Gender: Female
Child’s ADHD Diagnosis Is Tied to Mother’s Health Status
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The probability of having one’s child receive an attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) diagnosis involves a mother’s own medical conditions and her use of health services prior to having the child, a new study finds.
What is not clear, however, is whether the effects are due to biological, environmental or psychosocial factors — or some combination of these.
The new study implies “that the diagnoses and health care utilization that a mother receives prior to having her child is predictive of having a child who is diagnosed with ADHD,” said G. Thomas Ray, lead author. “Our study raises the possibility that certain types of mothers — those who get or seek diagnoses and who use more health services — may be more likely to seek ADHD diagnoses for their children.”
Hormones increase frequency of inherited form of migraine in women
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Familial hemiplegic migraine (FHM) is an inherited form of severe migraine that is accompanied by visual disturbances known as aura. As with other types of migraine, it affects women more frequently than men. Most cases of FHM are caused by mutations in the CACNA1A gene, but whether these lead to spreading depression, the event in the brain that suppresses nerve cell activity and that has been linked to nongenetic forms of migraine with aura, has not been determined. However, Cenk Ayata and colleagues, at Massachusetts General Hospital, have now generated data in mice that address this issue as well as provide insight into the reasons why FHM affects women more frequently than men.
In the study, mice expressing either one of two different CACNA1A mutations that lead to FHM in humans were found to have an increased susceptibility to spreading depression. Interestingly, the mutation linked to more severe FHM caused a greater increase in susceptibility to spreading depression than the mutation linked to a milder form of FHM. As with humans, female mice were more susceptible to spreading depression than male mice. This difference was reversed if the female mice had their ovaries removed, and then partially restored by replacement of the hormone estrogen. The authors therefore conclude that both genetic and hormonal factors modulate an individual’s susceptibility to migraines with aura.
Who are you kidding?
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The research was carried out by a team of researchers led by Sharon Herring, MD, MPH, an Assistant Professor of Medicine and Public Health at Temple University. She said, “Compared to normal weight women who accurately assessed their pre-pregnancy weight status, the odds of gaining excessively during pregnancy were increased seven-fold among overweight and obese women who thought they weighed less than they really did. Normal weight women who thought they were overweight had twice the odds of excessive gestational weight gain.”
The authors studied 1537 women enrolled in Project Viva, a US birth cohort, who were normal weight, overweight or obese at the beginning of their pregnancies. Underweight women were not included. Of the 1029 normal weight participants, 898 (87%) correctly reported that they were normal weight just prior to pregnancy, while 131 (13%) incorrectly thought they were overweight or obese. Of the remaining women who were overweight or obese, 438 (86%) accurately perceived their body weight status, while 70 (14%) under-assessed their size before pregnancy.
Right help key to quit success for women smokers
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Female smokers who want to kick the habit face different challenges than men, but with the right help they can be just as successful, according to experts from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.
“The problem is that there are specialists or interventionists who deal with everyone in the same manner,” Dr. Ivana T. Croghan, research program coordinator at the clinic’s Nicotine Dependence Center, told Reuters Health.
While research suggests women may be more likely than men to relapse after quitting, Croghan added, her own analysis of 3,000 people treated at the Mayo Clinic center found no difference between men and women in the ability to stay smoke free six months later.
Living with extended family hard on women’s hearts
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Having multiple generations living under one roof may take a toll on women’s heart health, a large study of Japanese adults suggests.
The study, which started following nearly 91,000 middle-aged and older adults in 1990, found that women who lived with their spouse, children and parents or parents-in-law were at elevated risk of developing heart disease.
Compared with their counterparts who lived with a husband only, these women were about three times more likely to be diagnosed with coronary heart disease by 2004.
Men Are Red, Women Are Green, Brown Researcher Finds
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Men are red. Women are green.
Michael J. Tarr, a Brown University scientist, and graduate student Adrian Nestor have discovered this color difference in an analysis of dozens of faces. They determined that men tend to have more reddish skin and greenish skin is more common for women.
The finding has important implications in cognitive science research, such as the study of face perception. But the information also has a number of potential industry or consumer applications in areas such as facial recognition technology, advertising, and studies of how and why women apply makeup.
“Color information is very robust and useful for telling a man from a woman,” said Tarr, the Sidney A. and Dorothea Doctors Fox Professor of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences and professor of cognitive and linguistic sciences at Brown. “It’s a demonstration that color can be useful in visual object recognition.”
Alcohol linked with irregular heartbeat in women
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Consuming two or more alcoholic beverages per day may slightly increase the risk of developing an irregular heartbeat , also referred to as atrial fibrillation, in women, according to a report in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Prior research established a similar association in men, but the question remained open in women because earlier studies were underpowered to assess the risk, lead author Dr. David Conen, from University Hospital, Basel, Switzerland, and colleagues note.
Atrial fibrillation, the most common arrhythmia, occurs when rapid, disorganized electrical signals in the heart cause very fast and irregular contractions (fibrillations), resulting in inefficient pumping of blood through the heart. Although atrial fibrillation may not cause symptoms, the condition still increases the risk of stroke. Atrial fibrillation may also lead to chest pain, heart attack or heart failure.
COPD deaths increase among women
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Between 2000 and 2005, the number of annual deaths in the United States due to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) rose by 8 percent, an increase driven primarily by climbing mortality rates among women with the disease, according to a report in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
Data were related in advance of World COPD Day on November 19, the goal of which is to raise awareness of this growing global public health problem.
COPD, or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, is a progressive disease that makes it hard to breathe. COPD can cause coughing that produces large amounts of mucus, wheezing, shortness of breath, chest tightness, and other symptoms.
The woman in red drives the men crazy, study finds
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If a woman wants to drive the men wild, she might want to dress in red.
Men rated a woman shown in photographs as more sexually attractive if she was wearing red clothing or if she was shown in an image framed by a red border rather than some other color, U.S. researchers said Tuesday.
The study led by psychology professor Andrew Elliot of the University of Rochester in Rochester, New York, seemed to confirm red as the color of romance—as so many Valentine’s Day card makers and lipstick sellers have believed for years.
Although this “red alert” may be a product of human society associating red with love for eons, it also may arise from more primitive biological roots, Elliot said.
Elective caesareans double risk of death
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Non-emergency caesareans double the risk of women dying or developing severe complications, according to a study conducted in Latin America.
The large study, led by Dr Jose Villar, an obstetrician at the University of Oxford, also shows that in some cases caesareans increased the risk of death to newborn babies by 70%.
“The message is it is an intervention that is not clinically needed and increases problems for the mother and babies,” says Villar, reporting in the British Medical Journal.
Breast or bottle? New mothers get mixed message
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After giving birth in the United States, a woman is likely to leave the hospital with the message that breast-feeding is best for her baby—and a free sample of baby formula, as well as discount coupons to buy formula for her newborn.
That’s despite the fact that federal health officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are opposed to giving new mothers free formula samples when they leave the hospital, as are the American Academy of Pediatrics, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the World Health Organization.
In a report released this week, Anne Merewood of Boston University School of Medicine and colleagues say the prevalence of sample formula pack distribution is “disturbing and incongruous given extensive opposition, but encouraging trends suggest that the practice may be curtailed in the future.”
Preeclampsia may up risk of kidney disease
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Women who develop preeclampsia during pregnancy appear to be at increased risk for developing end-stage renal disease (ESRD) later in life—although the absolute risk is small—new research suggests.
Preeclampsia is a potentially serious condition that occurs in pregnancy, characterized by a dangerously high rise in blood pressure, protein in the urine, and an increased risk of having a premature infant.
“The biggest finding in our study is that preeclampsia is associated with a 4- to 5-times increased risk of ESRD. We were surprised that the association was that strong,” lead researcher Dr. Bjorn Egil Vikse told Reuters Health.
Eating disorders predict poor function in new moms
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New mothers with a history of an eating disorder appear to have a difficult time adjusting to motherhood, study findings suggest.
Among 44 first-time mothers recruited from prenatal clinics in Stockholm, Sweden, over 90 percent with a history of anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa reported problems adjusting to motherhood in the first 3 months after childbirth, report Dr. Angelica Linden Hirschberg and colleagues from the Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm.
The researchers found that 24 of women had a history of anorexia nervosa, an aversion to food and weight gain that can result in life-threatening weight loss. Another 20 had a history of bulimia nervosa, characterized by binge eating, self-induced vomiting, or excessive exercise to prevent weight gain.
Simple ultrasound exam may predict osteoporosis risk
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An ultrasound exam of the heel may be able to predict if a woman is at heightened risk for fractures due to osteoporosis, according to a new multicenter study being published in the July issue of the journal Radiology. Along with certain risk factors, including age or recent fall, radiation-free ultrasound of the heel may be used to better select women who need further bone density testing, such as a dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA) exam.
“Osteoporosis is a major public health issue expected to increase in association with worldwide aging of the population,” said the study’s lead author Idris Guessous, M.D., senior research fellow in the Department of Internal Medicine at Lausanne University Hospital in Switzerland. “The incidence of osteoporosis will outpace economic resources, and the development of strategies to better identify women who need to be tested is crucial.”
Osteoporosis is a disease that is characterized by low bone mass and the deterioration of bone tissue and is a major public health threat. According to the National Osteoporosis Foundation, 10 million Americans currently have osteoporosis and approximately 34 million more are estimated to have low bone mass, increasing their risk of developing the disease. Eighty percent of those affected are women.
Diabetes drug slows early-onset puberty in girls
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In young girls at risk of early puberty and insulin resistance, the diabetes drug metformin delayed the onset of menstruation and decreased the development of insulin resistance, a risk factor for type 2 diabetes, according to a new study. The results were presented Monday, June 16, at The Endocrine Society’s 90th Annual Meeting in San Francisco.
“The findings indicate that we can slow down puberty,” said the study’s senior author, Lourdes Ibanez, MD, PhD, of the University of Barcelona in Spain. “This is important because when puberty is faster in girls, the appearance of menses occurs earlier, and this sequence of events may ultimately result in a shorter adult height.”
Also, getting a first menstrual period before age 12 has been linked to an increased risk of breast cancer. Early puberty (breast development) is a risk factor for polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), especially if the girl is overweight, she said. PCOS is a common cause of infertility.
