Pharmas Health And Medical Blog » Womens Health

Makeup Testers Tainted With Staph, Herpes, E. Coli

Shue — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 17:59:55 +0000

A recent study has found that makeup testers found in malls and beauty stores are regularly tainted with a variety of illnesses including staph, herpes and E. Coli. Published in L.A. Times, a study conducted by Dr. Elizabeth Brooks, a biological sciences professor at

Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia has found that the percentage of tainted tester makeup–when analyzed on Saturdays, the business shopping day of the week–was a shocking 100%.
“We went to department stores, specialty stores, drugstores–everywhere. Wherever you see E. coli, you should just think ‘E. coli equals feces.’ That means someone went to the bathroom, didn’t wash their hands and then stuck their fingers in that moisturizer,” Brooks said.
Dr. Zein Obagi, a Beverly Hills-based dermatologist, explains to the paper, “If a woman has a cut on her lip and borrows lipstick from someone who has a cold sore, she’ll get a cold sore. You can pass herpes [the cold sore virus], conjunctivitis [pink eye] and all sorts of things through sharing makeup.”
When trying on makeup testers, Brooks insists, “clean the surface of the makeup tester with a tissue or a tissue dipped in alcohol before applying makeup.” While these solutions may reduce the chance of infection, the safest way to stay healthy is to avoid communal testers completely.

Women Have In-Built Fear of Getting Fat, Scientists Say

Shue — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 12:48:59 +0000

A recent study has found that women have a subconscious fear of getting fat. Apparently, when they see an overweight woman, their brain reacts negatively, increasing feelings of unhappiness and even self loathing, say researchers.
While this is hardly surprising when it comes to anorexics and others with eating disorders, scientists found that it also happens in healthy women with no obvious worries about their weight.
On the other hand, men showed no such response to other fat men.

Neuroscientist Mark Allen said: ‘These women have no history of eating disorders and project an attitude that they don’t care about body image.
‘Yet under the surface is an anxiety about getting fat.’

The research in the U.S. used MRI scans to study the reaction of the brain to images of strangers for the journal Personality and Individual Differences.

Allen added: ‘Although these women’s brain activity doesn’t look like full-blown eating disorders, they are much closer to it than men are.’
Fellow researcher, psychologist Diane Spangler, said a constant bombardment of images of stick thin models and actresses make women think than thin is the ideal shape.

She said: ‘Many women learn that bodily appearance and thinness constitute what is important about them, and their brain responding reflects that.

Read on.

30% Breast Cancer Cases May Be Caused By Obesity

Shue — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 18:16:52 +0000

Researchers claim that obesity could be one of the leading causes of breast cancer contributing to as many as 30% cases every year. According to them, these 30% breast cancer cases could be avoided if women ate less and exercised more and adopted healthier lifestyles from an early age. And, considering 30% is 14,000 women a year, it is a very significant impact.
Modern lifestyles which feature regular drinking, lack of exercise and increased obesity are fuelling the rise of the disease, the European Breast Cancer Conference heard yesterday.
Carlo La Vecchia, of Milan University, told the conference in Barcelona: ‘What can be achieved with screening has been achieved. It’s time to move on to other things.’
Dr La Vecchia said the International Agency for Research on Cancer estimates that 25 to 30 per cent of cases could be avoided if women were thinner and did more exercise.
But Robert Baan, an IARC expert, said it was not clear if already overweight women could lower their cancer risk by slimming down or if long-term damage had already been done.
Around one in five British women is classified as obese. Research shows they are almost 50% of them are more likely to die from breast cancer than women with fewer pounds.

Men Suffer More From Diseases Than Women Do, Say Scientists

Shue — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 18:59:37 +0000

Many wives and girlfriends have complained about their men staying sick longer than they would have as well as for seeming to suffer more than them. Scientists have now proven that this is not a myth at all. In fact, men do suffer more and longer than women. And, scientists blame it on the fact that men invest in their spirit of adventure at the expense of their immune system.
Scientists believe it is the male predilection for a “live fast, die young” lifestyle that means in evolutionary terms they have failed to build up their immune systems like females. This means that they are not only more prone to catching diseases, but also to suffer more seriously and for longer.
Dr Olivier Restif, of the University of Cambridge, said: “In many cases, males tend to be more prone to get infected or less able to clear infection.
“Proposed mechanisms include interference between male hormones and immunity, as well as risk-taking behaviour.
Dr Restif said: “An increase in male susceptibility or exposure to infection favours the spread of the pathogen in the whole population and therefore tends to select for higher resistance or tolerance in both sexes if the cost of immunity is essential.

How People Respond To Stress

Shue — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 06:29:33 +0000

A recent study conducted in Canada has found that how people react to stress is largely determined by their age and their gender.
Researchers studied 20-to-64-year-olds and published their finding in the journal Psychophysiology.
“Our findings suggest that women who are more defensive are at increased cardiovascular risk, whereas low defensiveness appears to damage the health of older men,” says Bianca D’Antono, a professor at the Université de Montréal Department of Psychiatry and a Montreal Heart Institute researcher.
Defensiveness is a trait characterized by avoidance, denial or repression of information perceived as threatening. In women, a strong defensive reaction to judgment from others or a threat to self-esteem will result in high blood pressure and heart rate. Contrarily, older men with low defensive reactions have higher cardiovascular rates.
According to Dr. Jean-Claude Tardif a Université de Montréal professor and Montreal Heart Institute researcher, the physiological response to stress in women and older men is linked to this desire of maintaining self-esteem and securing social bonds.
“The sense of belonging is a basic human need,” says D’Antono. “Our findings suggest that socialization is innate and that belonging to a group contributed to the survival of our ancestors.”

Read on.

Contraceptive Pill May Protect Women From Fatal Diseases

Shue — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 06:18:05 +0000

A study led by Prof Philip Hannaford of the University of Aberdeen and involving 46,000 women has shown that women who have been taking a contraceptive pill regularly are less likely to die from cancer or heart disease.
The results are from the Royal College of GPs Oral Contraception Study, one of the world’s largest investigations into the health effects of the pill.
The study was published online in the British Medical Journal (BMJ).
Prof Hannaford told BBC Scotland: “We have known for a while that whilst women use the pill they have a small excess risk of disease but that seems to wear off.
“What we have never known is, what are the really long-term effects?”
“This study, after following up a large group of women for 39 years, has shown there is no increased risk among women who have used the pill, in fact there is a small 12% drop.”
The professor added: “There are some risks whilst you use it but you can minimise those risks by avoiding smoking, having your blood pressure checked, taking part in screening programmes.
“What we know now is once the pill is stopped those risks disappear and in the very long term there is no increased risk, in fact, if anything, a small benefit.”

Read on.

Biological Clock Cause for Concern For New Age Women

Shue — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 14:19:16 +0000

A study from the University of St. Andrews and Edinburgh University, published last month by PLoS ONE, tracked the human ovarian reserve — or a woman’s potential number of eggs — from conception through menopause. Using a mathematical model and data from 325 women, the researchers found that the average woman is born with around 300,000 eggs and steadily loses them as she ages, with just 12 percent of those eggs remaining at the age of 30, and only 3 percent left by 40.
“That’s a greater percentage of loss at an earlier age than had previously been reported,” says reproductive endocrinologist Robert Stillman, of Shady Grove Fertility in Rockville. “One might be able to argue whether there are 12 percent remaining at age 30 or 22 percent or even 40 percent, but it is still clear that there’s a very rapid loss in the number of eggs available as women age and that the smaller pool of [older] eggs is also more likely to” contain a higher proportion of abnormal eggs, he adds, pointing out that from the mid-30s on, the decline in fertility is much steeper with each passing year.

You can always find more info from the main articles.

Aspirin Aids Breast Cancer Survival

Shue — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 18:10:56 +0000

A new study of more than 4,000 women who were diagnosed with breast cancer shows that taking aspirin appears to significantly increase survival and reduce the risk of recurrence.
“Women who took aspirin were 50 percent less likely to die from breast cancer [during the study follow-up period] than those who did not take it,” said study author Dr. Michelle Holmes, an associate professor of medicine and epidemiology at Harvard Medical School and School of Public Health, in Boston.
The study is published online Feb. 16 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
The 50 percent reduction is the overall finding when comparing to users to nonusers, she said. “Statistically, the women who took it more days per week had a higher risk reduction,” Holmes noted.
But the most important finding, in her view, was the overall 50 percent reduction. She didn’t have access to doses, just number of days a week the women took aspirin, she noted.
Aspirin use also reduced the risk of recurrence of the cancer in similar fashion.
“It is a surprisingly strong effect,” Holmes said, though she acknowledged that it was an observational study and does not establish definitive cause and effect.

New Friendlier IVF Treatment

Shue — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 12:13:45 +0000

IVF treatment in the U.K is an expensive affair, going for not less than 2500 pounds. It’s also a long process that sometimes takes several trials before a successful pregnancy can be registered. Regular IVF involves fertilizing the egg outside the body. The embryo is then incubated to develop for up to 5 days before being transferred into the womb.

A new technology soon to be introduced in Britain seeks to make the operation slightly different. Experts say the Invocell treatment will be faster, cheaper and more convenient. It will be possible to perform the procedure in a regular doctor’s office, without a complex IVF centre, lots of equipment or a laboratory. Doctors would insert a sealed capsule in the vaginal cavity to allow fertilisation to take place inside the body.

Mild drugs would be given to the woman to stimulate her ovaries. She would then be sedated for the eggs to be removed. A maximum of seven eggs are put into the capsule. Washed sperm is added too. The capsule is placed in the vagina. The woman returns for the second appointment after three days for the capsule to be removed. The eggs are checked for quality and the best (one or two) are transferred into the womb.

Learn more.

Acupuncture Could Ease Period Pain

Shue — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 14:05:12 +0000

A good number of women experience severe pre-menstrual syndrome. For most women, this pain goes on throughout the period and it can be disruptive to their day to day activities. The pain is most severe on the abdomen, lower back and sometimes involves vomiting. For some women, it is normal to feel bloated during this period.

New research findings bear some good news, as affirmations are being made that acupuncture could be used in the near future to ease period pain. The method will work just like conventional acupuncture, and will involve inserting needles in acupuncture points in the abdomen. Doctors say the treatment could work in two ways. The first one is the psychological effect going through acupuncture has, which sort of relieves one’s pain. The second one is that acupuncture causes changes in brain activity and the nervous system, which help in easing the pain.

Women who have used acupuncture to treat severe period pain say that it had better results than conventional medicines. While this can be the dawn of a new hope, it is advisable to consult your doctor before using this therapy, to be on the safe side. To learn more about acupuncture, visit the main news site.