The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a supplemental New Drug Application for an extension of Mirena (levonorgestrel-releasing intrauterine system) 52 mg Intrauterine Device (IUD) for an additional year, extending the number of years it can be used to prevent pregnancy to 8 years. The approval follows a phase 3 trial which analyzed the effectiveness of Mirena in 362 women who have used the product for over 5 years. Contraceptive efficacy was over 99% from 6 to 8 years of use,…

Eating ultraprocessed foods for more than 20% of your daily calorie intake every day could set you on the road to cognitive decline, a new study revealed. We all know eating ultraprocessed foods that make our lives easier -- such as prepackaged soups, sauces, frozen pizza and ready-to-eat meals -- isn't good for our health. Nor is gobbling up all the pleasure foods that we love so much: hot dogs, sausages, burgers, french fries, sodas, cookies, cakes, candies, doughnuts and ice cream, to name…

Should physicians be prescribing hormone therapy (HT) to help prevent certain chronic health conditions for people who are post-menopausal? Holly Thacker, MD, FACP, director of Cleveland Clinic’s Center for Specialized Women’s Health, believes there may be a good case for doing so with some patients.The first steps, however, should be a physical exam, a careful assessment of when the patient entered menopause, and a conversation that explores the potential risks and benefits of hormone therapy,…

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Olumiant (baricitinib) oral tablets to treat adult patients with severe alopecia areata, a disorder that often appears as patchy baldness and affects more than 300,000 people in the U.S. each year. This marks the first FDA approval of a systemic treatment (i.e. treats the entire body rather than a specific location) for alopecia areata. Alopecia areata, commonly referred to as just alopecia, is an autoimmune disorder in which the body attacks its…

Speaking of Women's Health is proud to be awarded a Digital Health Award for their HerDesire.net educational initiative on low sex drive. the awards were judged by more than 100 experts, with over 1,000 entries, recognizing the BEST in digital health resources.

Scientists still may not know the exact cause of fibromyalgia, but that hasn’t stopped them from developing treatments for the chronic pain associated with the condition. For years, all of those therapeutics have been of the pharmacological variety, with three drugs approved by the FDA since 2007. Now, however, patients will have a drug-free alternative to treat their fibromyalgia, as the agency issued a de novo clearance for a wearable neuromodulation system from NeuroMetrix designed to ease…

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Mounjaro™ (tirzepatide) injection to improve blood sugar control in adults with type 2 diabetes, as an addition to diet and exercise. Mounjaro was effective at improving blood sugar and was more effective than the other diabetes therapies with which it was compared in clinical studies. Glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) and glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP) are hormones involved in blood sugar control. Mounjaro is a…

The American Heart Association published a 2020 scientific statement on cardiovascular disease risk for women transitioning through or experiencing menopause. The report reflects scientific evidence on menopause and cardiovascular risks, and this article reviews the statement with a focus on what is new and what is clinically important for healthcare providers treating this patient population.

Twenty years ago, the National Institutes of Health abruptly terminated research on the effect of hormone therapy on postmenopausal women. The decision resulted in a cascade of harm to millions who have undergone menopause in the United States. And it remains uncorrected two decades later. More than 1 billion people worldwide will be in menopause by 2025. Today, there are 55 million in the United States alone, nearly 75 percent of whom report not receiving support or treatment for its effects.…

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a 0.5 mg/100 mg dose of TherapeuticsMD Inc.'s  Bijuva hormone therapy. This low-dose version of Bijuva, an oral hormone therapy to treat women with vasomotor symptoms due to menopause, is 0.5 milligrams (mg) of estradiol and 100 mg of progesterone (0.5/100mg). In 2018, the FDA approved Bijuva for the treatment of moderate to severe vasomotor symptoms of menopause at the 1mg of estradiol and 100 mg of progesterone (1/100 mg) dose.To learn…

Over twenty years ago, the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) study, which randomized women to receive either hormone therapy or a placebo, set out to assess the benefits and risks of hormone therapy. In 2002, the WHI study was abruptly halted because the researchers found that women taking a combination of estrogen and progestin had an increased risk of breast cancer, heart attacks, stroke, and blood clots. Headlines blasted the news that hormone therapy was unsafe, and the use of hormone therapy…

During the past 2 decades, Endocrine Today has reported on the latest developments in hormone therapy for symptoms associated with menopause. For its 20th year, the publication is taking a look back. Twenty years ago, findings from a pivotal study dramatically changed the public’s perception — as well as that of some health care providers — surrounding menopausal HT. According to the timing hypothesis, HT is safer for younger women who initiate it closer to the start of menopause and most…

Pregnancy, long reproductive span, and older age at menopause are associated with a lower risk of dementia in women, according to a recent study. Inversely, hysterectomy, younger age of first birth, and younger or older than average age at first period were associated with greater dementia risk. The study suggests that reproductive and hormonal factors may be involved in dementia risk, but observed a similar association between the number of children and dementia risk in women and men,…

AstraZeneca and MSD’s Lynparza (olaparib) has been approved in the US for the adjuvant treatment of patients with germline BRCA-mutated (gBRCAm) HER2-negative high-risk early breast cancer who have already been treated with chemotherapy either before or after surgery. The approval by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was based on results from the OlympiA Phase III trial presented during the 2021 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting and published in The New England…

Having a long-term pet companion may delay memory loss and other kinds of cognitive decline, a new study has found. Pet ownership was especially beneficial for working verbal memory, such as memorization of word lists, according to the preliminary research. Owning household pets for five years or more produced the most benefit, delaying cognitive decline by 1.2 points over the six-year period of the study compared with the rate of decline in people without pets. Why did having pets for more…

A preliminary study finds women who enter menopause before age 40 are linked to a 35% higher risk of developing dementia later in life. Premature menopause, as it is called, occurs when a woman's ovaries stop creating hormones and the menstrual cycle ends by age 40. That's about a dozen years earlier than the typical onset of menopause, which is age 52 in the United States, according to the US Department of Health and Human Service's Office on Women's Health. The study shows a modest…

Attempts to develop an effective treatment for Alzheimer’s have met with little success. Researchers are increasingly turning their attention to detecting the disease early. The key to this strategy is to identify early, “modifiable” risk factors that doctors can target with drugs or other interventions. Researchers at the Paris Brain Institute in France have now found statistical associations between 10 health conditions and a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease up to 10 years later. Major…

New study evaluates prevalence of hair loss during the menopause transition and factors contributing to it, including obesity.

Researchers found that prunes can help prevent or delay bone loss in postmenopausal women, possibly due to their ability to reduce inflammation and oxidative stress, both of which contribute to bone loss.

A new study reports four specific factors — higher body mass index (BMI), smoking, arthritis and depressive symptoms — at age 55 are associated with clinically important declines in physical health 10 years later. "Age 55 to 65 may be a critical decade," said study co-author Dr. Daniel Solomon, of the division of rheumatology, inflammation, and immunity at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston."A person's health and factors during this period may set them on a path for their later adult…