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Red Wine For Breast Cancer Help

Who doesn’t love a glass of red wine occasionally. Well folks, there is good news for all red wine drinkers. According to a recent study from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, drinking red wine in moderation may reduce one of the risk factors for breast cancer, providing a natural weapon to combat a major cause of death among U.S. women.

The study, published online in the Journal of Women’s Health, challenges the widely-held belief that all types of alcohol consumption heighten the risk of developing breast cancer. Doctors long have determined that alcohol increases the body’s estrogen levels, fostering the growth of cancer cells.

But the Cedars-Sinai study found that chemicals in the skins and seeds of red grapes slightly lowered estrogen levels while elevating

Carolyn M. D’Ambrosio, an associate professor of medicine and director of the Center for Sleep Medicine at Tufts Medical Center, fills us in

Women have a higher risk than men of developing insomnia at some time in their lives.

Insomnia is a common sleep disorder characterized by the inability to obtain sufficient sleep— typically seven to eight hours for adults, enough to feel refreshed and alert throughout the day—and leads to associated symptoms such as excessive daytime sleepiness. Patients with insomnia dedicate enough time to sleep, but they either cannot fall asleep easily (known as sleep onset insomnia), or they wake up and can’t fall back to sleep easily (sleep maintenance insomnia). Some have both. There is a tendency for insomnia to run in families, although the genetic component is not

I have been checking vitamin D levels on my patients the last year or so, due to an abundance of data showing the benefits of vitamin D. I have been amazed how many women are low, even though we live in “Sunny San Diego”. Vitamin D is known as the “sunshine” vitamin. The body makes vitamin D from cholesterol through a process triggered by the action of the sun’s ultraviolet B rays on the skin. Factors such as skin color, age, amount and time of sun exposure, and geographic location affect how much vitamin D the body makes.

An estimated 1 billion people worldwide, across all ethnicities and age groups, have a vitamin D deficiency. This is mostly attributable to people getting less sun exposure because of climate, lifestyle, and concerns about skin cancer. Current studies suggest that we may need more vitamin D than presently recommended to prevent chronic disease.

• Two million women turn 50 each year. There are 75 million baby boomers and half are women.
• Over half of all women going through menopause report having night sweats and hot flashes.
• Hormonal fluctuations during perimenopause and menopause are the primary cause of night sweats and hot flashes.
• The average age of menopause is 51 years. The normal age range is 45 to 55.
• An “early menopause” is defined as the last period occurring between the age of 40 to 45. A “late” menopause is defined as a women’s final period occurring between the ages of 55 to 60.

Women entering into menopause not only report having night sweats and hot flashes, but often report a significant change in their hair compared to when they were cycling regularly. They say the hair on their head is starting to thin or dry out, while the hair on their face is sprouting more often in areas such as their upper lip or chin. Neither change is any fun and often leads to frustration and embarrassment. In the March, 2011 British Journal of Dermatology, researchers looked at menopausal women 45 years an older of northern European descent and found hair changes to be very common.

The results showed 41 percent of women had hair loss in some form. Twenty-six percent experienced a more generalized “all over” hair loss while 9 percent had frontal or top of the scalp thinning.

There’s good news for coffee drinkers. Want to reduce your risk of breast cancer? New research suggests drinking coffee might help you do that.

Researchers from Sweden compared certain lifestyle factors and coffee consumption among women with breast cancer and those without breast cancer. They found coffee drinkers had a lower incidence of breast cancer compared to those who rarely drank coffee.However, other lifestyle factors such as age at menopause, exercise, weight, education and a family history also affected breast cancer rates. Once the researchers adjusted for these other factors, they found the protective effect of coffee was only measurable for antiestrogen-resistant estrogen-receptor (ER)-negative breast cancer.

“There is often conflicting information about the beneficial effects of coffee. When we compared our results to that of a German study, we discovered that their data showed the same trend, but the relationship

Menopause typically occurs in a woman’s late forties or early fifties. The decreasing levels of oestrogen associated with menopause may cause more distressing symptoms that include:

- Mood swings

- Decreased sex drive

- Hot flashes and night sweats

- Sweating

- Racing heart (palpitations)

- Headaches

- Vaginal dryness and soreness

- Trouble sleeping

- Bone thinning (osteoporosis)

Hot flashes are the most frequent symptom of menopause and perimenopause. Soy products are high in isoflavones (phytoestrogen) and work in the body like a weak form of oestrogen that may help relieve symptoms. For some women, lowering

Maintaining an active lifestyle at any age is beneficial to overall health, but women aged 45 to 60 face a unique set of factors when it comes to their fitness program. For this age group, osteoarthritis and osteoporosis are common health risks, so not every fitness program is ideal.

High-impact exercise is not usually recommended for anyone in this age range because of the amount of stress placed on the joints. In women diagnosed with osteoarthritis – which involves wear and tear of the joints – stop-start activities such as high-impact aerobics or sports such as squash can be particularly problematic and can aggravate arthritic joints. For those with osteoporosis – characterized by low bone mass and brittleness of bones – spinal twisting or forward bending required in yoga and some aerobic exercises can actually cause fractures.

The good news is that

Image via Wikipedia

I love chocolate, so hearing good news when it comes to chocolate makes me happy.

Recent studies have  found that  post menopausal women older than 70 who ate chocolate at least once per week were 35 percent less likely to be hospitalized or die from heart disease over the course of the study, and nearly 60 percent less likely to be hospitalized or die from heart failure.

But it is probably too early to begin recommending people eat more chocolate, cautioned Dr. Brian Buijsse at the German Institute of Human Nutrition, who did not participate in the study. And even if additional large studies confirmed its benefits, doctors still may not want to prescribe chocolate, he added.

“The danger is that many

Osteoporosis fractures are four times more common than strokes. Women in their 50s have an equal chance of experiencing complications of osteoporosis as they do  from breast cancer according to orthopedic surgeon and traumatologist Sanjay Rastogi at a recent osteoporosis awareness lecture.

Early menopause (before 45 years of age) is the single greatest risk factor for osteoporosis.  Other reasons include… poor calcium intake and deficiency of Vitamin D, smoking and alcohol consumption .

Explaining the disease, he said: Osteoporosis is a condition in which bone become more porous than average and are prone to fracture. The loss of both calcium and bone matrix leads to decreased bone mineral density (BMD) and increased bone fragility. The disease speeds up in women within 10 years after  menopause. This is primarily because the ovaries stop producing the female sex hormone estrogen,