His and Her Health

The MedBlogger is Back For You

The Vibrance MedBlogger is back and hopes he/she can rekindle your interests in things medical. So much news in our areas of interests each day. Much makes our pages, but some nuggets don't and all lend themselves to comment. The MedBlogger loves to comment and engage in discussions. The MedBlogger will site the source of the material.

It's all usually serious stuff, but sometimes.....

Pregnancy Shortly After Miscarriage Said OK

This may come as a surprise to many: A report in the British Medical Journal concluded after a study: Women who conceive within six months of an initial miscarriage have the best reproductive outcomes and lowest complication rates in a subsequent pregnancy. One goal of the study was to evaluate the optimal interval to subsequent pregnancy after miscarriage in a first recorded pregnancy. The title of the study report is: Effect of interpregnancy interval on outcomes of pregnancy after miscarriage: retrospective analysis of hospital episode statistics in Scotland.
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Women Like Men in Red. No Really.

The August, 2010, issue of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, published by the American Psychological Association reported that.women found men more appealing when they were either pictured wearing red or framed in red, compared with other colors. You can find the abstract psycnet.apa.org/journals/xge/139/3/399/ There is a reason.What do you think?

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Better Bearers of Pain: Women

Women most likely knew it all along and, as a man, I kind of knew it too. According to a study and leading psychologist, women are likely to put up with several different painful conditions at once and handle it better than men. It was noted they experience chronic pain longer, more intensely and more often than men, according to a leading psychologist. This can lead to greater psychological distress and greater likelihood of disability, warns Dr Jennifer Kelly.

Dr Kelly, of the Atlanta Center for Behavioral Medicine, said women may feel pain more intensely because they have a more emotional response to it than men. 'Chronic pain affects a higher proportion of women than men around the world,' said Dr Kelly. 'We need to encourage women to take a more active role in their treatment and reduce the stigma and embarrassment of this problem.

She told the Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association-that latest research offers insights into how physicians and mental health providers can better treat women with chronic pain. Pain is considered chronic when it lasts six months or longer and most medical treatment options have been exhausted. She said chronic pain conditions that are more prevalent in women than in men include fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome, rheumatoid arthritis and migraines.

Dr Kelly said hormones may be to blame for these differences and that estrogen clearly plays a role in conditions such as migraines

FDA approves ella™ tablets for prescription emergency contraception

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (August, 2110) approved ella™ (ulipristal acetate) tablets for emergency contraception. The prescription-only product prevents pregnancy when taken orally within 120 hours (five days) after a contraceptive failure or unprotected intercourse. It is not intended for routine use as a contraceptive.

ella is a progesterone agonist/antagonist whose likely main effect is to inhibit or delay ovulation. Since May 2009, the prescription product has been available in Europe under the brand name ellaOne. An FDA Advisory Committee for Reproductive Health Drugs discussed ella in June, 2010. The committee unanimously voted that the application for ella provided compelling data on efficacy and sufficient information on safety for the proposed indication of emergency contraception.

Side effects most frequently observed with ella in the clinical trials include: headache, nausea, abdominal pain, pain/discomfort during menstruation (dysmenorrhea), fatigue, and dizziness. The profile of side effects for ella is similar to that of FDA-approved levonorgestrel emergency contraceptives.

Study: Moderate chocolate eating may lower a woman's risk for heart failure

More than 30,000 middle-aged and older Swedish women without histories of diabetes or serious heart problems filled out food-frequency questionnaires and then were followed for roughly 9 years. Compared with women who didn't eat chocolate, those who consumed one to three servings a month had about a 25% reduction in heart failure risk, while those who consumed one to two servings a week had a 30% risk reduction. Higher intake did not appear to have a protective effect, according to a study in according to a study in Circulation: Heart Failure..


The authors point out that chocolate is a good source of flavonoids, which might improve cardiovascular risk factors. They note, however, that chocolate consumed in the U.S. likely contains less cocoa (known to be cardioprotective) than that consumed by women in this study at circheartfailure.ahajournals.org/cgi/rap...URE.110.944025v1.pdf