Health News Digest

By Staff Editor
Nov 15, 2011 – 9:37:55 AM

The most common reason U.S. women use oral contraceptive pills is to prevent pregnancy, but 14% of pill users—1.5 million women—rely on them exclusively for noncontraceptive purposes. The study documenting this finding, “Beyond Birth Control: The Overlooked Benefits of Oral Contraceptive Pills,” by Rachel K. Jones of the Guttmacher Institute, also found that more than half (58%) of all pill users rely on the method, at least in part, for purposes other than pregnancy prevention—meaning that only 42% use the pill exclusively for contraceptive reasons.

The study—based on U.S government data from the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG)—revealed that after pregnancy prevention (86%), the most common reasons women use the pill include reducing cramps or menstrual pain (31%); menstrual regulation, which for some women may help prevent migraines and other painful “side effects” of menstruation (28%); treatment of acne (14%); and treatment of endometriosis (4%). Additionally, it found that some 762,000 women who have never had sex use the pill, and they do so almost exclusively (99%) for noncontraceptive reasons.

Menstrual-related disorders and irregular periods are particularly common during adolescence. Not surprisingly, the study found that teens aged 15–19 who use the pill are more likely to do so for non-contraceptive purposes (82%) than for birth control (67%). Moreover, 33% of teen pill users report using oral contraceptive pills solely for noncontraceptive purposes.

“It is well established that oral contraceptives are essential health care because they prevent unintended pregnancies,” said study author Rachel K. Jones. “This study shows that there are other important health reasons why oral contraceptives should be readily available to the millions of women who rely on them each year.”

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Read the complete article and related information at Many American Women Use Birth Control Pills for Noncontraceptive Reasons

New England Journal of Medicine

Robert N. Hoover, M.D., Sc.D., Marianne Hyer, M.S., Ruth M. Pfeiffer, Ph.D., Ervin Adam, M.D., Brian Bond, M.D., Andrea L. Cheville, M.D., Theodore Colton, Sc.D., Patricia Hartge, Sc.D., Elizabeth E. Hatch, Ph.D., Arthur L. Herbst, M.D., Beth Y. Karlan, M.D., Raymond Kaufman, M.D., Kenneth L. Noller, M.D., Julie R. Palmer, Sc.D., Stanley J. Robboy, M.D., Robert C. Saal, M.S.W., William Strohsnitter, D.Sc., Linda Titus-Ernstoff, Ph.D., and Rebecca Troisi, Sc.D.

N Engl J Med 2011; 365:1304-1314October 6, 2011

Supported by the Intramural Research Program of the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics of the National Cancer Institute.

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Yet another medical experiment on women gone bad…

Read the complete article and related information at Adverse Health Outcomes in Women Exposed In Utero to Diethylstilbestrol (DES)

Society for Menstrual Cycle Research

re:cycling

September 8th, 2011 by Elizabeth Kissling

Guest Post by Harriet Hall, M.D.

When women live together, do their menstrual cycles tend to synchronize? It’s been a long time since I first heard that claim. I didn’t believe it, for a number of reasons. I had never observed it myself, I saw no plausible mechanism to explain how it could happen, I thought the statistics to prove it would be problematic and complicated, and I suspected that confirmation bias and selective memory might have persuaded people that a spurious correlation existed. How often do women say “Oh, look! We’re having our periods at the same time”? How often do they say “Oh, look! We’re having our periods at different times”?  Now that many years have passed since my first encounter, I thought it would be fun to revisit the claim and see whether science has supported it or rejected it.

A perusal of PubMed and other Internet sources left me confused and amused.

Synchrony Is Difficult to Define

Consider that the normal menstrual cycle can vary from 21 to 35 days and can last 2 to 7 days. Consider that some women are regular and consistent, while others have variable patterns, even “regularly irregular” patterns. Consider that anovulatory cycles and other conditions often lead to menstrual irregularities that fall outside the normal range. Consider that strenuous exercise and other life events can affect menstruation. Put all that together, and you can see that often cycles will overlap simply by chance, and that it is difficult to define synchrony.

If two women have regular 28 day cycles and 7 day periods, the maximum number of days they could not overlap is 14. On average, their periods will be 7 days apart, and half the time they will be closer.

How could a 21 day cycle ever “synchronize” with a 35 day cycle? For example if you compare a woman with a regular 35 day cycle who starts on January 1 to a woman with a 21 day cycle who starts two weeks later on January 15, their next periods will coincide almost perfectly (Feb 4-10 and Feb 5-11) but they will diverge after that. Would it count if the last day of one woman’s period overlapped with the first day of another woman’s? What if half the periods coincide and half don’t? The whole thing is problematic.

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Read the complete article and related information at Do Girls Who Flow Together Go Together?

Prevent Disease

The Economist reported this week that falling fertility rates around the world spell doom for many countries as the single life appeals to more women than replacing themselves through children.

For hundreds of years, the world’s population has grown steadily. But demographers now believe that within several decades, the number of people on earth will actually begin to decline.     Women in the wealthier parts of Asia, for example, are literally on a “marriage strike” leading to a drop in birth rates.

The United Nations reports women in 83 countries and territories around the globe won’t have enough daughters to replace themselves unless fertility rates suddenly rise.

“What we’re seeing now in many countries is the drop in fertility is so fast, it’s literally without precedent in human history,” said Phil Longman, a demographer at the New America Foundation research group in Washington D.C.

“What it’s going to mean is that countries like China for example, are going to age in a single generation as much as countries like France aged in 150 years,” said Mr. Longman.

Fertility specialist Rima Abdul said there are several reasons for the decline. “We have increased pollution, increased toxins in the food supply and its packaging, increased toxins in our water supply, and increased toxins in pharmaceutical drugs and vaccinations which all inevitably leads to a decrease in fertility rates in developed nations,” she said.

Sub-replacement fertility is a total fertility rate (TFR) that (if sustained) leads to each new generation being less populous than the previous one in a given area. In developed countries sub-replacement fertility is any rate below approximately 2.1 children born per woman, but the threshold can be as high as 3.4 in some developing countries because of higher mortality rates.

The total fertility rate (TFR, sometimes also called the fertility rate, period total fertility rate (PTFR) or total period fertility rate (TPFR)) of a population is the average number of children that would be born to a woman over her lifetime if (1) she were to experience the exact current age-specific fertility rates (ASFRs) through her lifetime, and (2) she were to survive from birth through the end of her reproductive life.

A population that maintained a TFR of 2.0 over a long time would decline (unless it had a large enough immigration). However, it may take several generations for a change in the total fertility rate to be reflected in birth rate, because the age distribution must reach equilibrium.

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Read the complete article and related information at Falling Fertility Rates Around The World Will Cause Mass Depopulation

08.15.11 Author Rachel Lehmann- Haupt will join me to discuss her book  ‘In Her Own Sweet Time – Unexpected Adventures in Finding Love, Commitment and Motherhood‘ on Holy Hormones Honey Radio on KRFC FM on Monday August 15.

At thirty-one, Rachel Lehmann-Haupt thought she had everything: the perfect boyfriend, an exciting career, and the promise of marriage and children in her future. But one year later, the relationship ended and she found herself starting over, consumed by a rapidly approaching deadline: age thirty-five, the dividing line between a regular and a “high risk” pregnancy. Lehmann-Haupt explores fertility options for women who’s ‘biological clock’s are running out.  Her book is a fascinating trip through a brave new world of technologically enhanced maternity.

Rachel Lehmann-Haupt is also an essayist and journalist. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Newsweek, The New York Observer, New York, Outside, Salon.com, Self, Vogue, Business Week, O magazine, and Alternet.com. She holds a BA in English Literature from Kenyon College, and an MA from The Graduate School of Journalism at The University of California at Berkeley. She has also written a column for MSN Money and served as executive editor of Plum magazine. She lives in the West Village in Manhattan.

Tune in at http://www.krfcfm.org and listen via audio stream between 6 to 7 pm MST.

Read the complete article and related information at Fertility options for women who’s ‘biological clock’s are running out – Tonight on Holy Hormones Honey!

The Women’s Media Center

By Dr. Sharon Ufberg

August 1, 2011

Authored by Lisa Cosgrove of the Harvard Center for Ethics, a recent statistical analysis of studies assessing the relationship between breast and ovarian cancer and antidepressant drug use finds possible link.

Are you one of the thousands of women currently taking antidepressants? A recent review indicates that these medications are not risk free, particularly for women.

The analysis of published studies suggests a link between breast and ovarian cancer and antidepressant drug usage. The review, which found an 11 percent increased risk overall in both breast and ovarian cancer for patients taking such medication, points to a need for further investigation, particularly since the results varied widely depending on who funded the research.

“I would want to consider nondrug treatment if I was mildly depressed, given our data,” said Lisa Cosgrove of the Harvard Center for Ethics, who led the review of 61 studies. The increased risk was indicated with even short term or low dosage use of the medicine, and the link appeared strongest in cases of the widely used SSRI class of antidepressants (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors).

Women are given a diagnosis of depression two times more often than men, and with over 11 percent of the United States population on antidepressant drugs, these new findings should have everyone concerned. In today’s “quick fix” world of medicine, antidepressants are prescribed for many conditions besides signs of depression. The wide range of other symptoms include headaches, neck and back pain, eating disorders, anxiety, fibromyalgia, and—even more unsettling given the link suggested by the review—often for hot flashes for women who have had breast cancer and cannot take estrogen.

What is also disturbing is that the research results vary widely depending on whether a study was funded by the pharmaceutical industry or considered “clean” research—research done with no ties to BigPharma. Not one study funded by the pharmaceutical industry reported a link between breast and ovarian cancer and the use of antidepressants. However, the “clean” research reported a 43 percent link between antidepressants and increased risk of the two types of cancer. One must wonder, how is it possible that not one of the industry funded studies yielded any linkage?

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More information on this study:

Antidepressants and breast and ovarian cancer risk: a review of the literature and researchers’ financial associations with industry.http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21494667

Read the complete article and related information at EXCLUSIVE: Antidepressants and Breast, Ovarian Cancer Link Suggested

When is the right time to have “The Talk” with your child? This week’s topic suggested by Wakefield Patch reader Melissa.

Wakefield Patch

August 2011

Tasha Schlake Festel
Anyone who knows me knows I’ll talk about pretty much anything, anytime, anywhere… often to my husband’s chagrin. This generally applies to my children as well. However, to be honest, prior to this week’s topic, I hadn’t spent a lot of time considering how I was going to discuss sex with my kids. They’re 5 and 7. Sex isn’t on my radar for impending discussions, unlike “you may not hit in kindergarten” and “there is a difference between being honest and being a jerk.”

While knowledge is power and all that hoo-hah, I’m OK with my children not being too powerful in this particular area until they’re a bit older. I know some people think sex ed should start at birth, but I gotta say, I don’t agree. My kids are young. They are not sheltered, but I do try to control their access to certain information, sex and violence being the top two categories. I will answer questions when asked and do so as honestly and as completely as I think their young minds can process. But I’m not going to have a little sit-down quite yet.

Both kids know about their body parts and how they are different across the genders, they know what is private and what isn’t (however keeping the private things private proves to be difficult for my 5-year-old son sometimes!) they know that no one has a right to touch their bodies without their permission, and my 7-year-old daughter knows the basics about menstruation.

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Read the complete article and related information at “Mommy, Where Do Babies Come From?” Time for “The Talk”

EducateYourself.org

By J.A. Miller, correspondent for Human Life International.
http://educate-yourself.org/vcd/vcdvaccineslacedwithbirthcontrol.shtml
June/July 1995

Originally published in HLI Reports, Human Life International, Gaithersburg, Maryland; June/July 1995, Volume 13, Number 8

Are New Vaccines Laced With Birth-Control Drugs?

During the early 1990s, the World Health Organization (WHO) has been overseeing massive vaccination campaigns against  tetanus in a number of countries, among them Nicaragua, Mexico, and the Philippines. In October 1994, HLI received a communication from its Mexican affiliate, the Comite’ Pro Vida de Mexico, regarding that country’s anti-tetanus campaign. Suspicious of the campaign protocols, the Comite’ obtained several vials of the vaccine and had them analyzed by chemists. Some of the vials were found to contain human chorionic gonadotrophin (hCG), a naturally occurring hormone essential for maintaining a pregnancy.

hCG and Anti-hCG Antibodies

In nature the hCG hormone alerts the woman’s body that she is pregnant and causes the release of other hormones to prepare the uterine lining for the implantation of the fertilized egg. The rapid rise in hCG levels after conception makes it an excellent marker for confirmation of pregnancy: when a woman takes a pregnancy test she is not tested for the pregnancy itself, but for the elevated presence of hCG.

However, when introduced into the body coupled with a tetanus toxoid carrier, antibodies will be formed not only against tetanus but also against hCG. In this case the body fails to recognize hCG as a friend and will produce anti-hCG antibodies.  The antibodies will attack subsequent pregnancies by killing the hCG which naturally sustains a pregnancy; when a woman has  sufficient anti-hCG antibodies in her system, she is rendered incapable of maintaining a pregnancy.(1)

HLI reported the sketchy facts regarding the Mexican tetanus vaccines to its World Council members and affiliates in more than 60 countries.(2) Soon additional reports of vaccines laced with hCG hormones began to drift in from the Philippines, where more than 3.4 million women were recently vaccinated. Similar reports came from Nicaragua, which had conducted its own vaccination campaign in 1993.

The Known Facts

Here are the known facts concerning the tetanus vaccination campaigns in Mexico and the Philippines:

* Only women are vaccinated, and only the women between the ages of 15 and 45. (In Nicaragua the age range was 12-49.) But aren’t men at least as likely as young women to come into contact with tetanus? And what of the children? Why are they excluded?

* Human chorionic gonadotrophin (hCG) hormone has been found in the vaccines. It does not belong there — in the parlance of the O.J. Simpson murder trial, the vaccine has been “contaminated.”

* The vaccination protocols call for multiple injections — three within three months and a total of five altogether. But, since tetanus vaccinations provide protection for ten years or more, why are multiple inoculations called for?(3)

* WHO has been actively involved for more than 20 years in the development of an anti-fertility vaccine utilizing hCG tied to tetanus toxoid as a carrier — the exact same coupling as has been found in the Mexican-Philippine-Nicaragua vaccines.(4)

The Anti-Fertility Gang

Allied with the WHO in the development of an anti-fertility vaccine (AFV) using hCG with tetanus and other carriers have been UNFPA, the UN Development Programme (UNDP), the World Bank, the Population Council, the Rockefeller Foundation, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, and a number of universities, including Uppsala, Helsinki, and Ohio State.(5) The U.S. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (part of NIH) was the supplier of the hCG hormone in some of the AFV experiments.(6)

The WHO begain its “Special Programme” in human reproduction in 1972, and by 1993 had spent more than $356 million on ”reproductive health” research.(7) It is this “Programme” which has pioneered the development of the abortificant vaccine. Over $90 million of this Programme’s funds were contributed by Sweden; Great Britain donated more than $52 million, while Norway, Denmark and Germany kicked in for $41 million , $27 million, and $12 million, respectively. The U.S., thanks to the cut-off of such funding during the Reagan-Bush administrations, has contributed “only” $5.7 million, including a new payment in  1993 by the Clinton administration of $2.5 million. Other major contibutors to the WHO Programme include UNFPA, $61  million; the World Bank, $15.5 million; the Rockefeller Foundation, $2.5 million; the Ford Foundation, over $1 million; and the IDRC (International Research and Development Centre of Canada), $716.5 thousand.

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Read the complete article and related information at Are New Vaccines Laced With Birth-Control Drugs?

The Telegraph
United Kingdom

By Judith Potts Health and lifestyle
Last updated: July 27th, 2011

The believed causes of breast cancer are myriad and well-documented – family history; age; time and type of menopause (i.e. natural or induced by surgery where ovaries are removed); whether or not the woman has had children; over-indulgence of alcohol; smoking; HRT; a compromised immune system etc. To this long list has just been added the height of the person, the age at which a woman began menstruating and – perhaps most crucially – obesity.

Breast cancer is not just one cancer. Information on the CancerHelp website gives 16 different types – 17 if you include breast cancer in men as a type on its own. This latter form of the disease has its own causes, among which are environmental influences, lifestyle and genetic factors. The majority of breast cancers found in men are oestrogen receptive.

Oxford University’s study concludes that “the chances of developing breast cancer rise by 16 per cent for every 4 inches in height”. Apparently, this is due to the high levels of growth hormones in taller women, who are 28 per cent more likely to develop oestrogen-dependent breast cancer. I wonder – does this apply to breast cancer in men too?

In May, the latest batch of results from the Breakthrough Breast Cancer’s “Generations” study (which is looking at 110,000 women over 40 years to pin-point the causes of breast cancer) were published. The conclusion (in association with the Institute of Cancer Research) – published in the journal of Paediatric and Perinatal Epidemiology – is that girls from poorer backgrounds are beginning to menstruate almost a year earlier than girls from more affluent families. The earlier that a girl begins to menstruate, the more chance she has of developing breast cancer because her body will be exposed to oestrogen for a longer time. One of the reasons given for the drop in the age of menarche is that girls from less affluent backgrounds are more likely to be carrying too much weight and not exercising on a regular basis. It has been suggested that, by encouraging a child to take regular exercise, the onset of menstruation may be delayed – and, of course, the extra pounds shed.

Figures show that one in five women in the UK is now so overweight that their health is at risk – obesity has more influence on hormone levels than does alcohol or smoking. Were all these women overweight as children? Fat tissue secretes oestrogen and research shows that obese women have 50 per cent higher levels of oestrogen in their bodies – hence the greater chance of developing certain types of breast cancer. Does this mean that post-menopausal women who are also obese have little chance of not developing the disease?

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Read the complete article and related information at Should GPs lead the way in facing the facts about obesity and its link to breast cancer?

Mail Online
United Kingdom

By Jo Waters
Last updated at 11:32 PM on 18th July 2011

Kirsty Baranowski stood in the middle of the road hammering on a taxi driver’s windscreen. She was incandescent with rage because he’d suddenly pulled out in front of her.

The outburst was completely out of character, but for 20 years she had been battling with violent mood swings in the run-up to her period.

‘Normally, I was mild mannered,’ says Kirsty, 41, who lives in Southfields, South-West London, with her children, Alexander, ten, and Sophia, nine.

Read the complete article and related information at The women told they’re mentally ill when they are really crippled by period pain