Female Care

In a new case-control study of over 5000 women ranging in age from 21 to 75 who had already received breast cancer treatment were compared with a similar number of women who had not suffered from breast cancer.

The study asked many health-related questions including the amounts of regular tea drunk by each person per day.

According to the results of the study, women especially younger women, who drink large volumes of tea every day reduce their risk of breast cancer by just under 38%.

For the terms of the study, “large amounts” of tea was regarded as more than three cups per day.

In both sets of women almost equal numbers drank three cups or more per day 45% and 44% (control group) allowing for a very good rate of comparison.

Although researcher Dr Nagi Kumar based at Tampa Bay’s Cancer Center and Research Institute states that this is in no way conclusive evidence or proof of the effectiveness of tea in combating breast cancer.

And he concedes that it is possible that the study’s findings could simply be no more than chance or coincidence; he does say that the results are interesting and well worth further enquiry.

All of us, from time to time, experience what we feel is unusually heavy bleeding during our menstrual periods. Fortunately, most often what we think is abnormal uterine bleeding is not excessive enough to be diagnosed as menorrhagia.

How do you know when bleeding during your period is abnormally heavy? The easiest way to know if you are experiencing menorrhagia is to take note of how often you need to change your pad or tampon. If your period is heavy enough to require changing more often than every one or two hours, or if you have a period that lasts more than a full week, you may be experiencing menorrhagia.
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Several studies had previously suggested that regular physical exercise reduces the breast cancer risk of women.

However, it had been unknown just how much exercise women should take in which period in life in order to benefit from this protective effect.

Moreover, little was known about which particular type of breast cancer is influenced by physical activity.

Answers to these questions are now provided by the results of the MARIE study, in which 3,464 breast cancer patients and 6,657 healthy women between the ages of 50 and 74 years were questioned in order to explore the connections between life style and breast cancer risk.

Participants of the study, which was headed by Professor Dr. Jenny Chang-Claude and conducted at the German Cancer Research Center and the University Hospitals of Hamburg-Eppendorf, were questioned about their physical activity during two periods in life: from 30 to 49 years of age and after 50.

A comparison between control subjects and breast cancer patients showed that women in the control group had been physically more active than patients.

The scientists calculated the relative breast cancer risks taking account of the effect of other risk factors.

Being a woman, it is very essential for you to know right information about health and make wise decisions in health issues.

Most of you would tend to make health decisions based on incorrect or outdated information, which is absolutely wrong way of dealing with health problems.

However, here are some of the most common myths related to women’s health that every woman must be aware of.

1. You can’t lose weight caused due to menopause

One important thing that every woman must know is losing weight before or after menopause will not make you healthier. Many of you can gain weight during menopause and certainly it will not be permanent. Actually, it significantly depends on your lifestyle after menopause.

2. Sex drive reduces with age

This is absolutely false impression on low libido in older women. Actually, age is no way related to sex drive in women. In fact most of the women report that they enjoy their sexual life as they become older. However, at times, fluctuations in female hormones that take place during menopause can have certain effect on your sexual desire.

3. STDs are not concerns for younger women

Never think that STDs are not probable for younger women. It is very essential for every woman who is sexually active to take necessary measures to prevent STDs.

4. You need 30-60 minutes exercise every day

Being responsible towards family and work, every day exercises are quite challenging task for many of you. But, it is not true that you should get 30-60 minutes exercise every day compulsorily. But, be sure that you spend at least 15-20 minutes every day for exercises.

Always remember, it is very essential for you to consult experienced doctors and your personal health care provider before making any decision regarding your health.

Abdominal pain is most common problem for women. Some of you can experience frequent abdominal pain and for some it can be a very rare but debilitating issue.

Before you go for appropriate treatment for abdominal pain, you have to know the cause behind it.

Here are few most common causes for abdominal pain.

• Many of you can experience pain in both sides of lower abdomen, particularly during your regular ovulation period.
• Regular menstrual periods or premenstrual syndrome can also cause severe abdominal pain for some of you.
• If you are experiencing pain in lower abdomen during pregnancy, it can be a natural sign of pregnancy loss.
• Presence of cysts or fluid filled structures in ovaries also makes you to experience debilitating abdominal pain during menstrual periods.
• Parasitic infections and other gastrointestinal problems can trigger severe abdominal pain.
• Unusual or abnormal production of mucus due to damage of certain organs of your body can also cause abdominal pain.
• Urinary tract infections are most common problem among women and this could be one of the main reasons for abdominal pain in women.
• Other than these, stress, tearing of abdominal muscles, peptic ulcers, and overdose of drugs or medications can lead to abdominal pain.

In the United States, it is estimated that over 13 million women suffer from the effects of urinary incontinence.

A new study from the National Institute Of Diabetes And Digestive Diseases indicates that being obese or even overweight greatly increases the occurrence of this condition.

There can be many causes for urinary incontinence such as being pregnant and following childbirth as well as basic issues such as age causing the bladder muscles not to work as well.

Scientists divided a selection of over 300 overweight women who were suffering urinary problems into two groups. One group were simply given a considerable amount of information on exercise and best diet practices, but received no other help with weight loss.

The second group were given all kinds of exercise and weight loss assistance. It was found that the women managed to cut 8% from their weight on average and then found that incontinence events were cut by nearly 50%.

Those that were just given information managed to loose 1.6% of their body weight and went on to have 28% less incontinence episodes.

But significantly, both groups benefited from the weight loss in terms of the number of times per week they suffered urinary incontinence.

The scientists believe that further weight loss will lead to fewer occurrences although it is not yet clear if a large amount of weight loss will completely remove the incontinence problem.

For breast cancer survivors, the idea of taking estrogen pills is almost a taboo.

In fact, their doctors give them drugs to get rid of the hormone because it can fuel the growth of breast cancer.

So these women would probably be surprised by the approach taken by breast cancer physician Matthew Ellis, M.B., Ph.D., associate professor of medicine at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis — he has demonstrated that estrogen therapy can help control metastatic breast cancer.

In a study presented at the 31st annual San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, he showed that for about a third of the 66 participants — women with metastatic breast cancer that had developed resistance to standard estrogen-lowering therapy — a daily dose of estrogen could stop the growth of their tumors or even cause them to shrink.

Ellis believes that estrogen therapy offers an appealing alternative to chemotherapy for metastatic breast cancer that has become resistant to estrogen-lowering agents called aromatase inhibitors, such as exemestane, anastrazole and letrozole.

These drugs deplete the body of estrogen and are standard treatments for hormone-receptor positive breast cancers, which account for about 75 percent of breast cancer cases.
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!Breast cancer is a malignant (cancerous) tumor that occurs when cells in the breast becomes so over-active that they won’t stop multiplying.

All women are at risk for getting breast cancer.

So, it is better to have breast cancer information for right treatment. Breast cancer refers to a wide variety of cancers that occurs in the breast.

The most common types of breast cancer are ductal carcinoma (occur in milk ducts of the breasts) and Lobular carcinoma (occur in the lobules where breast milk is made).

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