All posts tagged: women's health

Your menstrual cycle may affect how well vaccines work

Your menstrual cycle may affect how well vaccines work

Published by Miika Tikkanen

The degree of protection that women get from vaccines may vary depending on when in their menstrual cycle they receive them. The concept of #cyclesynching suggests that women of reproductive age should vary their diet and lifestyle around where they are in their cycle, which isn’t supported by robust research. But evidence is mounting that the fluctuation of hormones that occurs during the menstrual cycle impacts a woman’s immune response, with the latest research suggesting it could affect how soon after being vaccinated against covid-19 they catch the infection. “For too long, the menstrual cycle has been treated as background noise in health research,” says Poppy Cooper at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. “This work is part of a growing shift in that thinking and a recognition that the menstrual cycle has impacts beyond reproductive health.” Soon after the covid-19 vaccines were rolled out in 2021, reports emerged of women claiming they were making their periods heavier and causing them to start earlier. A later study found that if these changes do …

Can creatine really help with menopause? What women should know

Can creatine really help with menopause? What women should know

Published by Sam Flores

If you follow people on social media who talk about menopause, chances are you’ve seen discussions of creatine, which has long been popular among athletes and body builders. It is one of a slew of supplements advertised to address the disruptive symptoms and health risks that can come with the menopausal transition, from hot flashes to urinary tract infections. Creatine is a compound that the body produces naturally and stores mostly in muscles, which then use it to generate energy. Most people also consume creatine through meat and seafood. The main argument menopause influencers make for it is straightforward. Oestrogen levels decline during perimenopause, which generally leads to less muscle mass. Doctors routinely urge women to do strength training to combat that muscle loss, and supporters of creatine supplements say they could help increase the effectiveness of strength training and improve women’s health as they age. Some influencers also claim that creatine can improve memory and mood, two things many women struggle with during and after perimenopause. Creatine, specifically a form called creatine monohydrate, has …

Unpicking endometriosis reveals how it affects more than the pelvis

Unpicking endometriosis reveals how it affects more than the pelvis

Published by Miika Tikkanen

A huge study into the biology of endometriosis has revealed new mechanisms by which it may cause its severe and wide-ranging effects on health, paving the way for improved treatments. The work, which included data from more than a million women, is also the first to identify specific genes linked to endometriosis in people of African ancestry, a group that has historically been under-represented in research on the condition. “We were able to pinpoint around 300 genes that are going to be really exciting for the field to focus on,” says Shefali Setia-Verma at the University of Pennsylvania. Endometriosis is a chronic, often debilitating condition in which tissue similar to the lining of the uterus grows elsewhere in the body, forming lesions. It affects around 10 per cent of women of reproductive age and can cause fatigue, severe pain and fertility problems. It has also been linked with cardiovascular disease, but the biological mechanisms behind this association have remained unclear. To investigate, Setia-Verma and her colleagues took a “multi-omics” approach, combining analyses of genes, proteins, …

7 things all women should know about their heart health

7 things all women should know about their heart health

Published by Sam Flores

Heart disease kills more women than all cancers combined. But many women believe they are most likely to die of cancer, or breast cancer alone, according to surveys. That’s not too surprising. Women’s heart health has long been overlooked and understudied. As a result, doctors sometimes struggle to diagnose heart problems that are more common in women. Researchers aren’t clear on what causes some conditions, making them harder to prevent. And many patients don’t know that heart attack symptoms can present differently in women, or what to look out for. But despite the challenges, there’s a lot that women can do to reduce their risk. Some of the advice is universal: Men and women can benefit from eating healthily, exercising and staying on top of their blood pressure, cholesterol and glucose. But other information is sex-specific. Here’s what women should know about their hearts. 1. WOMEN HAVE DIFFERENT RISK FACTORS Hypertension, high cholesterol, diabetes, smoking, inactivity and family history of heart disease increase risk for both men and women. But women have to consider a …

PCOS postpones perimenopause and allows pregnancies at older ages

PCOS postpones perimenopause and allows pregnancies at older ages

Published by Miika Tikkanen

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is notorious for disrupting hormones and fertility, but it may have some surprising benefits after the age of 40. Ageing seems to naturally reshape the affected ovaries, making periods more regular, delaying perimenopause and increasing fertility. “Over the years, we’ve had so many women with PCOS telling us how they thought they would never be able to get pregnant without ART [assisted reproductive technology] and then they were so surprised because it happened in their 40s,” says Terhi Piltonen at Oulu University Hospital in Finland. “We call these children that they never thought they would have ‘evening stars’.” Piltonen and her colleagues studied how PCOS influences the menopausal transition using data from 1849 women who were born in Finland in 1966 and had had regular health checks ever since as part of the Northern Finland Birth Cohort study. When the women were 31 years old, 380 of them met the criteria for PCOS, meaning they had at least two of three characteristic features: irregular or no periods, high levels of testosterone …

Your period may make sport injuries more severe

Your period may make sport injuries more severe

Published by Miika Tikkanen

The idea that we should make lifestyle adjustments depending on where we are in our menstrual cycle is gaining traction online, as well as in scientific circles. Now, researchers have found that athletes who obtain a sports injury while on their period seem to take longer to recover from it than at other times in their cycle. #cyclesyncing is tagged in thousands of social media posts that promote altering diet and physical activity levels around the different stages of the menstrual cycle, to adjust for the hormonal changes that occur. The evidence supporting such dietary changes is weak, and while exercise-related studies on this subject are more robust, their results have also been mixed. Nevertheless, rugby union teams in the US and England already adjust training around their team members’ cycles. To try to better understand this, Eva Ferrer and her colleagues at Hospital Sant Joan de Déu in Barcelona followed 33 professional football players from the FC Barcelona women’s team across four seasons between 2019 and 2023. As part of their normal training regimen, …