Menopausal women could 'work out' hot flashes

Menopausal women who exercise may experience fewer hot flashes, according to researchers.

Women who are relatively inactive or are overweight tend to have a risk of increased symptoms of perceived hot flashes, noted Steriani Elavsky, assistant professor of kinesiology at Penn State University.

Perceived hot flashes do not always correspond to actual hot flashes. Most previous research analysed only self-reported hot flashes. This is the first study known to the researchers to look at objective versus subjective hot flashes.

Elavsky and colleagues studied 92 menopausal women for 15 days. The women recruited for this study were different from many earlier menopause studies, said Elavsky, according to a university statement.

"Our sample included women with mild to moderate symptoms and they were recruited for a study of physical activity, not for a study of menopause," said Elavsky.

The women were 40 to 59 years old, with an average of two children and were not on hormone therapy. During analysis the researchers separated the women into normal weight and overweight/obese categories and higher fit and lower fit categories. These categories were not necessarily mutually exclusive.

"For women with mild to moderate hot flashes, there is no reason to avoid physical activity for the fear of making symptoms worse," said Elavsky. "In fact, physical activity may be helpful, and is certainly the best way to maximize health as women age.

"Becoming and staying active on a regular basis as part of your lifestyle is the best way to ensure healthy aging and well being, regardless of whether you experience hot flashes or not," Elavsky added.

Therapy boosts sexual function in sleep disorder patients

Men who suffer from obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), a sleep related breathing disorder, are seeing another potential benefit from continuous positive airway pressure therapy (CPAP) -- improved sexual function and satisfaction in non-diabetic men under 60.

CPAP is the most common and effective treatment for OSA, which keeps the airway open and restores normal oxygen levels during sleep. This helps maintain a steady, healthy level of breathing through the night.

A study out of Walter Reed National Military Medical Centre in Bethesda, assessed the erectile function (ED) and libido of 92 men newly diagnosed with OSA, who were starting CPAP therapy.

OSA occurs when the tissue in the back of the throat collapses and blocks the airway, causing the body to stop breathing during sleep. OSA can increase the risk of heart disease and stroke, according to a Walter Reed statement.

ED is common in OSA patients, and nearly half of the men in the Walter Reed study reported the presence of ED. Patients were assessed again after one, three and six months of CPAP therapy.

The results show that CPAP improved the sexual function and satisfaction in the majority of men in the study regardless of their level of erectile function reported at the very start. Those with ED had more robust improvements and even many without ED reported improved sexual function and satisfaction.

"We were surprised at how prevalent ED is in a relatively young population of men with sleep apnea. The average age was 45," said Joseph Dombrowsky, the study's primary investigator from Walter Reed.

"But we were similarly surprised at how robust a clinically significant response the men had with CPAP therapy."

Smoking fathers pass on damaged genes to kids

British researchers have found the men quite fond of smoking actually go on to pass damaged DNA to their children as fathers while raising risk of cancer among them.

Researchers at the University of Bradford found in their study that smoking harms the father's DNA, and these damaged genes can be inherited by his children. This raises the risk of youngsters developing childhood cancers, particularly leukaemia, Daily Mail reported.

Because a fertile sperm cell takes three months to fully develop, fathers should kick the habit 12 weeks ahead of conceiving to avoid the risk, said Diana Anderson of the university of Bradford.

"Smoking by fathers at the time around conception can lead to genetic changes in their children. These changes may raise the risk of developing cancer," she added.

Meanwhile, scientists at the University of Glasgow have found that the men drinking lots of tea are far more likely to develop prostate cancer. They found that those who drank seven or more cups a day had a 50 percent higher risk of contracting the disease than men who had three or fewer cups.

The warning comes after researchers tracked the health of over 6,000 men for over four decades.

The latest findings contradict a previous research, which suggested that drinking tea lowers the risk of cancer, as well as heart disease, diabetes and Parkinson's disease.

Stress can be good for immune system

Stress is bad for you -- you've heard it a thousand times. But it can be good for your immune system, says a study.

Short-term stress, the fight-or-flight response, a mobilisation of bodily resources lasting minutes or hours in response to immediate threats -- stimulates immune activity, said Firdaus Dhabhar, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioural sciences and member of the Stanford University Institute for Immunity, Transplantation, and Infection.

And that's a good thing. The immune system is crucial for wound healing and preventing or fighting infection, and both wounds and infections are common risks during chases, escapes and combat, the Journal of Psychoneuroendocrinology reported.

Working with colleagues at Stanford and two other universities, Dhabhar showed that subjecting lab rats to mild stress caused a massive mobilization of several key types of immune cells into the bloodstream and then onto the skin and other tissues, according to a university statement.

This large-scale migration of immune cells, which took place over two hours, was comparable to the mustering of troops in a crisis, Dhabhar said. He and colleagues had previously shown that a similar immune-cell redistribution in patients experiencing the short-term stress of surgery predicts enhanced postoperative recovery.

Investigators were able to show that the massive redistribution of immune cells throughout the body was orchestrated by three hormones released by the adrenal glands, in different amounts and at different times, in response to the stress-inducing event. These hormones are the brain's call-to-arms to the rest of the body, Dhabhar said.

"Mother Nature gave us the fight-or-flight stress response to help us, not to kill us," said Dhabhar, who has been conducting experiments for well over a decade on the effects of the major stress hormones on the immune system.

The findings paint a clearer picture of exactly how the mind influences immune activity. "An impala's immune system has no way of knowing that a lion is lurking in the grass and is about to pounce, but its brain does," Dhabhar added.

Apple compound may help burn fat, reduce obesity

A waxy compound found in apple peel may help reduce obesity and its associated health problems by increasing the amount of muscle and brown fat, two tissues recognised for their calorie-burning properties, a study says.

The study conducted at the University of Iowa, US, found that the compound known as ursolic acid helped mice burn calories and shed weight, besides keeping pre-diabetes and fatty liver disease at bay, even when they were being given a high-fat diet.

"From previous work, we knew that ursolic acid increases muscle mass and strength in healthy mice, which is important because it might suggest a potential therapy for muscle wasting," says Christopher Adams, associate professor of internal medicine, who led the study, the journal Publric Library of Science ONE reports.

"We tested ursolic acid in mice on a high-fat diet - a mouse model of obesity and metabolic syndrome. Once again, the compound increased skeletal muscle. Interestingly, it also reduced obesity, pre-diabetes and fatty liver disease," said Adams, according to an Iowa statement.

"Since muscle is very good at burning calories, the increased muscle in ursolic acid-treated mice may be sufficient to explain how the compound reduces obesity. However, we were surprised to find that it also increased brown fat, a fantastic calorie burner. This increase in brown fat may also help protect against obesity."

Until quite recently, researchers believed that only infants had brown fat, which then disappeared during childhood. However, improved imaging techniques have shown that adults do retain a very small amount of the substance mostly in the neck and between the shoulder blades.

Some studies have linked increased levels of brown fat with lower levels of obesity and healthier levels of blood sugar and blood lipid, leading to the suggestion that brown fat may be helpful in preventing obesity and diabetes.

The research team, which also included Steven Kunkel, Christopher Elmore, Kale Bongers, Scott Ebert, Daniel Fox, Michael Dyle and Steven Bullard, studied mice on a high-fat diet over a period of several weeks.

'Changing plate's colour helps you shed weight'

Scientists have suggested an easy way out for those who want to shed pounds. They should simply change the colour of their plates.

People tend to take more generous helpings when the food they eat is of the same hue as the crockery on which it is placed, says a new study.

When foods "blend in" with their background, people serve themselves 20 percent more than if they were serving the same meal on a plate of contrasting colour.

In the study, people were given either a red or a white dinner plate and led to one of two buffet tables offering pasta; one in tomato sauce, the other in cream sauce, the Telegraph reports.

Those given crockery which "matched" their food - red for tomato sauce, or white for cream sauce - gave themselves helpings between 17 and 22 percent larger than those with plates of contrasting colour.

Further, research has established that the average person eats around 92 percent of a portion they serve themselves.

The latest study by researchers at Cornell University, US, repeated several times on groups of 60 participants, found the actual colour of the food and plates made no difference; what mattered was the contrast between the two.

Study authors said the colour contrast appears to act as a "stop sign" reminding people to think about how much food they were serving.

Brian Wansink, professor who runs Cornell University's Food and Brand Lab, said: "People will generally serve themselves far more on a large dinner plate than they would on a smaller one, because the eye is tricked. It seems that colour contrast is one way to block this illusion."

The research author said those trying to lose weight could help themselves by buying brightly coloured or dark plates, to provide contrast with common white foodstuffs such as pasta, rice and potatoes.

Alternatively, green plates could be used as a way to trick children into eating more vegetables, he said.

Blogging de-stresses new mothers

New mothers who read and write blogs are likely to be less stressed out, as they begin to feel more connected to their extended family and friends, says a new study.

"It looks like blogging might be helping these women as they transition into motherhood because they may begin to feel more connected to their extended family and friends, which leads them to feel more supported," said Brandon T. McDaniel, graduate student in human development and family studies, Penn State University.

"That potentially is going to spill out into other aspects of their well being, including their marital relationship with their partner, the ways that they're feeling about their parenting stress, and eventually into their levels of depression," McDaniel was quoted as saying in the Maternal and Child Health Journal.

McDaniel and colleagues from Brigham Young University surveyed 157 new mothers about their media use and their well-being. The moms were all first-time parents with only one child under the age of 18 months -- most much younger than this, according to a university statement.

The researchers report that blogging had a positive impact on new mothers, but social networking -- mainly Facebook and MySpace -- did not seem to impact their well-being.

"We're not saying that those who end up feeling more supported all of a sudden no longer have stresses, they're still going to have those stressful moments you have as a parent," said McDaniel.

"But because they're feeling more supported, their thoughts and their feelings about that stress might change, and they begin to feel less stressed about those things."

Researchers found that 61 percent of the mothers surveyed wrote their own blogs and 76 percent read blogs. Eighty-nine percent of the mothers who wrote their own blogs did so to "document personal experiences or share them with others," and 86 percent wanted to stay in touch with family and friends through the blog.

Sarah M. Coyne and Erin K. Holmes, assistant professors, School of Family Life, Brigham Young University, also worked on this research.

Night shift elevates breast cancer risk


Women who did night shifts had a higher risk of developing breast cancer, as compared to sisters who worked in daytime, according to a study.


 "Our work has corroborated the results of previous studies and poses the problem of taking night work into consideration in public health management, especially since the number of women working a typical hours is on the increase," states Pascal Guenel, of Inserm (Institut National de la Sante et de la Recherche Medicale), who led the study.

 Breast cancer is the number one cause of female mortality. It affects 100 out of 100,000 women per year in developed countries. Every year, more than 1.3 million new cases are diagnosed, 53,000 of these in France, said a university statement.

 Inserm researchers examined the effect of night work on the health of 3,000 women in France between 2005 and 2008, including each period of night work. Over 11 percent of women had worked nights at some time during their career.

 This increased risk was particularly marked in women who had worked nights for over four years, or in women whose working rhythm was less than three nights per week, because this led to more frequent disturbances between night and day rhythms.

 Finally, the link between night work and breast cancer seemed to be more marked when we looked at women who had worked at night prior to a first pregnancy.

 An explanation for this result could be that the mammary cells, incompletely differentiated in women before their first pregnancy, are more vulnerable.

G-Spot Found?
Vaginal Dissection Reveals it! 

The elusive G-spot has been called the UFO of gynecology -- but now a retired surgeon says he has photographic proof it exists.

The alleged G-spot is a tiny bunch-of-grapes-like structure within a bluish sac buried deep within the front wall of the vagina, says Adam Ostrzenski, MD, PhD, of St. Petersburg, Fla.

"As an erectile body, this structure is causing elevation of the front of the vaginal wall at the beginning of the sexual excitement," Ostrzenski tells WebMD.


But Ostrzenski's finding is based on a single dissection, performed on a recently deceased 83-year-old woman.

"The feeling in my limited field is that this is not real," Elena Ratner, MD, assistant professor of obstetrics, gynecology, and reproductive medicine at Yale University, tells WebMD via email.

Ratner notes that findings from a single dissection, performed on an elderly woman, are not proof that the structure is common to all women -- or that it is a source of sexual sensation.

"Who is to say that this thing they found on her dissection was the center of pelvic pleasure?" Ratner asks.

Even more dismissive of Ostrzenski's claim is sex therapist Leonore Tiefer, PhD, clinical associate professor of psychiatry at New York University Medical Center.