Your husband is the one at risk, not you. He is the one most likely to have a heart attack and therefore the one most likely to have cardiovascular disease. So a little bit of chest pain every once in a while doesn’t concern you. Besides, it only comes when you over-exert yourself, fading with rest. And it’s not like it’s an overwhelming, blinding pain; it’s a mild pressure, a burning ache, a discomforting heaviness - nothing to be melodramatic about.  You’ll tell your doctor if it gets more severe.

Would you like to know what he is going to tell you?

You have angina, the most common symptom of heart disease.  It is caused by a decrease of blood flow to the cardiovascular system, which prevents oxygen and vital nutrients from reaching the heart. The pain you are feeling is your body attempting to find what it needs and secure enough oxygen to continue working. When you rest it will go away, but that doesn’t mean your condition has disappeared. It’s still there. You are still at risk, regardless of whether you are male or female, regardless of whether your doctor has previously alerted you to the dangers of cardiovascular disease.

If you experience angina, see your doctor immediately. He will assess your condition, determine the causes and treat it accordingly. It’s most probable that you will be given medication and told to adjust a few of your more harmful habits. You’ll have to eat well, exercise regularly, quit smoking, lower your blood pressure and cholesterol, and monitor your heart, all of which are things you should be doing anyway.

Heart disease doesn’t just affect men; it affects men and women. In fact, certain forms and symptoms, angina being one of them, are more common in women.  So don’t ignore anything. It’s not nothing. It’s something - it’s your heart, your life.

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 1 Comment, latest by Warad

Maca supplements have been known as a natural sex enhancer but recent studies have increased the list of benefits from maca.

It’s much more than just a sex enhancer. It’s been shown to enhance hormone production but also increase energy levels, stimulate body metabolism, reduce body weight and relieve stress and depression. It can also improve memory and vitality.

Maca supplements come from the root, originally from the Andes Mountains of Peru.

A vegetable related to radishes and turnips, maca contains high levels of protein, fat and minerals. The use of maca as a sexual enhancer goes back over 2000 years to the native people in the Andes. The root is believed to increase sex drive and improve fertility, increasing semen volume and sperm counts.

Modern research is backing up the many benefits from maca, a powerful supplement to balance hormones safely and naturally, without adding a single hormone to the body.

Maca can increase the body’s production of estrogen, which is essential to control a very common problem: menopause symptoms.

A recent clinical trial has proven that maca supplementation may reduce menopause symptoms by 84%. Maca can significantly balance the levels of key hormones such as estrogen, FSH, LH and progesterone, reducing hot flashes, night sweats and mood swings.

Consequently, maca supplementation may lead to an overall improvement in general health for women.

 5 Comments, latest by Emilia

We know dieting is difficult.

We also know it’s a lot more difficult for women to lose weight than it is for men to drop a few extra pounds, and that’s unfair.

Don’t you hate when your boyfriend or husband has the same diet and exercise program and he drops more weight than you do? Yes, the frustration is understandable.

Men are larger and have more muscle than women but the difference is not the only reason men lose weight easier than women.

Food is always a key factor in any diet. Women tend to crave more than man do and, unless your cravings are healthy snacks, normally gain more weight from eating chocolate, sweets and candy.

Nutritional bars maybe the solution for the endless problem of craving. Most bars have the perfect nutrients for a healthy snack.

Many people feel hungry in between meals. The mid-morning or mid-afternoon snack can be the key for the success of your diet.

Keep in mind the importance of snacks. A good healthy and filling snack may prevent overeating and, therefore, gaining weight. Don’t forget the essential factor in any diet: drink a lot of water.

Sugar and carbohydrates are always the biggest enemies. Nutritional bars are generally low in both sugar and carbs, and high in protein, vitamins and minerals.

Special nutritional bars for women are a great idea since men and women are so different. Women’s nutritional bars provide more specific ingredients than a general bar and could be the difference for a healthy diet and a successful weight loss program.

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You don’t look forward to your annual gynecological appointment. Who would? Nothing about the visit, aside from your departure, can be considered fun. But you go anyway. You resign yourself to the instruments, the stirrups, the trauma of it all, and you go, because you know it’s what you need to do if you want to retain health. The same (the need and impending discomfort, at least) is true of cancer screening, particularly if you are more at risk because of your weight. However, you seem to be ignoring this.

A review of 32 studies found that many obese and overweight women are not being tested for cervical or breast cancer. In fact, they are 10 to 40 percent less likely to be screened than those of normal weight. The reason? Patient discomfort or patient bias (on the part of the doctor). Neither the patient nor the MD wants to broach the subject, and neither wants to go through with the procedure. As a result, an untold number of women are putting themselves at risk for deadly diseases.

After age 40, a woman must be screened for breast, cervical and colorectal cancer every one or two years. The older she gets the more at risk she becomes. If she is overweight or obese, her risk increases, significantly, and the importance, of tests, is even greater.

If you are overweight or obese . . . if you are a woman of any size or age, talk to your doctor about scheduling a mammogram and Pap smear. The two screenings may not be the highlight of your day, but they will be better than discovering that you have a cancer that could have been caught early, by either.

 1 Comment, latest by Dakota

The combination of caffeine and pregnancy is widely viewed as a toxic cocktail, so much so that California is currently considering adding caffeine to the state’s list of harmful substances. If this occurred, warning labels would adorn all products that added caffeine, such as soda and energy pills. Items with naturally occurring caffeine, namely coffee, tea and chocolate, would not have to comply. Supporters of the change cite evidence that connects the substance with spontaneous abortion, decreased fetal growth and low birth weight. They claim that caffeine is undoubtedly and overwhelmingly harmful to pregnant women, but they may be a little off.

Researchers at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine recently examined the relationship between moderate coffee consumption and miscarriage. They found none. Two hundred and fifty-eight of the 2,407 women miscarried, but the cause could not be attributed to their coffee habit. The researchers concluded, then, that it was safe to consume caffeine, in moderation, while pregnant. So, drink up?

Not just yet.

It’s important to note that the women in the study consumed less than two cups of coffee a day before they got pregnant and even less once they were. A full-fledged caffeine addiction could be considerably more detrimental, as more recent studies are wont to point out. Furthermore, this study only looked at the correlation between coffee and miscarriage. It didn’t look at fetal development or birth weight. So I would say that if you can do so without serious withdrawal, give up caffeine. If you don’t think you can completely abandon it, drink it in extremely limited amounts. The restriction may be painful at first, but in nine months, when you have your baby in your arms and your first post-pregnancy cup of coffee at your elbow, it will be more than worth it.

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The end of menopause can be seen as the light at the end of the tunnel. For the rest of your life, there will be no more bleeding, monthly runs for tampons or pregnancy scares. This is the stage you’ve been dreaming of since age 12 and your first menstrual cycle. This is freedom. If only you weren’t quite so depressed, stressed out and anxiety ridden. If only you could find relief, then you could enjoy this part of your life. But how?

Exercise. Once again, following this simple suggestion will ease what ails you. An eight year study of 380 women found that those who walked anywhere from 15 to 90 minutes a day, five times a week had lower levels of perceived stress. They were able to cope more adroitly with the feelings of stress and anxiety that often arise with the body’s depletion of estrogen. There’s only one problem: It didn’t do a thing for hot flashes.

Researchers found no connection between increased activity and decreased hot flashes, but that was to be expected. Exercise increases the body’s temperature. Logically, it wouldn’t help an individual cool down. But I think you can deal with that.

Hot flashes are usually temporary, dissipating as or shortly after menopause ends, while post-menopause lasts for the rest of your life. It may be 20 years or it may be half a century. That’s a long time to face unnecessary anxiety and depression. So exercise, even if it does nothing for your hot flashes. There are other ways to deal with them. This is one of the best ways to deal with everything else.

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Honey, I have a headache - It’s one of today’s most clichéd rejections, seen as a kinder way of saying “I’m not interested” rather than a legitimate excuse. While on any given night that could be true, it’s not always. In fact, men, it’s very likely that the lady beside you actually has a headache. Women experience them three times more often than men, usually at the start of their menstrual cycles. And as they age, the pain worsens, increasing in frequency and intensity. Menopause and the subsequent drop in estrogen may end the suffering. However, that’s not a definite, and that could be a long way away. You would like the pain, whether it’s your own or your partner’s, to go away now. You had plans for the evening that didn’t involve a bottle of aspirin and a cold compress. What should you do?

The first step is identifying the source of the headache. It may not be one of the more common causes: eyestrain, stress or hormonal shifts. Or it may be a result of something a little more bizarre. Strong odors, for example, assault the nose’s nerve cells, which triggers the nervous system associated with head pain and elicits a grade-A migraine. Weather changes, hair accessories, hunger and even overexertion can cause similar aches but for varying reasons. Barometric disturbances affect your body differently than heavy earrings and tight headbands, so your method of treatment will have to very accordingly, as well. Continue Reading >>

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Being a woman and obese, your situation is already bad enough. The chances that you’ll develop breast cancer are far greater than they are for your husband, who is neither female nor overweight, or for your sister, who although female, falls in the normal-weight range. But now they’re telling you that it’s going to get worse, that your size is going to affect more than the possibility of prognosis; it’s going to affect the disease itself.

A study of more than 600 women with breast cancer found that those who were obese were more likely to have a rare form of the disease or, at the very least, a more aggressive form. They were also more likely to die within the five and ten year increments of the study. The situation, although less severe, was true for overweight women as well. It is believed that the excess fat tissues increase inflammation, thus fueling the disease.

The best way to be then is normal weight. If you are obese or overweight, work to lessen the pounds. Adopt healthier habits now so that if a diagnosis is in your future, it will, hopefully, be a less deadly one. And if you have already been diagnosed, do not think that it is too late to lose weight. It’s not. Adopt those same healthy habits, altering the balanced diet and exercise to fit your situation. There are many different workouts designed for women with breast cancer, which may not only help you achieve a normal weight but enable you to cope more ably with the disease as well.

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Blame it on Eve and the apple; blame it on a naturally gender-biased world; blame it on whatever you like; just don’t try to deny that men have it easier than women, because they do. At least when it comes to retaining muscle mass, they do.

A study of 29 healthy men and women found that men were more able to build muscle mass after age 65 than women. The researchers examined how much muscle mass was amassed after resistance training exercises and discovered that the ladies in the group accumulated much, much less. It seems that the men were more able to store and use protein, making muscle formation considerably less difficult, while women, yet again hindered by menopause and a depletion of estrogen, struggled.

Therefore, ladies, it is vital that as we age we continue to consume an adequate amount of protein (a quantity that grows with our years). We must make eggs, fish, chicken, lean red meats and similar protein-rich foods a dominant part of our diets. We must also continue to strength train. If we don’t have the muscle our bodies need, we won’t be able to protect ourselves from the dangers of a fall or immobility. We will be at a disadvantage. We will face a more difficult future, not just in comparison to men but to women as well.

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You hit menopause, and the pear-shaped body you’d finally learned to love morphed into an apple, an extra large apple. Suddenly fat was sticking to you at a frightening rate, latching onto your mid-section simply because you looked at a piece of cheese. Everything was the enemy. Eating was a chore. You wished that you could find just one food that would take away from rather than add to your belly’s bulge. Well, we’ve got it for you; it’s soy.

A study of 18 women who had been menopausal for one to five years found that those who drank soy-based shakes every day for three months had less abdominal fat than those who drank milk-based shakes. This is likely due to soy’s isoflavones. They are structured similarly to estrogen and thus, bind to estrogen receptors in fat tissue. Since a lack of estrogen is attributed to some menopausal weight gain, the presence of estrogen-like isoflavones helps minimize the rise, at least around the abdomen.

In the study, the amount of weight gain didn’t vary from group to group, only the distribution. So while the women had a decreased risk of heart disease and diabetes as a result of abdominal fat, they did not have thinner bodies. If you want both a better belly and fewer pounds, eat soy but don’t rely solely on it. Also, consume less fat and more fiber, workout regularly incorporating aerobic and strength training exercises, and remember to love your body, whether it’s an apple, a pear or any other fruit from the tree.

 1 Comment, latest by Maitane

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Uploading images onto the internet doesn’t always prove fruitful. Compromising pictures on sites such as facebook and MySpace can keep you from employment or furthering your education should your superiors stumble upon your profile. But you and everyone else in the younger generation can’t seem to stop. The close of every celebration sees a fresh wave of images that reveal all to the members of cyberspace. Many are appalled by this and have devoted much time and energy to breaking the habit. But others are taking advantage of the upload-addiction. They are using it for the betterment of the general public, for the health of the women in your generation via the Booby Wall.

Created by Rethink, a charity devoted to furthering breast cancer awareness in women under 40, the Booby Wall is a site where women are encouraged to upload images of their breasts.  It’s hoped that this will catch the attention of women everywhere and encourage them to become more familiar and comfortable with their breasts. Hundreds have already posted, including several breast cancer survivors, and the numbers continue to grow. Anyone regardless of age, size and shape can add to the wall, even you. 

Now, if you are a somewhat uncomfortable photographing and sharing your breasts with the online world, first know that the site is one hundred percent confidential, anonymous and secure. Second, be aware that you don’t have to post a picture to learn from this site. Just going to it helps, because there you will find information on how to familiarize yourself with your chest. You can show it a little TLC, touching, looking and checking to make sure there are no abnormalities or changes.  Breast cancer is the leading cause of death in women between 15 and 40. Do something, whether it involves the Booby Wall or not, to make yourself more aware and safer.

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With almost everything, even fruit, you are told to exercise moderation. You don’t want to overdo any one item as that will only negate the benefits and create new adverse effects. So you measure out serving sizes. You keep within the recommended daily limits, and you teach yourself restriction. You learn to say no when faced with a second cookie, another helping or a final drink. And for the most part, this is good. But, as with anything, there are exceptions to the rule, and tea is one of them. For when it comes to tea, “no” should never be the answer. In fact, “Yes, yes, yes!” is the only appropriate response.Why?Well, it turns out that the more tea a woman drinks the less plaque she has in her carotid arteries. A study of more than 3,000 women found that 44 percent of non-tea drinkers and 42.5 percent of moderate tea drinkers (one to two cups a day) had plaque in their carotid arteries while only 33.7 percent of those who drank three or more cups a day did. The results held true even when other risk factors were accounted for, and there was no differentiation between types of tea – they weren’t all drinking white or black or green or red; they were just drinking. So . . .If you are a woman looking for a way to prevent stroke, for that is what plaque in the carotid arteries causes, this may be it. With a few cups a day, you’ll keep your carotid clear. You’ll avoid a future that could have, in the worst cases, held paralysis, vision and memory loss, speech impairment or behavioral changes. You’ll keep a condition that changes life in immeasurable ways at bay, and you’ll never have to say no again . . . to tea at least.

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Towards the end of your pregnancy, you start to wonder if the child inside of you will ever come out. It feels as if you’ve been carrying a 30-pound load for a decade and you can barely remember what your shoes look like on. But when you think about labor, you remember all that it entails. Okay, you concede, maybe you can hold off for a little while longer. Twenty-four hours of excruciating pain doesn’t exactly sound like a day in the park. You wonder if there is a way to both give birth to the child and avoid childbirth. So when the doctor suggests that you have an elective caesarean, your first question is when? Can it be done tomorrow? In fact, you’ll hop on the table right now, if he’ll let you. But before your excitement has you performing the operation, think about your baby.

Having an elective caesarean too early in the pregnancy can hinder the child’s development. Studies have shown that the less time the mother and doctor wait, the more likely it is that the infant will suffer from respiratory problems. While these difficulties are not often severe and can be rectified with oxygen therapy and an incubator, it’s not how you want your child’s life to begin. Wait until after your 39th week to select the elective caesarean. And when you do, make sure you’re doing it for the right reason.

Elective caesareans are recommended for women who have serious pre-eclampsia or a preexisting medical condition, who are giving birth to triplets (or more), whose baby is turned, breeched or too large for the birth canal, or whose placenta is positioned across the womb’s neck rendering natural childbirth impossible. However, many women are opting to have the operation because they fear vaginal delivery. They had a negative experience during their first birth or know of someone who did. While the decision calms their anxiety, it may harm the child. Talk to your doctor about all of your options. You may have to wait a little while longer to see your baby, but it will be worth it. 

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Motherhood has long been associated with weight. Historically, the robust and rotund women were viewed as fertile. They were the ones you would marry so as to produce the most offspring. Similarly, stories and fairytales pictured pleasantly plump mothers with hoards of children clinging to their skirts. The thin women were the stepmothers and decrepit witches - the bitter spinsters without children of their own. It is an image that has lasted into the present, but it is one that, according to science, may be wrong.

Women who are obese have more difficulty conceiving. Until recently, this was attributed to disturbed ovulation cycles. However, when researchers examined more than 3,000 couples with no obvious reason for infertility, they found that the same held true, regardless the woman’s cycle. The more obese the woman was the lesser her probability of conceiving was. In fact, a woman with a BMI of 40 had a 43 percent lower probability of conceiving while a woman with a BMI of 35 had only a 26 percent lower likelihood. Scientists believe that the problem may lie in disturbed hormone levels; however it’s also possible that the severely obese women are simply having less frequent sex since weight has been connected to a decrease in sexual activity and desire.

Whatever the reason, it is an important factor to keep in mind. If you are trying to conceive but cannot, your weight could be part of the problem, even if you are otherwise functioning normally. A reduction in your mass could improve your chances. However, don’t rely on this alone. Fertilization is a complex and difficult achievement. Talk to your doctor about ways to maximize the probability of conception. You may need a little help adding one more to your family.

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It’s like your head is on fire. You’re standing there - in the kitchen, the living room, the mall - dripping with sweat. You pull off layers of clothing trying to get cool, as your face reddens with heat and embarrassment. You attempt to move through the hot flash as if nothing is happening, but your body is an oven, suffocating you and leaving you limp with heat. You wish it would end, but it won’t, not even in sleep. At night, you awake drenched in perspiration. Your sheets and pajamas are wet rags, weighing you down, pulling you into the soaked mattress. You feel cursed, as if Satan has pulled you into Hell early, but you are simply going through menopause.

Hot flashes and night sweats are an inevitable part of menopause. Nearly all women will experience them, but for some these symptoms of age will be worse than for others. Studies have found that overweight and obese women are more likely to suffer frequent hot flashes and night sweats.  The excess fat makes it more difficult for the body to dissipate heat, and so the symptoms worsen, continuing to do so with every extra pound. Continue Reading >>

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