Latest Women’s Health News
If you are looking for information, tips, and answers to women’s health questions, you have come to the right place. As a program of the Cleveland Clinic Center for Specialized Women’s Health, we can offer you expert advice and current articles from the women’s health community about maturing women related health topics, including:
- Dietary concerns
- Fitness
- Menopause management
- Necessary medical tests
- Nutrition
- Osteoporosis prevention
You’ll also find cutting edge women’s health news from the Cleveland Clinic, as well as developments from other women’s health news outlets all within the Speaking of Women’s Health community section.
Make sure to stay up-to-date on current women’s health news, articles and videos by viewing the releases below.
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Remove barriers and simplify the regimen to increase access to contraception
April 2018 -- Clinicians should target a regimen for birth control that is simple and medically appropriate to help cut down on the significant rate of unintended pregnancies, Pelin Batur, MD, NCMP, CCD, education director in primary care women’s health at the Cleveland Clinic, told Healio Family Medicine. “With all contraceptives, when you put human error into it, the effectiveness goes down,” Batur said.
Another step practices can take to improve use of contraception is to recognize that screening for conditions such as sexually transmitted infections, breast cancer and cervical cancer, while important, are not prerequisites for starting contraception and could be a barrier to treatment, she said.
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Severity of Menopause Symptoms Could Help Predict Heart Disease
New study evaluates effect of menopause and depression on vascular function.
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Clinical Challenges: Osteoporosis Prevention in Menopause
March 2018 -- Menopause can have a substantial impact on a woman's bone density and risk for osteoporosis, but there is no one-size-fits-all strategy for dealing with the issue. Dr. Holly L. Thacker and other women health experts weigh in on when, how to prevent osteoporosis in midlife women.
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Targeting Healthcare for Women Patients
March 2018 -- Hospitals and medical institutions across the country are offering more programs specifically designed with the needs of women patients in mind.
Speaking of Women's Health Executive Director Dr. Holly L. Thacker discusses how women’s health needs are affected by reproductive factors, life cycle, hormones, and genetics, and women metabolize some medications differently and can have expressions of disease that are different from those in men.
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Novel Oral Tx Dramatically Reduces Menopausal Flushing
A new class of drugs for menopausal hot flushes works within three days (75% reduction) and does not increase estrogen levels. Bringing hope to women - especially those who can’t take hormone therapy .
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Estrogen Therapy: Economic Considerations
Author: Sarrel, Philip M. MD
March 2018 by The North American Menopause Society - The high cost of health care for untreated menopausal women continues to be a subject of current interest. The NAMS 2017 Hormone Therapy Position Statement section on Economic Considerations describes the association between moderate to severe vasomotor symptoms (VMS) "with lower levels of health status and work productivity and greater use of health resources."
Women with untreated VMS show increased direct healthcare costs, and also indirect costs related to impaired work ability and work loss. Driven by menopause-related symptoms and disease, the combined costs for office and emergency room visits, pharmacy, and hospitalization are substantial.
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Association of Spontaneous Preterm Delivery and Future Maternal Cardiovascular Disease
February 2018 -- Cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors are well established. However, little is known about a woman’s cardiovascular response to pregnancy, which appears to be an early marker of future maternal CVD risk. Spontaneous preterm delivery (sPTD) has been associated with a ≤3-fold increased risk of maternal CVD death later in life compared with having a term delivery. This review focuses on 3 key areas to critically assess the association of sPTD and future maternal CVD risk: (1) CVD risk factors, (2) inflammatory biomarkers of interest, and (3) specific forms of vascular dysfunction, such as endothelial function and arterial stiffness, and mechanisms by which each may be linked to sPTD. The association of sPTD with subsequent future maternal CVD risk suggests that a woman’s abnormal response to pregnancy may serve as her first physiological stress test. These findings suggest that future research is needed to understand why women with sPTD may be at risk for CVD to implement effective interventions earlier in a woman’s life.
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Breast cancer treatments can raise risk of heart disease, American Heart Association warns
February 2018 - The American Heart Association issued a stark warning Thursday for women with breast cancer: Lifesaving therapies like chemotherapy and radiation can cause heart failure and other serious cardiac problems, sometimes years after treatment.
The organization said patients and doctors shouldn’t avoid the treatments but instead take steps to prevent or minimize the cardiac risks. It stressed that breast cancer survivors can improve their chances of a long, healthy life by exercising regularly and sticking to a healthy diet.
The cautionary message, published online Thursday in the journal Circulation, came in the organization’s first comprehensive scientific statement on the complex interactions between breast cancer and cardiovascular disease. While much of the information is known to oncologists, the report could be a helpful reference tool for patients as well as primary care, emergency room and other doctors who treat breast cancer patients.
In many ways, the AHA statement is trying to change the mind-set of women diagnosed with breast cancer who consider it the biggest threat to their health. It noted that breast cancer survivors who are 65 and older and were treated for their cancer are more likely to die of cardiovascular problems than breast cancer.
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Speaking of Women's Health Named Best Women's Health Blog of 2018
January 2018 -- PlushCare selected the Speaking of Women's Health column as one of the top 10 women's health blogs in 2018.
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For the first time, a drug is indicated specifically for BRCA-mutated breast cancer
January 2018 - The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has extended the approval of olaparib (Lynparza, AstraZeneca) to include the treatment of metastatic breast cancer in patients who carry the specific inherited BRCA mutation.
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