March 1st, 2010 by Elizabeth Kissling
POZ magazine and poz.com claim to be the leading publication and website in the U.S. about HIV/AIDS. The March 2010 issue has a great article by Suzanne Bopp about menstruation, menopause, and HIV. As with medical and cultural knowledge about HIV itself, understanding of how HIV affects menstruation continues to evolve. Irregular menstruation is a common complaint of women with HIV, but
“[Today] we have a better grasp of factors associated with abnormal menstrual cycles: substance abuse, AIDS, wasting disease—it relates more to overall nutritional status,” says Kristine Patterson, MD, clinical assistant professor at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine in Chapel Hill. “If the body doesn’t have enough fat, production of estrogen and progesterone shuts down,” Patterson says. This can happen anytime a woman loses too much weight, and it is exacerbated by advanced HIV disease, which causes the body to burn calories more rapidly.
. . . .
Researchers do know, however, that female hormones affect the virus—and that sex hormones generally have an impact on immunity. “We know that where a premenopausal woman is in her menstrual cycle affects her infectiousness,” Patterson says. “Estrogen plays a role—not only in HIV and the interplay of HIV and meds, but also in [the likelihood of] women transmitting and acquiring HIV.” Estrogen’s role may explain why women progress to AIDS at lower viral loads than men.
Highly recommended. Read the whole thing.
Tags: AIDS, estrogen, Health Care, HIV, hormones, Menopause, Menstruation
Posted in Health Care, Menopause, Menstruation, New Research, Sex | Comments Off
February 16th, 2010 by Elizabeth Kissling
Tags: advertising, anatomy, estrogen, Menstruation
Posted in Advertising, Menstruation, Objects, anatomy | Comments Off
December 10th, 2009 by Laura Wershler
Mammograms showing healthy (left) and (right) cancerous breast. Courtesy of the National Cancer Institute.
Can having too many menstrual cycles give you breast cancer? That’s what one might conclude from two unrelated articles that appeared in national newspapers this week.
First was Nicholas D. Kristof’s Op-Ed in the New York Times. Kristof had recently attended a symposium exploring whether certain common chemicals are linked to breast cancer and other ailments. The role of estrogen – both the real thing our bodies produce and the pseudo-estrogens – in breast cancer was his major example.
The real thing:
One theory starts with the well-known fact that women with more lifetime menstrual cycles are at greater risk for breast cancer, because they’re exposed to more estrogen. For example, a woman who began menstruating before 12 has a 30 percent greater risk of breast cancer than one who began at 15 or later.
The pseudo-estrogens:
One class of chemicals that creates concern — although the evidence is not definitive — is endocrine disruptors, which are often similar to estrogen and may fool the body into setting off hormonal changes. This used to be a fringe theory, but it is now being treated with great seriousness by the Endocrine Society the professional association of hormone specialists in the United States. …These endocrine disruptors are found in everything from certain plastics to various cosmetics.
Continue reading...
Tags: birth control pill, breast cancer, drugs, estrogen, hormones, Menarche, Menopause
Posted in Birth Control, Health Care, Media, Menarche, Menopause, Menstruation, Newspapers, ovulation | Comments Off
November 5th, 2009 by Elizabeth Kissling
Guest Post by Jerilynn Prior, Centre for Menstrual Cycle and Ovulation Research
As a clinician scientist with expertise in hormones and women’s health, I sit in Canada and look at the hype and dis-sing going on about “bio-identicals” in the USA and shake my head. If we don’t want estrogen that is not FDA approved to be used to treat hot flushes, the simple answer is to regulate appropriately. The perpetual debate about bio-identical hormones has now hit USA Today with a headline: “Bioidenticals: Estrogen without FDA approval for menopause?”
In Canada, all hormonal preparations require a prescription. Full stop. And the pharmacists who compound estriol or progesterone do so with my prescription for a specific dose and clear purpose. Those compounding pharmacists are also regulated the same way as pharmacists who dispense FDA/Health Canada approved medications. End of story.
What bothers me is that I believe there is an intrinsic advantage to hormones that are molecularly the same as our bodies produce. They are certainly better, a priori than those that are natural for horses or are “similar-but-different.” When oral micronized progesterone (molecularly identical, Prometrium®) is prescribed with estradiol (there are multiple FDA-approved brands of molecularly identical estrogen), there is no increased breast cancer risk.[1] On the other hand, medroxyprogesterone (a similar synthetic derivative of progesterone) with estradiol increases the risk for breast cancer by 79%.[1] That’s called a nasty surprise. Continue reading...
Tags: estriol, estrogen, guest post, hot flashes/flushes, progesterone
Posted in Menopause, New Research, Pharmaceutical | 1 Comment »
Readers should note that statements published in re: Cycling are those of individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the positions of the Society as a whole.
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