GynoFiles

Older moms are wiser moms, in that we all gain wisdom as we age; but older mothers are known to face more physical challenges during pregnancy. We've even asked ho w old is too old to have a baby ? Older fathers do have increased rate of abnormal sperm, but we've not shown any health risk to da d for being older .  Post-delivery there are long term health considerations. We have focused on some of the positives, even an older mom who breastfeeds will lower her risk of breast cancer. And there has been a lot of discussion about post partum health risks and benefits for all moms. Some even say we ‘lose a tooth for each baby’ meaning that without proper calcium, vitamin D and exercise bone health is compromised by being pregnant and breastfeeding. And now there is a new study presented at International Stroke Conference (ISC) 2016 that has shown that women who birth a child at age 40 years or older have a greater risk for hemorrhagic stroke later in life than younger mo...

Thinking about putting that next Holiday Cookie in your mouth, well, the sugar and cards may contribute not only to your cholesterol levels, but now it has been shown that cholesterol is not only a worry for heart, but it affects other aspects of our overall health. Women do not have high cholesterol because they are constipated, but they may have happily found that they have lowered cholesterol when they have used a constipation solution! It has been shown that the use of Metamucil along with a Step 1 diet from the American Heart Association can help lower cholesterol by 4-7%. Often we think that the right diet, the right amount of exercise, and the right amount of water will cure any bowel habit irregularities. Extra fiber in our diet should increase the frequency of stools, and give you improved symptoms of constipation.Many of us will go thorough a time when exercise decreases, stress and sweating increase water loss, an illness, or medication can change the frequency of bowel mo...

Lowering cholesterol is really about preventing heart disease and complications of cardiovascular disease. Lowering The Holistic approach to reducing CVD should include not only diet, but exercise and stress lowering. And medication may include both aspirin use ( see app for who should take aspirin ) and cholesterol lowering medications.And what medication would work depends on the type of lipid levels you have in your bod y ( Holistic approach to healing is to use lifestyle modifications to solve all medical woes, and reserve medication for only those scenarios that are very resistant: those with genetic resistance, those who cannot tolerate the diets that would work, and those who need faster results are examples of good reasons to take medication for a medical condition. C holesterol blood level management is one of those conditions that seems to fall in this category. We often find out young in life that our cholesterol needs management, and we have extremely effective medicatio...

Yes, pills are used for many healthy individuals to fight off risk, sort of like taking a vitamin. Generally speaking we think of most wellness care as eating better, exercising more, not smoking, and getting better sleep as part of  'therapeutic lifestyle changes.' But that's not enough power to fight off all the ravages of aging, genetics, and environmental damage, so perhaps turning to medication is what is going to be the most effective. The polypill is one good example of a pill for the healthy to prevent getting sick. It is directed at prevention of cardiovascular disease. And in the September 4th issue of JAMA 2013 it's back in the news, although almost two decades have passed in the efforts to get a polypill that will really work. The polypill was proposed over 10 years ago by Drs Wald and Law in a study in the British Medical Journal, when it was tested the medication included  three half dosage anti-hpertension agents, with other agents including a intermed...

In a new report that was just released from the Framingham Heart Study, Americans are often five or more years older in heart risk than their true age. They use blood pressure, treatment of hypertension, presence of diabetes, smoking, and BMI to calculate a theoretical heart age, and you can see what your heart age is.  These factors are definitely powerful and actually take into account your cholesterol levels, and exercise as both will effect all of the factors they do use in their heart age calculator. However, other mitigating and adverse factors such as genetic propensity to clotting, hormonal factors, history of pregnancy, weight distribution, depression, and stress may affect these numbers significantly and are not taken into consideration. Once these numbers are calculated, you can receive therapies that potentially reverses the heart aging. If you need a recent BMI or blood pressure reading, come by Women's Health Practice and we can monitor patients easily! If your Fr...

Enjoy whatever your grillmaster,  pizza wizard,  or master chef is serving up this holiday season do enjoy, but realize that there will be some catch up to that feasting: so after enjoying come on in to Women's Health Practice for a three part plan to fit in your best holiday wear by, the next holiday. We especially are going to target the weight we carry in the midline, no matter what your overall BMI and weight is. 1. Customize the Calorie count. 2. Understand the risks and benefits of weight distribution based on your own health 2. Contour Revision, that may mean diet medications or other nutritional strategies. And there are treatments such as Coolsculpting that help. 3. Normalize Your Hormones. Lots of us use our clothes to tell us what size we want to be, and that's not a terrible way to do it. To be even more scientific you can calculate that waist to hip ratio and you should be below .80 . You need to have a realistic approach to calories and the content of yo...

WHO lists the leading causes of death in women , and shows us how developed and underdeveloped nations differ.  It varies from country to country, and there are some shockers, in England, it's dementia that kills the most women! The rates differ by states as well . The National Center for Health Statistics last released data on what women, per age group, die of in 2004. The provisional data for 2011 is now available for comparisons on line. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm In the last tabulation if you were between 19 and 64 years old you are most likely to diet of malignant neoplasms. If you are 65 years or older you are most likely to die of diseases of the heart . If you are younger than age 19 then you are most likely to die of an accident or unintentional injury. They do list the top ten conditions that cause mortality in women, it's interesting to browse and think about what health screenings could help you prevent these conditions. Although not a...

Your mind and your body are connected. For a number of years we have discussed that Alzheimer's patients can prevent disease and improve prognosis though exercise , now some of this research has been applied to the healthy as well. In a simple study of memory, Lisa Weinberg, a psychology graduate student at the Georgia Institute of Technology showed that brief resistance exercise done immediately after a visual learning task enhances episodic memory by about 10%. Aerobics are good for the heart and overall longevity and disease prevention, but for brain boost and even some stress reduction, pumping some iron, or getting resistance thorough machine use will actually be the ticket to better thinking. Medscape reports that the study was published in the October issue of Acta Psychologica. The study was supported in part by a grant from the Clinical and Translational Science Awards program, the National Institutes of Health, and the National Center for Research Resource. The...

It is true that pregnancy, and even at time raising the children, can be hard on the heart; but that is not why you need a cholesterol test if you are trying to get pregnant. Poor cholesterol can affect your chances of getting pregnant in a new study in the Journal of Endocrinology and Metabolism . This means cholesterol levels that are outside the normal guidelines for your age. In their study the higher the cholesterol the longer it took for the couples to get pregnant. Who knows why this is, it may be that the cholesterol levels affect estrogen and testosterone hormone levels and thus affect ovulation that way. We known that cholesterol is one of the prime factors that contribute to blood vessel disease and blockages and ultimately lead to strokes, heart attacks, poor kidneys, poor circulation in our eyes, and poor circulation in our brains and feet, and well as reduced sexual function !  So maybe it's just not enough sex. As the couples that took the longest time to get pre...

The pap test and HPV testing on the pap is a cellular biopsy to determine the health of your cervix. We have arrived at the concept of a "liquid biopsy," for some organs meaning that we can check the health of that organ with the appropriate blood test. In some cases this actually means harvesting cells from the blood stream. In the case of the cardiovascular system it means determining the nature of levels that correlate with the condition of your blood tests. But Heart Health means overall cardiovascular system health. Your blood pressure should be normal, your heart should beat at a modest pace, and your blood vessel walls should be pristine clear of inflammation and plaque build up. How we determined this used to be a weight, a blood pressure check and a cholesterol measurement. The addition of lipid tests that are beyond the cholesterol number, and delve into the fat and carbohydrate metabolism has been the newest frontier in heart health testing. But we can look at he...

Prevention of cardiovascular disease, and the elimination of trans and saturated fat from our diet, has long been known to also help brain blood flow and thus promote thinking. But now we think that strategy can help prevent Alzheimer's as well. In the newest article from experts on how to eat here are other strategies known to prevent Alzheimer's as published on Medscape today. 1. Minimize saturated fats and trans fats. 2. Vegetables, legumes (beans, peas, and lentils), fruits, and whole grains should be the primary staples of the diet. 3. One ounce of nuts or seeds (one small handful) daily provides a healthful source of vitamin E. 4. A reliable source of vitamin B 12 , such as fortified foods or a supplement providing at least 2.4 μg per day for adults) should be part of the daily diet. 5. Choose multivitamins without iron and copper, and consume iron supplements only when direct...

The pieces of advice you will likely have in your in box today alone over the week will be staggering. So it's really up to you and your PCP provider to hunker down and plan an  effective plan to evaluate and improve. There are many cost effective and relatively simple heart tests that you can have, which can then be used to improve your heart health. Just having completed a few circuits at the gym gives you a hint that some things are functioning well. Being unduly fatigued or short of breath or seeing that your ankles are swelling in the morning, those could be your body signaling that you are not quite as healthy.  Improving heart health will make you look better, have better sleep, have better sex, and make you perform better and more efficiently; AND better heart health reduces your risks of strokes, and heart attacks, and high blood pressure. Thus improving your heart health helps to save your kidneys, your eye sight and your brain function as well! So...

What is cholesterol? I have an image of the wagon of fat Oprah once dragged across the stage post diet? But that was fat. And there are good fats, and bad fats, and then there are all the factors that make facts good or bad: such as the factors that contribute to blood vessel disease and blockages and ultimately lead to strokes, heart attacks, poor kidneys, poor circulation in our eyes, and poor circulation in our brains and feet, and well as reduced sexual function!  Some critical sites for blockage due to plaque is due to factors that have to do with blood flow, the lower the flow in an area the easier it is for particles to dock and build the plaque. Thus when we want to know about the fats we have circulating, just a cholesterol test can only just give us the bare sense of what is going on. What we want to know is a lot more information about the immuneoinflammatory disease that blocks blood vessels. So the cholesterol test is not a measurement of your fat stores, it is not th...

Many of us judge our heart by how we are on the bathroom scale. If we are a healthy weight we assume the heart is in good shape. A few of us have realized it's every more technical and that we need to measure the waist, the inches (or centimeters) relative to measurement of your hip, your body composition, and the overall balance of your metabolism's handling of your fats and carbs. It really not just the scale that lets you know how healthy the heart is. And yet the scale is an important component. The waist measures the deep fat around our organs, and gives a clue to the levels of blood fats in our circulation. Too big a waist is not healthy for heart or circulation, especially if your waist is approaching the measurement of your hips, or even larger! How to get to that correct waistline is a further dilemma, and we are back to thinking that lower carb diets may help that the best . But you most certainly do not have to be slim to be fit. You need to exercise, eat well, lowe...

Are you planning to stop at one child? Two? More? Concerned about world population growth? Will your decision revolve around your job? What age should you start? When you want the baby to have a birthday? When the right time is to have a baby is a whole different discussion, and one that is likely to be more social than gynecologic! Many patients don't want to have children at all, and so the answer for them may be: zero is the right number of children. Are their physical concerns with birthing more than one child? We've touched on this topic in lots of posts! Have more babies and you have less chance of breast cancer,  and if you breastfeed your children you are even less likely to have breast cancer. On the other hand, for each child you breastfeed you may decrease your total bone mass (at least during the feeding, some research says if you give it long enough you can recover!) More babies also means less uterine and less ovarian cancer. But the bladder probably suffers, mor...

The heart is on the left side of the body, we write with one hand, we carry a purse with one hand, we don't have completely symmetrical lungs, there are lots of behavioral and anatomic reasons that one arm is different from the other arm. We measure blood pressure in one arm when we go to the doc, but it's not so completely surprising that women may have slight differences in blood pressure between one arm and the other. In fact our arm pressure may be different from the blood pressure in or legs as well. Blood pressure differences at the different sites is important. SSo not specifically what the reading is, although that is important, but today we are also focusing on what the blood pressure in the right arm relative to your left arm. It can signal a clog in the main blood vessel that feeds one side or the other. By definition a difference of 20 "points" (or 20 mm Hg) is unusual and can signal vascular disease. So Dr Christopher Clark asked a different question, ...

The simple answer to the question of whether menopause causes heart risk is yes. The loss of estrogen and the loss of testosterone make women rapidly transition from having less heart risks than men to having more heart risks.And this risk is not trivial and should be discussed with your gyno. If you have always been thin, if your cholesterol is low, if you have always exercised, and eaten a low fat diet, your heart risks are less than women who have not had those preventative measures, whether you transition through menopause or not. But the average American Woman, according to a study of atherosclerosis in perimenopausal women has about a 30% chance of already having plaque in their arteries.This means many of us are already at high risk without taking the proper measures to protect ourselves from potentially fatal consequences. So as your hormones change, don't just get a pap, get a heart check as well.

We have spent a lot of time talking about overall health and heart heath in general. And not as much time talking about heart health in pregnancy. Dietary principals of heart heath apply in pregnancy as well. We don't watch cholesterol as closely, because the hormones of pregnancy throw those numbers off so much and the cholesterol medications are not typically used in pregnancy. Blood pressure is critical, but we don't want to pull pressure down too low or it won't feed baby. But one question I get frequently in pregnancy, is about heart rate alone. Some women report a racing heart in pregnancy, and changes in blood volume can lead to this physiological effect on the heart can be very early in pregnancy! Many people will feel anxious when they are pregnant. Some of that is truly a psychological consequence. But for some women it's part of the physiologic response to pregnancy. In early pregnancy your heart rate goes up from an average person's heart rate in the lo...

Are you snacking while you read this? Spacing meals, and adding heart healthy snacks can both bring down the total calories consumed and increase the total nutrition that you consume. SWD, or snacking while driving, or SWAM, Snacking while at the Movies, or SAE, snacking after exercise, are very different types of snacks. Appropriate snacking after exercise to both replace fluids and electrolytes (like potassium) is heart healthy. SWD and SWAM might contain both empty calories and food additives, like extra salt that is not heart healthy.  Women who carry extra pounds, run high blood pressure, have abnormal cholesterol, abnormal markers of heart inflammation, or don't get enough exercise, are especially in need of healthy diets. Pregnant women, athletes, and those who want to be at the top of their game memory-wise all can benefit from nutritional fine tuning. Blood work at Women's Health Practic e can help you achieve these goals according to your own metabolism and genetics....

Blood cholesterol is important because it relates to the health of your blood flow through your blood vessels. In rough terms this is how we protect ourselves from heart disease, kidney disease, liver disease, and strokes to just mention a few things cholesterol relates to. So how healthy you are directly relates to how normal is your cholesterol number? First of all you need to know. Cholesterol testing is inexpensive, easy to get and should be done regularly as a heart check. You actually need to know a few things more about your heart's health than just your cholesterol number, or your lipid levels. But it's a big start for you to improve your health if you get those levels in line. And hormones do affect the liver where cholesterol is made. So it's an obvious question to ask how your contraception affects your cholesterol numbers. And it's a big topic that we cannot complete cover in one conversation, so read the other posts and check back often! Women on long term...