Tag Archives: women

New Study Suggests Link Between Estrogen, Blood Pressure

EAST LANSING, Mich. — While recent studies have shown long-term exposure to estrogen can be a danger to women – overturning physicians’ long-held beliefs that the hormone was good for their patients’ hearts – the process by which estrogen induces high blood pressure was unclear.

In a new study, Michigan State University researchers found long-term estrogen exposure generates excessive levels of the compound superoxide, which causes stress in the body. The buildup of this compound occurs in an area of the brain that is crucial to regulating blood pressure, suggesting that the estrogen-induced buildup causes increased blood pressure. (more…)

Read More

UF Researchers Find Surgical Breast Biopsies Overused in Florida

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Thousands of women receive unnecessary surgical breast biopsies in Florida each year, University of Florida researchers state in an article published online this week by the American Journal of Surgery.

These surgeries carry greater health risks and are more expensive than a less invasive, equally effective procedure called a needle biopsy. (more…)

Read More

Physical Health Varies Among American Blacks Depending on Ethnicity

ANN ARBOR, Mich.— A Caribbean-born black person living in the United States will most likely be healthier than a U.S.- born Caribbean black person, according to a new national study on ethnic differences in health among the American black population.

University of Michigan researchers examined the relationships among ethnicity, nativity, depressive symptoms and physical health in the two largest groups of American blacks: African American and Caribbean blacks, said Derek Griffith, assistant professor in the U-M School of Public Health and lead author of the study. (more…)

Read More

Contact With Dads Drops When Women Ovulate

*Evidence of evolutionary protection against inbreeding in women?*

Through an innovative use of cell phone records, researchers at UCLA, the University of Miami and Cal State, Fullerton, have found that women appear to avoid contact with their fathers during ovulation. 

“Women call their dads less frequently on these high-fertility days and they hang up with them sooner if their dads initiate a call,” said Martie Haselton, a UCLA associate professor of communication in whose lab the research was conducted.  (more…)

Read More

Vaccine for Urinary Tract Infections is One Step Closer

*Study sheds light on what E. coli genes are doing inside the body during infection* 

E. coli bacteria. Image credit: Amy Simms, Ph.D

ANN ARBOR, Mich. Urinary tract infections are a painful, recurring problem for millions of women. They are also getting more dangerous as bacteria develop resistance to the most common treatments.

Scientists from the University of Michigan have moved one step closer to a vaccine that could prevent a majority of urinary tract infections, which are caused by E. coli bacteria. Using a genetic technique rarely used to look at infections in human hosts, the researchers studied how the E. coli bacteria operate and discovered key differences between how the bacteria’s genes behave in women and how they behave in mice used in experiments.

Their findings, published online Nov. 11 in PLoS Pathogens, could lead to developments that would save billions in health care costs and millions of doctors’ visits and hospitalizations from urinary tract infections each year. (more…)

Read More

Women Do Not Detect Internet Scams As Well as Men Do

Women are significantly more likely than men to fall for Internet scams, a new piece of research has claimed after conducting an online test.

In six out of seven tests, women were less likely to detect a scam than men, with females in the supposedly tech-savvy 25-34 age group especially easy to fool, according to Nominet-backed website, Knowthenet. (more…)

Read More

Women Fight the Effects of Chemotherapy Long After Treatment Ends, MU Researchers Find

COLUMBIA, Mo. ­­­– For some women, the effects of breast cancer, the most common cancer affecting women, do not end when they leave the hospital. Now, researchers in the University of Missouri School of Health Professions have studied the lives of breast cancer patients following chemotherapy and found that their environments and available support systems help determine the quality of their lives.

“A lot of times people get mentally and emotionally ready to deal with chemotherapy and they receive a lot of support during that time,” said Stephanie Reid-Arndt, an assistant professor of health psychology in the School of Health Professions. “Then they go home and everyone feels like it’s over, but the patients still have worries and fears about the changes they’ve been through and what it means for the future.” (more…)

Read More