Women's Health Archive

Beer, wine, and spirits are foods as well as intoxicants that have different effects in women than in men.

In the first episode of the sitcom "Grace and Frankie," the title characters, played by Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin, are ordering drinks before dinner. When carb-conscious Fonda sends the breadbasket away and asks for a very dry vodka martini, Tomlin reminds her that vodka is made from potatoes. Fonda responds, "Alcohol has its own rules."

If you're "leaning in" by putting in extra hours on the job, you may be gaining gender equality that you don't want—the same stroke risk as your male colleagues. A recent analysis indicates that women who work 55 hours or more per week have a 30% higher risk of having a stroke than those working standard hours, making them just as likely to have a stroke as their male counterparts.

The analysis, published online Aug. 20, 2015, by The Lancet, was conducted by European public health re-searchers. It involved data from over 600,000 women and men enrolled in long-term observational studies in Europe and the United States. It was the first such analysis of the relationship between working long hours and stroke. The researchers noted several factors that might have contributed to the elevated stroke risk, including the additional stress of balancing the extra work hours, inactivity, long periods of sitting, and ignoring stroke warning signs.

The purpose of treating ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS)—the earliest, noninvasive form of breast cancer (often called "precancer")—is to prevent those lesions from becoming invasive and thereby greatly reduce the risk of dying from breast cancer. As mammography has become more precise, it has detected more DCIS, and more women get treatment with surgery and often radiation as well. An analysis published online by JAMA Oncology on Aug. 20, 2015, adds to increasing questions about the best way to manage DCIS in most women diagnosed with it.

Canadian researchers analyzed 20 years of data from 108,000 women with DCIS in a database maintained by the National Cancer Institute. Most women were treated with lumpectomy, often followed by radiation, or mastectomy. The researchers found that treatment with radiation or mastectomy did not lower the overall breast cancer death rate in women with DCIS. It remained at 3.3%—the average death rate from all breast cancers. However there were some groups—including African American women and women under 40—in whom the death rate was higher (7% to 8%).

Although vitamin D is essential to bone health, a controlled clinical trial published online by JAMA Internal Medicine on Aug. 3, 2015, found that vitamin D supplements didn't build bone in postmenopausal women with blood levels of vitamin D below the 30-ng/mL threshold generally considered necessary for good health. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin randomly assigned 230 women to three groups: one got 800 IU of vitamin D daily and a placebo twice a month; one got a placebo daily and 50,000 IU of vitamin D twice a month; the third got placebos both daily and twice a month. The study lasted a year. The researchers found that neither dose of vitamin D had a significant effect on bone mass, falls, or fractures.

The Wisconsin study may not have used the right doses of vitamin D or lasted long enough to show an effect. One ongoing study, The Vitamin D and Omega-3 Trial (VITAL), is large enough to demonstrate even small-to-moderate benefits of vitamin D supplementation. VITAL is evaluating a 2,000-IU daily dose for five years in 26,000 women and men. The results are expected in 2017. Until then, it's still important to get the recommended daily dose of vitamin D: 600 IU for adults through age 70 and 800 IU for people ages 71 or older

Ask the doctor

Q. I'm 62 years old, and my last menstrual period was at age 51. My doctor told me that my hot flashes would end after "about three to five years," but I still have them. Am I unusual, and what can I do?

Among 400 postmenopausal women who were previously inactive, those who did 300 minutes per week of moderate or high intensity exercise had more success at reducing total fat after one year than those who exercised for 150 minutes per week.

Urinary tract infections (UTIs) occur in women of all ages. Physical and hormonal changes can leave women at midlife particularly vulnerable. No woman should have to put up with the inconvenience and discomfort of recurrent UTIs. Self-help measures can be effective, but if they don’t do the trick, see your doctor. He or she can identify and treat any underlying problems and recommend other strategies to keep UTIs at bay.

One of the most common treatments for unexplained infertility is ovulation induction, in which a woman takes drugs that will increase the number of eggs the ovary releases in the hope that at least one will result in a pregnancy. But when too many eggs are available for fertilization, the rates of high-risk multiple pregnancies go up. A recent study compared three drugs used for ovulation induction and found that the one more likely to result in a live birth was also more likely to result in a multiple pregnancy (twins, triplets, or more). The options for treating unexplained infertility remain less than ideal, but careful choices mean that the pregnancies that do result will be safer for moms and babies.