Counseling women during prenatal visits about postpartum contraception, and offering women LARC in the hospital after delivery makes it easier for women to avoid unintended pregnancy.

South Carolina’s Medicaid*  [PDF - 27KB] program reimburses for LARC insertion in the hospital before women who have just given birth leave the hospital.

White House Science Fair Supports STEM Initiatives
Posted by on April 29, 2013 - 12:35pm
President Barack Obama talks with Evan Jackson, 10, Alec Jackson, 8, and Caleb Robinson, 8, from McDonough, Ga., while looking at exhibits at the White House Science Fair in the State Dining Room, April 22, 2013. The sports-loving grade-schoolers created a new product concept to keep athletes cool and helps players maintain safe body temperatures on the field. (Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2013/04/22/young-scientists-and-innovator...

On Monday, April 22, the Obama administration demonstrated its continued commitment to fostering the next generation of leaders in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) by hosting the third annual White House Science Fair.  100 students from 40 states showcased their projects in the White House’s public rooms and East Garden to business leaders, celebrities, and, of course, Mr. Obama himself.  Projects on display included a bicycle-powered emergency water sanitation system, a cloud computer program that improves cancer detection, and a fully functional prosthetic arm that cost only $250 to build.

President Obama used the occasion to announce his ‘all hands on deck’ plan to create and expand federal and private-sector initiatives designed to encourage children to study STEM.  The plan places particular focus on the inclusion of women and minority students, and those who are from low-income and military families.  According to Obama, “This is the time to reach a level of research and development that we haven’t seen since the height of the space race.”

In his 2014 budget request, the president asks that $180 million be designated to STEM programs that increase the participation of students (kindergarten through graduate school) from groups that are traditionally underrepresented in these fields. He also requests another $265 million to create a corps of master teachers and support educational entities and businesses focusing on STEM education.  85 million of this money would be put toward the administration’s goal of adding 100,000 math and science teachers over the next 10 years.

Such a strong administrative emphasis on increasing the participation of unrepresented minorities and women in STEM fields is music to the ears of the Women’s Health Research Institute, as our own Women’s Health Science Program (WHSP) strives to do this very thing.  In 2007, Dr. Teresa Woodruff created WHSP to provide science education programs to females from underserved communities in Chicago. WHSP targets young women who are considering careers in science and medicine and prepares them with valuable knowledge and skills to successfully become the next generation of women science leaders. Since 2007, over 150 high school girls from across the Chicago area have participated in one of the WHSP academies.

This summer, WHSP will run two academies: the Infectious Disease Summer Academy (July 8-12) and the Oncofertility Saturday Academy (July 22-26).  Both are open to 10-12th grade female students attending Chicago Public Schools and are designed to encourage and inspire the girls' interest in science and medicine by involving them in hands-on laboratory and clinical activities and pairing them with graduate and medical student mentors.  Tuition for both programs is free, but there are a limited number of spots and students must apply online and, if asked, attend an interview with program directors.  For more information about WHSP and how to apply to the upcoming academies, click here to visit our website.

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