Menopause
Body Mass Index gain throughout adulthood may increase risk of postmenopausal breast cancer
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Reported mid-life increase in body mass index (BMI) may lead to substantially higher risk of postmenopausal breast cancer, according to results of a prospective cohort study presented at the American Association for Cancer Research 101st Annual Meeting 2010, held here April 17-21.
In previous studies, excess weight has been linked with increased risk of postmenopausal breast cancer. Scientists have speculated that in postmenopausal women, estrogen produced in adipose tissue, or body fat, may promote breast cell proliferation. Relatively few studies have looked specifically at increase in BMI and its timing in relation to postmenopausal breast cancer risk, which this study investigated.
The researchers analyzed information from 72,007 women in the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal and Ovarian Cancer Screening Trial cohort, who were 55 to 74 years old at study entry. The analysis included 3,677 cases of postmenopausal breast cancer, which makes this one of the larger studies of its kind, according to the researchers.
Reduced breast cancer risk: Physical activity after menopause pays off
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Several studies had previously suggested that regular physical exercise reduces the breast cancer risk of women. However, it had been unknowned 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. Results show that the risk of developing breast cancer after menopause was lower by about one third in the physically most active MARIE participants compared to women who had generally taken little physical exercise.
Fibroids Common, but Women Have Options
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Small fibroids located just beneath the lining of the uterus (submucosal) are more likely to move to the endometrial cavity after uterine artery embolization (UAE) but usually don’t cause major complications, according to a new study.
The study included 49 patients with 140 fibroids who underwent an MRI examination before and after UAE. The study found that 39 of these were submucosal. Of these, 33% migrated to the endometrial cavity after UAE, said Sachit Verma, MD, lead author of the study. “At the beginning of our study, we suspected that all submucosal fibroids became endocavitary following UAE irrespective of their area of contact with the endometrium (ID ratio),” said Dr. Verma. “By further analyzing our results we realized that submucosal fibroids with an ID ratio greater than 0.55 at pre-procedural MRI have a higher risk of becoming endocavitary following UAE,” he said
Tough job: Volunteers needed for chocolate study
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Calling all chocoholics: British researchers recruiting volunteers willing to eat a bar of chocolate daily for a year, guilt-free and all in the name of science.
The trial starting in June will explore whether compounds called flavonoids found in chocolate and other foods can reduce the risk of heart disease for menopausal women with type 2 diabetes, the researchers said on Monday.
“We are looking at a high risk group first,” said Aedin Cassidy, a biochemist at the University of East Anglia, who will lead the study. “We hope there will be an additional benefit from dietary intervention in addition to the women’s drug therapy.”
Brain trauma doesn’t predict post-concussion syndrome
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Mild traumatic brain injury is often followed by “post-concussion syndrome” but does not predict the condition, according to Australian researchers.
For unknown reasons, 5 to 10 percent of people who experience a concussion have symptoms that persist beyond six weeks. These people are diagnosed with post-concussion syndrome.
“Post-concussion syndrome has been a controversial diagnosis in both civilian and military populations,” Dr. E. Arthur Shores of Macquarie University in Sydney told Reuters Health
Menstruation key to bone rebuilding in anorexics
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Adequate nutrition can rebuild bone mass in women with anorexia, but the restoration of normal menstrual periods appears to be necessary for fully normal bone metabolism to be recovered, a new study shows.
“Our observations may be important to an understanding of the mechanism of possible reversal of osteoporosis in anorexia nervosa, for which there is as yet no effective treatment,” Dr. Jennifer Dominguez of Columbia University Medical Center in New York City and her colleagues conclude.
Menopause linked to new onset of depression
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Women who haven’t previously suffered from depression are at increased risk of developing depressive symptoms around the time they enter menopause, according to two studies appearing in the Archives of General Psychiatry.
The transition to menopause is often considered a high-risk period for depressive symptoms, yet scientific evidence supporting this association is lacking, points out one of the research teams, led by Dr. Ellen W. Freeman from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
In an 8-year study, Freeman’s group tracked 231 women who were about to enter menopause, none of whom had any history of depression up to the time they enrolled. The Center for Epidemiological Studies of Depression (CED-D) scale was used to assess depressive symptoms during follow-up.
First study of uterine fibroid embolization to treat post-menopausal women
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The first study of uterine fibroid embolization to treat post-menopausal women shows that the non-surgical treatment was technically successful in 100 percent of patients, and improved bulk-related symptoms in 92 percent of the women.
The research was presented at the Society of Interventional Radiology’s 31st Annual Scientific Meeting in Toronto. Uterine fibroid embolization (UFE) has been performed by interventional radiologists since 1995 to treat symptomatic non-cancerous tumors in the uterus. During the technique the physician makes a tiny nick in the skin to insert a catheter into the femoral artery at the groin. Using real-time imaging, the physician guides the catheter through the artery and then releases tiny particles, the size of grains of sand, into the uterine arteries that supply blood to the fibroid tumor. This blocks the blood flow to the fibroid tumor causing it to shrink and die.
Paxil seen to curb hot flashes
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For women suffering through menopause, treatment with the antidepressant paroxetine (Paxil) reduces both the number and severity of hot flashes, researchers report.
Moreover, according to Dr. Vered Stearns who led the trial, this is the first study to demonstrate that paroxetine also improves sleep in women with hot flashes.
