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While the life-expectancy gap between men and women has decreased, it's no secret that men still need to pay more attention to their bodies. Several things work against men. They tend to smoke and drink more than women. They don't seek medical help as often as women. Some men define themselves by their work, which can add to stress.
There are also health conditions that only affect men, such as prostate cancer and low testosterone. Many of the major health risks that men face – like colon cancer or heart disease - can be prevented and treated with early diagnosis. Screening tests can find diseases early, when they are easier to treat. It's important to have regular checkups and screenings. |
Breast Cancer
How you eat may be just as important as how much you eat, suggest new findings published in Cancer Prevention Research. Researchers have long studied the role of diet on breast cancer risk, but results to date have been mixed. Now, new findings suggest the method by which calories are restricted may be more important for cancer protection than the actual overall degree of calorie restriction.
Previous studies have shown that intermittent calorie restriction provided greater protection from mammary tumor development than did the same overall degree of restriction, which was implemented in a chronic fashion. The researchers compared changes of a growth factor (IGF-1) in relationship to these two calorie restriction methods - chronic and intermittent - and tumor development beginning in 10-week old female mice at risk to develop mammary tumors.
The overall degree of restriction was 25 percent reduction compared to control mice. Mammary tumor incidence was 71 percent in the control mice who ate the amount of food they wanted, 35 percent among those who were chronically restricted and only nine percent in those who intermittently restricted calories. |
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Curcumin offsets HRT risk
pproximately 6 million women in the United States use hormone replacement therapy to treat the symptoms of menopause," said UM biomedical scientist Salman Hyder. "This exposure to progestin will predispose a large number of post-menopausal women to possible future development of breast cancer. The results of our study show that women could potentially take curcumin to protect themselves from developing progestin-accelerated tumors."
The researchers found that curcumin delayed the first appearance, decreased incidence and reduced multiplicity of progestin-accelerated tumors. Curcumin also prevented the appearance of gross morphological abnormalities in the mammary glands.
Eating licorice may affect offspring's IQ
Expectant mothers who eat excessive quantities of licorice during pregnancy could adversely affect their child's intelligence and behavior, say European researchers.
The study, of eight year old children whose mothers ate large amounts of licorice when pregnant, found they did not perform as well as other youngsters in cognitive tests. They were also more likely to have poor attention spans and show disruptive behavior such as ADHD, say the researchers.
It is thought that a component in licorice called glycyrrhizin may impair the placenta, allowing stress hormones to cross from the mother to the baby. High levels of such hormones, known as glucocorticoids, are thought to affect fetal brain development and have been linked to behavioral disorders in children.
The study, carried out by the University of Helsinki and the University of Edinburgh, looked at children born in Finland, where consumption of licorice among young women is common. Women who ate more than 100g of pure licorice per week were more likely to have children with lower intelligence levels and more behavioral problems, the study noted.
