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Sorry I'm late. I don't know what happened to this
month. It's not like the various days of fireworks
were keeping me up at night (I was fast asleep), so I have
no explanation. It looks like I'll just have to fall
back on the pregnancy excuse, (tired, cranky, hungry, fill
in the blank) only because next month is the last month I
can use it. I do like how people smile at me now, it's
sweet, and if you really want a seat on the subway, there's
no better way than to sport a pregnant belly.
This month we'll cover the flurry
of PMS news surrounding calcium and Vitamin D. Then from one other study, there
were two takes on the benefits and safety of Vitamin E regarding
heart attack or stroke. Lastly, and not surprisingly if you
consider the cost of everything these days, (I thought there
was no or little inflation?) more than ¼ of women
who are NOT elderly delay medical care due to costs -- including
those with insurance.
PMS AND CALCIUM + VITAMIN D
Let
me explain this study a little bit that has been going
on in two parts since 1976. It's
called "The Nurses Study" and was originally designed
to look at look term use of oral contraceptives. The
first part of the study began with women aged 30-55 in 1976,
the second half of the study began in 1989 and with a younger
target population of 25-42. Each study has over 100,000
women that participate and respond to questionnaires approximately
every two years. In addition to contraception and hormone
use, the study also looks at diet and lifestyle risk factors. What's
interesting about this study is that it is an epidemiological
study - meaning that it looks at correlations in the populations,
not necessarily causations. If you remember back 10
years or so, it was thought that hormone replacement therapy
(HRT) was beneficial to heart health, dementia and bone density. These
initial conclusions came out of this Nurses Health Study. It
was only after a double blind study was done later by the
Women's Health Initiative (WHI), that we found out that only
bone density benefits from hormone replacement therapy and
in fact is hurtful to heart health and raises the risk of
dementia. It turned out that women on HRT evaluated
in the earlier "Nurses Study" were also women who
most likely more educated, lead more healthy lifestyles and
thus improved heart health. It wasn't the HRT.
The Nurses Study is still ongoing
and various data is still collected and reported on from
that study. As in this case, companies also sponsor some
of the research to see if there is any information that
will support their products. Mostly
pharmaceutical companies, they say they don't have any input
into the analysis or the results (most likely true), however,
it isn't unusual for an employee to co-author an article
about it. Glaxo Smith Kline makes a calcium supplement
and a person from their company co-authored this study.
I'm certainly not negating the importance
of this data, as it can point science in the right direction
- I just say, in general, let's not view it as conclusive.
I like this correlation about PMS
- because even if it's not true, the benefits of calcium
in the diet of women has other proven benefits (bone health,
potential weight loss, prevent kidney stones and improve
blood pressure), and as far as I know, if it's taken in
quantities that are reasonable, calcium proposes no health
risk.
This study did not look at the entire
100,000 or so population, but a subset of about 3000 women
(from the part II) who at baseline had no PMS in 1991.
1,057 women developed PMS over 10 years of follow-up and
1,968 reported no PMS. Intake
of calcium and Vitamin D was measured in 1991, 1995 and 1999
by a food questionnaire. Women had to express at least
one emotional symptom, as well as one physical symptom to
be considered having PMS. The idea was to look at diet
to see if it could prevent PMS. Too few of the women
took supplements to show an effect, so this is based on dietary
intake only.
Volunteers who got the most calcium
in their diet (1283 mg/day) decreased their chances of
getting PMS by 30%, and 40% for Vitamin D (400 international
units/day) - I didn't see anything about if the two together
make a bigger difference, since the presence of Vitamin
D increases helps the body absorb calcium. (so does
the presence of magnesium)
1,200 milligrams of calcium and 400
milligrams of Vitamin D consist of about four servings
of skim milk. Whole
milk, because of it's fat content, did not offer any benefit,
according to the author of the study.
My 2 cents? I'm all for it, but I don't believe it's "the
answer". Women under 30 need to get more calcium
anyway - as it's crucial for our bones later on in life and
most of us are way under the 1500 mg. or so that we need. I
think it helps, but there are other factors that also play
an equally if not more important role. These would
be exercise, overall body weight and eating fruits and vegetables. I
also don't think that if you have PMS, you will see a noticeable
enough difference by just adding calcium. And here
comes the shameless plug for Oöna PMS1 - if you
have PMS and you take Oöna PMS1 consistently for
two cycles, you will notice quite a difference.
As for the calcium supplements I
like - I get plenty of Vitamin D in my multi so I take
1500 mg. of calcium per day with magnesium at a 2:1 ratio. (example: 500 mg. of
calcium to 250 mg. of magnesium) I make sure it's in
a capsule, not a tablet, as calcium is known to have trouble
breaking up in the digestive track. I'm not sure how
much of it I absorb, but I do eat low fat yogurt and other
greens very rich in calcium, so I know I get at least another
500mg. or so.
About the Nurses Study:
http://www.channing.harvard.edu/nhs/history/index.shtml
http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/165/11/1246
http://www.rednova.com/news/health/158913/preventing_pms/
http://www.bgdailynews.com/articles/stories/public/200506/27/4wwB_top-feature.html
http://www.fosters.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050712/NEWS40/106140125
TWO TAKES ON A JAMA PUBLISHED VITAMIN
E STUDY
The Women's Health Study (WHS) is the largest,
long term randomized, double blind study that evaluated
the risks and benefits on low-dose aspirin and vitamin
E in reducing cardiovascular disease and cancer in women. The
results are interesting for Vitamin E. The study
was conducted between 1992 and 2004 and 1/3 of close to
40,000 women 45 years old or older took 600 IU of a natural
Vitamin E every other day. (1/3
were placebo and 1/3 low-dose aspirin) The study was
to evaluate prevention of heart disease only.
It was found that Vitamin E did not
significantly effect any major cardiovascular event such
as stroke or heart attack. There
was also no significant effect on breast, lung or colon cancers.
However, women taking vitamin E saw
a reduction of death by cardiovascular disease by 24%.
There also appears to be a benefit for women that are 65
years old and older - a 49% decrease in the risk of cardiovascular
death and a 34% reduction in heart attacks. There
was no benefit for strokes in this group.
What is interesting about this is
that if you just look at the headlines you wouldn't think
there was any benefit for vitamin E and heart health whatsoever.
I do think it is clear that there is no vitamin E benefit
for women's cancers whatsoever. Even though mortality prevention was not
a focus, it certain deserves attention as the numbers are
significant. It may be, like I mentioned above, that these
women lead more overall healthy lifestyles - but this was
a double blind study. In any case, the benefit is significant
and we should also consider the fact that women over the
age of 65 are the group with the highest risk and comprise
58% of the U.S. elderly population.
The study:
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/294/1/56
Other articles:
www.rxpgnews.com/cancer/article_1833.shtml
http://www.foodconsumer.org/777/8/Vitamin_E_does_not_
protect_women_from_heart_attack_stroke_or_cancer.shtml
http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/?epi_menuItemID=
e23d7f2be635f4725e0fa455c6908a0c&epi_menuID=887566059a3
aedb6efaaa9e27a808a0c&epi_baseMenuID=384979e8cc48c441ef0
130f5c6908a0c&searchHereRadio=false&ndmHsc=v2*A0*J2*L1*N
searchNDMConfig*Z%22Largest+Clinical+Trial+on+Healthy%22
HEALTH CARE IS BECOMING A CENTRAL
ISSUE FOR WOMEN
According to a recent Kaiser Family Foundation
report, 27% of non-elderly women and 67% of uninsured women
delay or went without care they needed because they could
not afford it. In 2001,
the numbers were 24% and 59% respectively.
While just 55% of women spoke to
their MD's about diet, exercise and nutrition, less than
1/3 talk to their doctors about sexual history and specific
issues such as STDs and HIV. Mammography and pap smear rates are down slightly
from 73%-69% and 81% to 76% respectively. This is at
a time when nearly 40% of women have a chronic condition
such as diabetes, asthma or hypertension that requires ongoing
medical attention. (the number is 30% for men) In addition
23% of women report that they have been diagnosed with depression
or anxiety - over twice the rate of men at 11%.
This also seems to be a reflection
of the type of care that women are receiving - as it is
a "relationship" that
a woman establishes with her health care professional. She
may not be offering to discuss personal and important health
matters, but it begs the question, "Is anyone asking?"
For more information go to
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/050707/sfth009.html?.v=16
A COUPLE OF TID BITS
These are
just two things I came across that I thought I'd pass on
- try to take your vitamins with food. There is convinceing
evidence that the body will better absorb nutrients at
the same time it is digesting other food.
Add rosemary to your burgers to cut down on the heterocyclic
amines (HCAs) in grilled hamburgers. Studies have linked
HCAs to various cancers (not conclusive) and one scientist
found that rosemary extract reduced two of the HCA compounds
when hamburgers were cooked at 375-400 degress. Two
other HCA's were not reduced. Hey, if you like rosemary,
like I do - it could only help and it's a great anti-oxidant
besides.
That's it for this month! As always,
check out our website for lots more information at www.oonahealth.com. In Good Health,
The Oöna Team
Questions or comments? Write valerie@oonahealth.com
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