Should you go Cold Turkey when cutting off the HRT?

Since the publication of the Women's Health Initiative results (JW Womens Health May 2 2006), hormone therapy (HT) has been recommended only for women who have substantial symptoms at menopause — and then only for as long as necessary to alleviate symptoms. But is HT best discontinued abruptly or by tapering?

To address this question....Women were randomized to stop HT abruptly or to take their usual doses every other day for 4 weeks and then stop.

Result: no difference, in terms of hot flash recurrence.

A study that appears in the December issue of the American Journal of Roentgenology finds that short-term follow-up is a reasonable alternative to invasive biopsy of palpable (capable of being touched or felt) breast lesions with benign imaging features, particularly in younger women with probable fibroadenoma (non-cancerous tumors that often occur in women during their reproductive years).

Pre-eclampsia linked to thyroid problems
Women who develop pre-eclampsia during pregnancy are more likely than other women to have reduced thyroid function (hypothyroidism) per a new BMJ study. It may also put women at a greater risk of thyroid problems later in life.

Pre-eclampsia is a serious condition where abnormally high blood pressure and other disturbances develop in the second half of pregnancy. Hypothyroidism is caused by insufficient production of hormones by the thyroid gland.

From Time: The Gist:
"According to a report released on Nov. 9 by the World Health Organization, millions of women die each year from conditions that could be avoided — if they were men. Apart from hazards like female infanticide and maternal deaths, women are more likely to contract HIV, suffer from depression and domestic abuse, and lack access to basic health care that could help them survive."

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1937336,00.html?xid=rss-wo...

From the AP:

To those who pishpaw and say, awww shucks, I just smokem when I drinkem: From HealthyDay News: -- "Smoking just one cigarette stiffens the arteries of young adults by 25 percent, says a new study.

The stiffer a person's arteries, the greater their risk for heart disease or stroke, noted researcher Dr. Stella Daskalopoulou, an internal medicine and vascular medicine specialist at McGill University Health Center in Montreal."
link:
http://www.healthday.com/Article.asp?AID=632350
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Best Way to quit Smoking

From JAMA--In a comparison of five different smoking cessation medications, a nicotine patch plus a nicotine lozenge appears most effective at helping smokers quit, according to a report in the November issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
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Another good reason to secure your kid's future WHEN they are kids!

From Jama:

When Mom smokes during pregnancy, child at risk for psychosis years later!

Children whose mothers smoked during pregnancy are at increased risk for psychotic symptoms by age 12, according to a longitudinal study in the British Journal of Psychiatry.
From BMJ data sheet:
"Researchers gathered information on women's use of tobacco, alcohol, and cannabis during pregnancy and then evaluated their offspring for psychotic symptoms 12 years later.

This is a lot to chew in a FemiLab, and we don’t want to alarm folks, but it is very important study: Past observational studies in humans have linked viral infections, such as the flu, during pregnancy with increased risk of schizophrenia later in life. A newly presented study out of Johns Hopkins finds that in mice with a gene variant linked to schizophrenia that are exposed in utero to viral infection (simulated by inducing an immune reaction) phenotypes of certain mental disorders are expressed by the offspring.