Study Of Women

There are many assumptions about the aging process that simply aren't true. One of them is that, as we get older, the quality of our lives diminishes and we must become dependent on our loved ones or the health care system. For many older Americans, this is not the case. However, there has not been much research into what kinds of physical limitations older people face and how they are best managed to prevent dependency for the group of people who may be at risk.That's about to change for the women of Baltimore.

Overturning three decades of conventional wisdom, a 13-year study of low-fat diets in nearly 50,000 healthy older women has shown that reducing fat intake alone does not significantly reduce the risk of heart disease, stroke, breast cancer or colorectal cancer, researchers reported yesterday. Results from the same study, reported last month, also showed that reducing fats without reducing calories does not lead to significant weight loss. "Just switching to low-fat foods is not likely to yield much health benefit in most women," said Marcia Stefanick, a professor of medicine at the Stanford Prevention Research Center.

REMEMBER the man shortage?Not long ago, the media was full of it.According to a Harvard/Yale study, it was reported, an FTC unmarried woman over the age of 35 has a better chance of being killed by a terrorist than of marrying. There were statistics about unmarried women outnumbering unmarried men. And a lot of us were surprised. Some of us got scared.Now there's a new surprise -- one that's not receiving much coverage: The man shortage is a lie. A mistake. There are no statistics to support it.Wall Street Journal reporter and Pulitzer Prize winner Susan Faludi uncovers the hoax in her recent book "Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women."

PHONES ARE ringing off the hook at doctors' offices throughout the nation as women hear the latest news from the menopause front. For years, they'd been told that taking drugs to replace the hormones that disappear with age would help them feel better, stay healthier and maybe live longer. Now they learn that for some women those pills may be doing more harm than good. So, what should they do? The answer seems to be: Don't panic. But women taking the drugs should carefully re-evaluate their own risk and reward factors.

WASHINGTON -- The federal government said yesterday that it plans to conduct the most sweeping study of women's health problems ever attempted, with hundreds of thousands of women participating in a research effort expected to cost $500 million over 10 years.The project is the brainchild of the new director of the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Bernadine Healy, who said that it would be "the most definitive, far-reaching study of women's health ever undertaken in the United States, if not the world."

PHONES ARE ringing off the hook at doctors' offices throughout the nation as women hear the latest news from the menopause front. For years, they'd been told that taking drugs to replace the hormones that disappear with age would help them feel better, stay healthier and maybe live longer. Now they learn that for some women those pills may be doing more harm than good. So, what should they do? The answer seems to be: Don't panic. But women taking the drugs should carefully re-evaluate their own risk and reward factors.

WASHINGTON -- Harried American women believe their lives are being consumed by balancing jobs and families, according to a new national survey of what women think."

Divorced after 25, 35 years of marriage -- alone and never having lived alone before. The situation of these women may seem dire.Sad, yes, in that it's tough, but pathetic by no means. That's the message of a book based on a study of women who were divorced in mid-life, or later, after long-term marriages. Indeed, a lot of them turned out to be a whole lot happier after getting through the transition."Our Turn" (Pocket Books; $22) is unabashedly upbeat. So much so, perhaps, that researcher Christopher L. Hayes pointed out in an interview that the book is "not advocating divorce, but rather saying to take this transition, this very gut-wrenching, emotionally devastating experience, and use it as a springboard."

The government today is launching the largest cancer prevention experiment in U.S. history, testing 16,000 healthy women to see if the drug tamoxifen can prevent breast cancer.About 100 women will be tested at hospitals throughout Maryland, according to a spokeswoman at the University of Maryland Medical Center, which will be the state headquarters for the study.If the experiment with tamoxifen is successful, the estrogen-like drug could become an important tool in the fight against breast cancer, which struck 175,000 American women last year.

A NEW STUDY of women's chances of winning elections debunks the conventional wisdom that women have a harder time than men do.It is not a candidate's sex that is the determining factor, the study found; it is incumbency that offers a critical difference.That's not surprising. Incumbents' races usually are better financed by special-interest money from political action committees with a stake in the incumbents' voting records.The money, in turn, with the help of name recognition, helps incumbents finance slick advertising campaigns that many populist and underfinanced challengers, female or male, simply can't afford.

What happens to a woman's body at age 40 or 45 or 50? We know, only too well, that things start to look different on the outside. But, surprisingly, this time period represents a big unknown in women's health research.The '90s decade has been a rich one in understanding diseases such as breast cancer, osteoporosis and heart disease, generally ailments of old age.But how do women end up with those diseases?What does it mean to your long-term health to have a baby at 41?What is the significance of having hot flashes throughout your 40s?

A NEW STUDY of women's chances of winning elections debunks the conventional wisdom that women have a harder time than men do.It is not a candidate's sex that is the determining factor, the study found; it is incumbency that offers a critical difference.That's not surprising. Incumbents' races usually are better financed by special-interest money from political action committees with a stake in the incumbents' voting records.The money, in turn, with the help of name recognition, helps incumbents finance slick advertising campaigns that many populist and underfinanced challengers, female or male, simply can't afford.

Divorced after 25, 35 years of marriage -- alone and never having lived alone before. The situation of these women may seem dire.Sad, yes, in that it's tough, but pathetic by no means. That's the message of a book based on a study of women who were divorced in mid-life, or later, after long-term marriages. Indeed, a lot of them turned out to be a whole lot happier after getting through the transition."Our Turn" (Pocket Books; $22) is unabashedly upbeat. So much so, perhaps, that researcher Christopher L. Hayes pointed out in an interview that the book is "not advocating divorce, but rather saying to take this transition, this very gut-wrenching, emotionally devastating experience, and use it as a springboard."

There are many assumptions about the aging process that simply aren't true. One of them is that, as we get older, the quality of our lives diminishes and we must become dependent on our loved ones or the health care system. For many older Americans, this is not the case. However, there has not been much research into what kinds of physical limitations older people face and how they are best managed to prevent dependency for the group of people who may be at risk.That's about to change for the women of Baltimore.

WASHINGTON -- Harried American women believe their lives are being consumed by balancing jobs and families, according to a new national survey of what women think."

REMEMBER the man shortage?Not long ago, the media was full of it.According to a Harvard/Yale study, it was reported, an FTC unmarried woman over the age of 35 has a better chance of being killed by a terrorist than of marrying. There were statistics about unmarried women outnumbering unmarried men. And a lot of us were surprised. Some of us got scared.Now there's a new surprise -- one that's not receiving much coverage: The man shortage is a lie. A mistake. There are no statistics to support it.Wall Street Journal reporter and Pulitzer Prize winner Susan Faludi uncovers the hoax in her recent book "Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women."

SCUDS PUT U.S. Women on Front Lines," was the headline. "The Iraqi Scud missile is a unisex weapon that has brought the front line to many of the 28,000 American women serving in Operation Desert Storm," noted the Washington Post story. "The federal laws and military regulations that bar women from serving in combat units do not stop the enemy from shooting at them."That would come as no news to the female Army nurses under Japanese fire at Bataan and Corregidor 50 years ago, or to the female Army nurses at Anzio beachhead in February 1944, where six of them were killed by German bombing.

What happens to a woman's body at age 40 or 45 or 50? We know, only too well, that things start to look different on the outside. But, surprisingly, this time period represents a big unknown in women's health research.The '90s decade has been a rich one in understanding diseases such as breast cancer, osteoporosis and heart disease, generally ailments of old age.But how do women end up with those diseases?What does it mean to your long-term health to have a baby at 41?What is the significance of having hot flashes throughout your 40s?

The government today is launching the largest cancer prevention experiment in U.S. history, testing 16,000 healthy women to see if the drug tamoxifen can prevent breast cancer.About 100 women will be tested at hospitals throughout Maryland, according to a spokeswoman at the University of Maryland Medical Center, which will be the state headquarters for the study.If the experiment with tamoxifen is successful, the estrogen-like drug could become an important tool in the fight against breast cancer, which struck 175,000 American women last year.

WASHINGTON -- The federal government said yesterday that it plans to conduct the most sweeping study of women's health problems ever attempted, with hundreds of thousands of women participating in a research effort expected to cost $500 million over 10 years.The project is the brainchild of the new director of the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Bernadine Healy, who said that it would be "the most definitive, far-reaching study of women's health ever undertaken in the United States, if not the world."