Recently in Hormones Category

Ever since the feminist revolution, debate has raged about whether it's nature or nurture that determines the behavior of young boys versus girls. Are young boys born with an urge to wheel toy trucks across the floor and crash them into walls, while young girls come equipped with a preference to cuddle Raggedy Anns -- or does socialization create these differences?  Now, a new study by the Yerkes National Primate Research Center in Atlanta, Georgia, may have the nurture (versus nature) advocates a bit rattled.

Labor can be damned inconvenient. It commences when it will -- and that can mean at some very inopportune times: when the doctor is out of town, for instance, or when the husband is away on a business trip or the Thanksgiving meal spread out on the table, or the mother-in-law too busy to lend a hand.

Back in 1990, fewer than 10 percent of pregnancies culminated with induced labor, but these days, up to 55 percent of all pregnant women in the US choose to have labor induced at some expedient, pre-scheduled time. While labor sometimes needs to be induced to ensure maternal or fetal safety -- such as when the fetus grows too large or when the mother has an acute illness -- at least half of all induced labors have nothing to do with medical necessity; they're simply the product of doctor/patient preference.

Until now, there's been lots of anecdotal evidence that men and women have distinctly different food preferences. You wouldn't expect salad for lunch at an Elks Club meeting, nor ham and fries at the Women's Club. Now, a new study of 14,000 Americans confirms that it's true -- men really do prefer meat, and women prefer veggies.  According to the research, conducted by Foodborne Disease Active Surveillance Network (FoodNet), veal, ham, and duck, and shellfish such as shrimp and oysters rank high on the list for men. Women, on the other hand, tend to opt for carrots, tomatoes, and fruits--especially strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, and apples.

It's no secret that the US medical profession tends to be hysterectomy happy. A recent article from CNN reveals that as many as one-third of all American women have a hysterectomy procedure before reaching age 60. That's more than double the rate in Norway and just shy of double the rate in England. In fact, the hysterectomy has become the second most common surgery for women in the US, after Cesarean section. And of those many millions of women who go through the operation, about two-thirds don't need to -- that's what the experts now say, in retrospect.

Premature ovarian failure (POF), at one time called premature menopause, describes a stop in the normal functioning of the ovaries in a woman younger than age 40. Symptoms can include irregular periods, hot flashes and night sweats, decreased interest in sex, pain during sex, drying of the vagina, and/or infertility. One of the main markers used to identify POF is the FSH/LH ratio (Follicle Stimulating Hormone to Lutenizing Hormone ratio).

A new study getting wide media coverage this week concludes that growing rates of obesity among young girls is leading to an earlier onset of puberty. The lead author of the study, Dr. Joyce Lee said, "Beyond identifying how obesity causes early puberty, it's also important to determine whether weight control interventions at an early age have the potential to slow the progression of puberty."

• Obviously, the researchers (and the media for that matter) are unfamiliar with numerous earlier studies, such as the August 2003 study, published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, showing that the average concentration of estrogens in obese women is between 50% and 219% higher than in thin women -- and is associated with a higher incidence of breast cancer.

Over the last couple of years, warnings have started to appear on jars and tubes of products that contain natural progesterone stating that the products contain a substance known to cause cancer. Specifically, they read:

When it comes to going bald there are several things to keep in mind:

• Maintaining proper ratios of Omega-6 to Omega-3 fatty acids is important. The proper ratio helps control both systemic inflammation and insulin resistance, which can both play a role in hair loss.
• Preventing the conversion of testosterone to dihydrotestosterone is also key.

There are many causes of impotence, including: Vascular disease, Diabetes, Diseases of the nervous system, Cancer Surgery, Medications, Smoking, Alcoholism, and Hormone imbalance.

But of all these reasons, vascular disease and diabetes account for over half of all problems. Hardening of the arteries can affect the artery leading to the penis so that it cannot dilate enough to deliver all the blood necessary for an erection. Impotence can also occur if the nerves that control blood flow to the penis are damaged, which can happen with diabetes.

It's important to understand that medications such as Viagra don't actually get rid of the problem; they just find a way to bypass it. How is that done?

There are two fairly common causes of hypothyroidism. The first is a result of inflammation of the thyroid gland which leaves a large percentage of the cells of the thyroid damaged (or dead) and incapable of producing sufficient hormone. The most common cause of thyroid gland failure is called autoimmune thyroiditis (aka Hashimoto's thyroiditis), a form of thyroid inflammation caused by the patient's own immune system.