Women Health Online

Many women worry that hormone replacement therapy will cause them to gain weight, but researchers say HRT is less likely to cause weight gain than contraceptive hormones. 

A woman’s blood type may yield clues to her fertility, a new study suggests.

The results show that, of a group of women in their 30s who sought medical fertility help, those with blood type O were more likely than women with other blood types to have diminished ovarian reserve, meaning their ovaries had few eggs or had eggs unlikely to meet with success during in vitro fertilization procedures.

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An estimated two billion people in the developing world heat and cook with a biomass fuel such as wood, but the practice exposes people – especially women – to large doses of small-particle air pollution, which can cause premature death and lung disease.

In a study just published online in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Health Perspectives, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have associated indoor air pollution with increased blood pressure among older women.

In a remote area of Yunnan Province, China, 280 women in an ethnic minority called the Naxi wore a portable device that sampled the air they were breathing for 24 hours.

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Women who wish to fall pregnant should be advised to brush their teeth and floss regularly as gum disease affects chances of conception, a fertility conference in Stockholm was told on Tuesday.

Periodontal disease can delay the time it takes to conceive by two months on average, an effect similar to that of obesity in women, the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE) heard at its annual meeting.

The evidence comes from a medical study conducted in western Australia on a group of 3,416 pregnant woman, most of them young and of Asian background.

It took women with gum disease just over seven months to become pregnant, compared to an average five months for counterparts with healthy gums.

For non-Caucasian women with gum disease, the period increased to a year.

The study took other factors such as smoking and body weight into account.

The suspected culprit is inflammation caused by oral bacteria, which may have a knock-on effect on tissue in the reproductive system, doctors believe.

This is the first time gum disease has been identified among the factors that affect the chances of a pregnancy, said chief investigator Roger Hart, a professor of reproductive medicine at the University of Western Australia in Perth.

Hart cautioned that dental hygiene was only one part of “a whole package of healthy lifestyle.”

“You have to make sure you’re the appropriate weight, and many women need to lose weight, they need to stop smoking, they need to curtail alcohol to a minimum amount, they need to take folic acid, they need to ensure they’ve got the rubella German measles vaccination,” he told AFP.

“But yes, if they’ve got gum disease, that should be treated.”

FRIDAY, July 8 () — Young women say they flock to tanning salons to gain a healthy glow that adds to their natural beauty, protects them from the sun’s rays and fills them with self-confidence.

Except none of it is true or lasting.

A deep tan may help project beauty and confidence for a while, but health experts stress that it will eventually give way to permanent skin damage caused by the ultraviolet rays emitted by a tanning bed — damage up to and including potentially deadly skin cancer.

“We’re seeing more young women with melanoma,” said Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, deputy chief medical officer for the American Cancer Society.

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