The study focused on Pill use by 14 to 18-year-old teenagers and looked at how bone density might change when a woman stops using the Pill. Delia Scholes, PhD, led the study and said that as hormones are a key component of bone health it made sense to study hormonal contraceptives. These are a major source of external hormones for women and the Pill is the most common birth control method worldwide.

A woman’s risk of fractures later in life is influenced by the bone mass she gains in her teens and her 20s, and this age group has the highest use of oral contraceptives. The study’s researchers measured hip, spine, and whole-body bone densities in 301 teenagers aged 14-18, and in 305 young adult women aged 19-30. They measured the bone densities of 389 participants using oral contraceptives with the two most commonly prescribed estrogen doses in Pills: 20-25 micrograms and 30-35 micrograms. These were compared to 217 similar women who were not using this method of contraception. Bone density measurements were taken at the start of the study, and every 6 months for 2 to 3 years. During that time, 172 oral contraceptive users stopped taking the medication, allowing the researchers to measure bone changes after Pill use was discontinued.

They found that after two years, teens who used the 30-35 microgram Pills showed about 1% less gain in bone density at both the spine and whole body sites than teens who did not use hormonal contraceptives. Any differences in bone density between users and non-users of oral contraceptives were less than 2%, and were seen only after two or more years of use, and only at some measured sites. At 12-24 months after stopping, young adult women who used either Pill dose showed small bone density losses at the spine compared to small gains in women who did not take oral contraceptives.

This may seem like a small loss of bone, but its impact in later life could be considerable. The researchers found that additional studies are needed, including looking at bone changes for a longer time after Pill use is discontinued so they can more accurately evaluate how oral contraceptive use is related to fracture risk.

For any young woman with a family history of osteoporosis, this finding is significant in terms of making a sensible contraceptive choice that will not adversely affect their long-term bone health. Additionally, taking extra precautions to optimise bone strength such as weight bearing exercise and ensuring progesterone levels are adequate would be a sensible plan throughout the teens and twenties.

If you ask around amongst your female friends the range at which their periods began can be quite wide from as young as 9 to the late teens.  Now it seems that genetic makeup explains more than half of the variation between UK women’s ages at first period, according to a study of almost 26,000 women.   The age at which girls periods begin is known to run in families but the balance of genetic and environmental influences on this has been unclear.

Scientists at The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) analysed data from women participating in the Breakthrough Generations Study – a major UK-wide investigation into the causes of breast cancer – who had at least one other female relative also taking part.  What they found was that a woman’s age when beginning menstruation was significantly correlated with that of her relatives. For each 12 month delay in the age at which an older sister, mother or paternal aunt began their periods, there was a delay of around three months on average for the younger relative.  When the relative was a maternal grandmother or maternal aunt the delay in the younger relative was about 1.5 months and, not surprisingly, the age at which period began is also strongly correlated between twins, particularly identical twins.

Why does it matter?

The age at which menstruation begins is important because it has been linked to the risk of a number of chronic diseases including breast cancer.  This risk gradually increases with progressively younger age at menstruation and older age at menopause, possibly because women are exposed to female sex hormones for a longer period of time. Each two year delay in menstruation is associated with an estimated 10 per cent reduction in the relative risk of breast cancer.   This is important for the following reasons:

•           Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in the UK – nearly 46,000 women and around 300 men are diagnosed every year

•           Breast cancer accounts for nearly one in three of all female cancers

•           More than 1,000 women die of breast cancer every month in the UK

If you know that these risk factors apply to you then it is important that you take all possible precautions to ensure your risk is lowered as much as it can be.  The good news is that more women than ever in the UK are surviving breast cancer thanks to better awareness, better treatments and better screening.  This includes having a sensible anti-estrogenic diet and   minimising exposure to it by avoiding where possible sources such as the contraceptive pill and HRT.

Raw pine pollen is the richest seedbed of testosterone derived from plants; since it is the male sperm of pine trees, it fosters plush growth in all living creatures, from trees and plants, to animals, to humans. Some experts claim that pine pollen is an ingredient in certain pharmaceuticals designed to treat low testosterone levels in both men and women.

Low testosterone in either men or women may cause an increase in cholesterol levels, premature aging, tissue and bone loss, highs and lows in blood sugar levels, decreased levels of aerobic energy, weight gain, and sexual dysfunction. In men, low testosterone may increase their chances for developing prostate cancer due to the simultaneous increase in estradiol in the body.

The reasons for low testosterone in either sex are varied. For men, the largest contributing factors are nutritional intake and age. In their 30s and 40s, males typically experience andropause, a term coined in the late 1960s, meaning male menopause, or a decline in the synthesis of androgenic hormones, especially testosterone. Nutrition-related onset of lower testosterone levels in both men and women is typically due to an over consumption of foods with too much phyto-estrogen for the body.

Pine pollen can provide the opportunity for endocrine hormonal balance, i.e. the ratio of testosterone to estrogen, within humans, thus reversing the troubling effects associated with the imbalances that cause quality of life to decrease. This is done mainly through the phyto-androgens in pine pollen, including androstenedione, testosterone, dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA), and androsterone. The conditions of diabetes, high cholesterol and fatigue have all been improved through the biological and nutritional mechanisms provided by routine consumption of pine pollen.

Raw, natural pine pollen is considered part of a nutritional program aimed at boosting energy and vitality during the aging process, and as such, consumers may experience an overhaul of their entire physiological system. Pine pollen is not a medicine, per se; however, some men use this nutrient-dense natural substance to successfully increase sperm count through more balanced hormones.

Outside of a stronger sexual libido due to more testosterone in men, pine pollen advocates tout skin rejuvenation, improved immune systems and other anti-aging benefits of continued supplementation. Some elements within pine pollen even work to detoxify cells by breaking down toxins in the body.

Many consumers wonder about endocrine shutdown with pine pollen. Endocrine shutdown occurs when the glands atrophy due to the fact that they are not being used. If the gland detects enough of a certain hormone, it will cease production, and eventually atrophy or shrink. This can happen with overuse of steroids or man-made hormones because these are molecularly identical to those that the body produces. Pine pollen’s molecular structure, i.e. the androgens, is not identical to that of the body; however, it is similar enough to produce beneficial health effects, without the risk of gland cessation of production.

Pine pollen is easily absorbed by the body when taken in powder or tincture form. If the powder taste is not palatable, pine pollen can be mixed in drinks. The tincture form is considered more potent and uses organic grape alcohol as its liquid base.

For more information on raw food visit Alex’s website at: www.RawGuru.com

Ovarian cancer is created by the abnormal and uncontrolled growth of cells and it can spread more widely in the stomach through the bloodstream or the lymph system where it can grow here and form secondary tumours.

There are two main types of ovarian cancer. The most common (9 out of 10) is epithelial that affects the lining of the ovaries.   There are several different types of epithelial ovarian cancer including the two most common – serous and endometrioid. Non-epithelial ovarian cancer is much less common. These include germ cell cancers that form from the cells in the ovary that make the eggs. These usually affect younger women.

Symptoms of ovarian cancer
One of the major problems in diagnosing ovarian cancer is that there are very few, if any, symptoms in the early stages which is why it is known as the ’silent killer’.  Late detection is one reason why ovarian cancer is notoriously difficult to treat and the American Cancer Society estimates that 22,000 women in the United States are diagnosed with HGSOC each year, and 14,000 die of it. Worldwide, the incidence approaches 200,000 women with 115,000 deaths each year.

If there are symptoms, they can include stomach pain or a bloated feeling that can be confused with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). Ovarian cysts and non-cancerous growths also cause the same symptoms as ovarian cancer.

Other symptoms include:
• loss of appetite
• unexplained weight gain
• swelling of your abdomen (tummy)
• pain during sex
• changes in bowel or bladder habits
• rarely, abnormal vaginal bleeding

Causes of ovarian cancer
We do not know Doctors don’t know precisely what causes ovarian cancer, but there are some things that seem to make it more likely. It’s more common in women who live in developed countries and for those who have gone through the menopause.  Other factors that have an impact include being on hormone replacement therapy (HRT) – particularly for longer than five years – endometriosis, being overweight (in pre-menopausal women) and
starting your periods early and having the menopause late.

Impact of the new research
Dana-Farber scientists have developed a laboratory model that mimics the process by which fallopian tube cells may turn into cancer cells that appear to have come from the ovaries. Their demonstration that this process can happen in the lab is powerful evidence that it does happen in patients, throwing new weight behind the theory that HGSOC begins, in fact, in the fallopian tubes and not in the ovaries as was previously believed.

This previous belief was founded on examinations of fallopian tubes surgically removed from women with a genetic predisposition to ovarian cancer and areas of the tubes adjacent to the ovary often had patches of cells that were predecessors of serous cancers. But to convincingly show that these cells are the source of high-grade serous ovarian cancer, the scientists needed to trace each step of the disease’s development and believe that their model provides that kind of demonstration.

The origins of HGSOC have been so difficult to track down because of the insidious nature of the disease. Ovarian tumors often establish themselves without producing any warning symptoms and so by the time the disease is discovered, the ovaries can be so overrun with cancer that adjacent sections of the fallopian tube are obscured, making them difficult to examine under a microscope.  Dana-Farber researchers created a laboratory model for studying the lining of the fallopian tubes by using tissue from women who had had their fallopian tubes removed for reasons unrelated to cancer.  Thus they were able to establish a model that mirrors the structure and function of normal fallopian tube tissue in the body.

Studies such as these will help us identify different types of high-grade serous ovarian cancer, as well as possibly discover biomarkers — proteins in the blood — that signal the presence of the disease. Ultimately, the model will enable researchers to test potential therapies to determine which work best in each type of the disease.

A history of irregular periods, over strenuous exercise or going on crash diets can serve as an early warning to take care of your bones. If you are on the small side, with small bones, and under 130 pounds you have less bone mass to begin with, so need to be particularly vigilant. about their bone health.

A diet deficient in vitamin D and calcium, phosphorous, magnesium, vitamin K, vitamin B6, and vitamin B12 also constitute a higher risk as all are important to bone growth.  If you drink a lot of caffeine and carbonated drinks that also increases the risk, particularly caffeine as it limits how well your body absorbs calcium.

Now it seems there is a new risk as recent research led by Hiroshi Takayanagi, at Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Japan, has suggested that the imbalance between bone formation and bone destruction that causes osteoporosis is a result of a decrease in formation of bone forming osteoblast cells from mesenchymal cells upon aging.

This research was done on mice, not humans, but they believe this provides insight into this decrease and might provide new avenues of research for those developing approaches to treat age-related osteoporosis.

Aging disrupts many of the body’s systems and not it seems it disrupts the balance between bone formation and bone destruction, resulting in osteoporosis, which is characterized by reduced bone mass and increased risk of fracture.  This research has highlighted as we get older that there is a decrease in formation of bone forming osteoblast cells from mesenchymal cells and instead, these cells form more fat cells.

Most of us we have more fat cells as we get older, but very few will realised its potential effect on osteoporosis. Laurie McCauley, at the University of Michigan, who commented on the research, believes this data could lead to new approaches to treat age-related osteoporosis.

Assessing this as a new risk factor was the study’s lead author, Miriam A. Bredella, M.D., a radiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and assistant professor of radiology at Harvard Medical School in Boston.  Obesity in itself is of course a health problem worldwide, particularly in the West, with approximately 72 million American adults considered obese: this is defined as having a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or more.

Just as not all snow is the same when it comes to disrupting the trains, not all body fat is identical either. Subcutaneous fat lies just below the skin, and visceral or intra-abdominal fat is located deep under the muscle tissue in the abdominal cavity. Genetics, diet and exercise are all contributors to the level of visceral fat that is stored in the body and it is considered particularly dangerous, because in previous studies it has been associated with increased risk for heart disease.

I should say upfront that this is a small study as they only evaluated the abdominal subcutaneous, visceral and total fat, as well as bone marrow fat and bone mineral density, in 50 premenopausal women with a mean BMI of 30.   However, the imaging revealed that women with more visceral fat had increased bone marrow fat and decreased bone mineral density but there was no significant correlation between either subcutaneous fat or total fat and bone marrow fat or bone mineral density.

If you tend to put on your weight around your hips, as opposed to your belly, then aesthetically you may not like it, but it not as detrimental to bone health as having more superficial fat or fat around the hips.

While osteopororosis bone loss is more common in women, men are certainly not exempt and so the research team is currently conducting a study to determine whether belly fat is also a risk factor for bone loss in men.

This is a process called ‘genomic imprinting’ and is related to the fact that, historically, women moved about more than men.  This means that they are less related to their neighbours, and that our paternal and maternal genes are in conflict over how we should behave.

Dr Andy Gardner of Oxford University’s Department of Zoology, an author of the report explains it thus: ‘When women disperse more during their lifetime than men, as seems to be the case for ancestral humans, this leads to you being more related to your neighbours through your father than through your mother.’

The result is that our paternal genes encourage us to be altruistic whilst our maternal genes encourage us to be selfish.   Not unnaturally, this leads to conflicts over social behaviour: the genes you receive from your father are telling you to be kind to your neighbours, whereas the genes you receive from your mother,  try to make you act selfishly.’

It is not generally the view we have of our mothers, seeing them all as the compassionate and self-sacrificing kind, but if you are someone who has always battled against being selfish (though personally I’ve never seen anything wrong with it) then Dr Gardner has some reassuring news for you.  He said: ‘What our research reveals is that the popular idea of someone battling their psychological ‘demons’, that are telling them to behave in a selfish way, has some basis in our genetic makeup – we are all coalitions of conflicting genes.’

So next time you are fighting for the remote control just smile sweetly and say it’s all the fault of your mother – telling someone you are a coalition of conflict in genes has got to be worth a try as well.

Let me know how you get on!

We know this because of the very first academic analysis of 1500 documents unsealed in a lawsuit against pharmaceutical giant Wyeth (now part of Pfizer). The litigation was filed in July 2009 against menopausal hormone manufacturers by 14,000 women whose claims related to the development of breast cancer while taking the hormone therapy Prempro (conjugated equine estrogens – horse urine to you and me).  The case itself has been well documented, and the facts that were revealed during it came as quite a shock and it is that disquiet which is behind the US federal court decision to release the documents to the public.

An investigation of these documents by Dr. Adriane Fugh-Berman, associate professor in the Department of Physiology at Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington DC was just published in PLoS Medicine. She analyzed dozens of ghostwritten reviews and commentaries about Prempro which were published in medical journals and journal supplements. Her conclusion?

“facts were manipulated within the articles to promote unproven benefits and to downplay the harms of Prempro. What’s more, the articles were deliberately written in a way to place any competing therapies in a negative light.”

No prizes for guessing what those competing therapies were — the pharmaceutical companies have never been keen on alternatives to HRT such as bio-identical natural hormones like progesterone.  These articles were widely circulated to physicians directly and also to the drug salesmen who represent the products of pharmaceutical companies like Wyeth.  They were used to convince doctors that Prempro was a good product and to inform them about how and why it should be given to menopausal women.  It was certainly effective as a campaign because it was enthusiastically prescribed by doctors and resulted in millions of packs of Prempro being sold.
Just why did doctors fall for this?  The simple answer is that the information was presented to them in a form that they trusted — that is as respectable research and scientific reports.  The problem is that any original research was ‘spun’ so that they received a misleading account of both the benefits and drawbacks to the drug.  This was done by hiring DesignWrite, a medical education and communication company to produce ghostwritten articles that took the basic research and in many cases turned it on its head.

Well what is wrong with a bit of creative writing?  As a writer and creative coach myself I could say nothing at all, but there is a great deal that is seriously wrong when it comes to distorting the facts that potentially have fatal effects on women’s health.  How did they do this?

Firstly, the ghostwriters were told to mitigate the perceived risks of breast cancer associated with it and also to defend and promote alleged cardiovascular benefits of HRT.   Alleged is certainly right as the supposed facts presented were unsupported by scientific evidence and in fact the reverse was certainly already known; that there are risks associated with HRT and cardiovascular disease.

Secondly, Wyeth also used ghostwriters to promote a range of other conditions for which HRT might be beneficial and for which there is absolutely no proof whatsoever such as the prevention of dementia, Parkinson’s disease, vision problems, and even wrinkles.  This aspect of their work is certainly well known to me, as at one time I seriously considered writing a small pamphlet entitled “101 uses of HRT you never knew about” because every time there was any negative press about HRT a positive report for a previously unknown use would hit the media the following week.
So why would they go to all this trouble?  The answer of course, as ever, is profit because these misleading reports enabled them to sell a great deal more of their product.  It was certainly a profitable business for the ghostwriters as just for Prempro alone they were paid between $20-$25,000 an article and in total produced 20 articles which reflected the positive spin that Wyeth wanted to have put on their product.

Last Word
I will leave it to Dr. Adriane Fugh-Berman to have the last word, and this is what she concluded in her study:

“Given the growing evidence that ghostwriting has been used to promote HRT and other highly promoted drugs, the medical profession must take steps to ensure that prescribers renounce participation in ghostwriting, and to ensure that unscrupulous relationships between industry and academia are avoided rather than courted,”

I couldn’t have put it better myself.

This has certainly been successful for many women in helping them to lose weight but it now appears that particularly for menopausal and postmenopausal women it could cause problems in terms of bone loss.

New research from Purdue University published online in the Journal of Gerontology: Medical Sciences has established a link between such diets and an increased likelihood of bone loss leading to osteoporosis. Currently, 1 in 3 women and one in 12 over the age of 50 suffer from osteoporosis. And osteoarthritis affects around 8 million people in the UK over the age of 40.

It is known that when overweight, postmenopausal women reduce their energy intake to successfully lose weight, they can lose less lean body mass if they consume higher amounts of protein particularly of lean meats, such as pork, beef and chicken, in their diet. Wayne W. Campbell, professor of foods and nutrition at Purdue, stated that they also found that “these older women lost bone mineral density faster than women who consumed normal protein diets that did not contain any meats. This finding is of concern for this age group as they are more susceptible to osteoporosis.”

These studies are only small in scale. The first one studied 28 women’s individual daily diets which they then reduced by 750 calories to achieve a one-and-one-half-pound weight loss each week for 12 weeks. The  women ranged in age from 43-80 with 15 on meat-free diets with protein from vegetarian, dairy and egg sources, and this made up 18 percent of each woman’s energy intake. This amount of protein was comparable to the recommended dietary allowance of 0.36 grams of protein per pound of body weight per day.

The diets for the other 13 women included 30 percent of energy from protein with 40 percent of the protein from lean meats and 60 percent of the protein from vegetarian, dairy and eggs. The good news is that the women, on average, lost about 19 pounds each, but unfortunately those who ate the higher-protein, meat-containing, diet lost bone mineral density as well.

The second study was larger and consisted of 43 postmenopausal women who each ate a 1,250-calorie diet for nine weeks. All participants consumed the same 1,000-calorie vegetarian diet, but 15 women also received 250 calories from chicken breast meat, 14 women received 250 calories from beef and 14 women received 250 calories from shortbread cookies and sugar-coated chocolates.

Although the cookie and chocolate part of the diet certainly sounds more like my kind of calories, what this study produced was that again all of the women who ate the energy-reduced diets successfully lost weight, but the groups that consumed the higher-protein meat-containing diets also lost bone mineral density compared to the control group.

Certainly losing weight is a good goal if you are overweight, but it does seem that specifically for older women who may be overweight and menopausal that the protein diet is not perhaps the healthiest way to go. Research shows that older women are at risk of losing bone when they lose weight, and if you have any concerns about osteoporosis – or family history of it – then you might want to consider a vegetarian high protein diet or another regime that will lose the weight without losing the bone mass.

A very simple self-help tip is to get on those boots and walk every day as it is one of the best methods of helping build up bone mass and avoiding painful conditions like arthritis.

Another factor to bear in mind is that both of these studies were relatively short at just nine and 12 weeks respectively so it is not possible to say definitively what the long-term effect of high protein diets might be if they had studied this over a longer period.

Research presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behaviour – which I suspect is something to do with food or at least what we put into our bodies – has recently reported that a diet rich in soy prevents weight gain in post-menopausal female rats.

Now I have nothing against soy, indeed it’s extremely helpful for many women during menopause and some find it particularly good for hot flashes, but it is the reasoning behind the claim that has puzzled me. They are saying that previous research suggests that reduced levels of the hormone oestrogen during menopause are responsible for the increased body weight and abdominal fat often experienced by postmenopausal women.

As oestrogen is the hormone responsible for adding to our womanly curves I am not quite following the logic here. They do admit that while oestrogen replacement therapies can reduce weight gain, they also have unwelcome side effects, prompting a search for alternative methods of treatment.

Now, as I understand it, women continue to make oestrogen during menopause to compensate for the lack of it from the ovaries. It is made from our adrenal glands and from fat cells, so that a small amount of weight gain at menopause is nature’s way of making up for any deficiency.

We’re back to balance, as menopause is the time when some weight gain will be helpful so dieting frantically is not the answer as being ultra-slim will not have health benefits in the long run. Of course being a seriously overweight isn’t healthy either and what these researchers have found (in postmenopausal rats) is decreased body weight and increased energy expenditure after adding soy phytoestrogens to their regular diet.

One of the researchers, Michelle Murphy from the Monell Chemical Senses Center, Philadelphia, commented “These results have implications for the development of alternative natural treatments for obesity in post-menopausal women. The results of this study highlight the need for further research into the actions of phytoestrogens on food intake in humans to determine the more long-term effects of consuming a soy-rich diet. In this world of an ever-increasing obesity epidemic, finding natural dietary solutions and treatments to combat obesity are of the utmost importance both to worldwide health and the economy.”

Well, obesity is certainly not confined to postmenopausal women and concentrating solely on phytoestrogens is, I think, not really the answer. By all means add soy to your diet but remember that soy products themselves are not necessarily slimming and it might be better instead to focus on improving your overall diet and that old tried and true method of regular, enjoyable, exercise.

Unless of course you think that you and a menopausal rat have something in common.