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Welcome to the e-HealthFlash newsletter, brought to you by Goshen Health System. e-HealthFlash delivers to your mailbox timely medical news and health and wellness information that matter to you and your family. To visit Goshen Health System’s Women's Health Center, click here.
Sleep difficulties common around menopause
Why are you having such a hard time getting enough shut-eye? After all, it’s been years since your kids woke up at night. The answer may be menopause. Researchers at Rush University in Chicago assessed more than 3,000 women ages 42–52 for up to seven years and found that sleep difficulties increase as women go through menopause. In the study, women were asked about their ability to fall asleep and stay asleep, as well as about other symptoms such as night sweats and hot flashes. Sixteen percent of postmenopausal respondents reported trouble falling asleep, while 41 percent complained of waking several times through the night. Hormones are partly to blame for nocturnal disturbances, but doctors aren’t convinced that menopausal hormone therapy is a one-size-fits-all fix. If sleep problems are affecting other areas of your life, such as your job or relationships, talk to your physician about a solution that might work best for you.
Fatty pregnancy diet may cause early puberty in offspring
Moms who consider pregnancy a license to indulge in every type of junk food may want to reconsider for more reasons than just their own vanity: One New Zealand study found that what you eat when expecting may have long-lasting physical consequences for your children. In the study, pregnant rats fed a high-fat diet birthed offspring that reached puberty significantly earlier than rats born to a control group. The offspring of the high-fat-diet rat moms also had a higher percentage of body fat than rats born to the control group whether they continued to eat a high-fat diet after birth or not, and there was some alteration of sex hormones. Both male and female rats matured earlier than normal when their mothers ate a high-fat diet. According to researchers, early-onset puberty in girls is a risk factor for obesity, insulin resistance, teenage depression and breast cancer in adulthood.
Melanoma on the rise in young women
Despite medical experts’ warnings about the sun’s dangers, a recent study shows that melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, is increasing in young women. Scientists at the National Cancer Institute looked at data from a large-scale national study of melanoma rates going back decades. In 1980, the melanoma rate among Caucasian women ages 15–39 was about 9 per 100,000 women, but by 2004 it had soared to nearly 14 per 100,000 women—a 50 percent increase. The rise was particularly sharp after 1992. However, the melanoma rate in young men, which had risen through the 1970s along with the young women’s rate, has leveled off. One possible culprit is tanning beds, used primarily by young women.
Dementia targets almost half of ‘oldest
old’ women
A new study
reveals that 45 percent of women ages 90 and older—the
so-called oldest old, according to the U.S. Census—suffer
from dementia. Scientists at the University of California Irvine
looked at data from more than 900 subjects enrolled in a study
of people ages 90 and older and discovered that women are hit
disproportionately hard in comparison to the 28 percent of men
in this age group who have dementia. For men and women ages
65–69, the likelihood of being diagnosed is as low as 2 percent;
that figure climbs to more than 20 percent for ages 85–89. In
women, dementia risk doubles every five years after age 90,
but the same doesn’t hold true for men. The condition, the most
well-known form of which is Alzheimer’s, causes cognitive impairment,
memory loss and changes in behavior and usually requires some
type of long-term care.
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