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Candace Talmadge was determined to get through menopause without using hormones, and she tried just about every alternative treatment she could find, like soy tablets, herbs and acupuncture, a chiropractor and even an anti-anxiety medication. Two months ago, Ms. Talmadge's doctor suggested that she consider hormone therapy, and she relented. "There are always risks to any medication you take, whether it's traditional or nontraditional," said Ms. Talmadge, 51, an author from Lancaster, Tex. "But I've been going through hell. I think my doctor's attitude was, 'Do the benefits for you, right now, outweigh the risks?' " Three and a half...

In a breathtaking act of bravado, Wyeth is trying to take away your right to access bioidentical hormones and compounding pharmacies by enlisting so-called women’s and physician groups like The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG which is funded in part by Wyeth), North American Menopause Society (NAMS) and The American Medical Women's Association (AMWA also a 'partner' of Wyeth) which have become nothing more than covert "fronts" for the pharmaceutical industry. In October 2005 Wyeth filed a citizen petition with the FDA essentially asking for elimination of the compounding of bioidentical hormone option for women of all ages....

When the parents of 14 year-old Alycia Brown of La Crosse Wisconsin found out their daughter was sexually active, they did what the modern culture told them was the right thing to do; they put her on birth control, choosing the popular hormonal patch instead of the Pill. When on May 7, 2004, Alycia died suddenly of blood clots in her lower pelvis Michael and Lorie Brown decided to sue the deadly drug's manufacturer in the hopes of having it taken off the market.  The patch, which releases a dose of contraceptive hormones into a woman's blood stream through the...

Hormone levels predict attractiveness of women   Gaia Vince   These are the computer-generated composite face of the 10 women with highest and lowest levels of oestrogen - which do you find more attractive? Answers at the end of the story (Image: Miriam Law Smith) Feminine beauty, the subject of philosophical and artistic musings for millennia, can be predicted by something as basic as hormones – in women, but not men. Researchers at the University of St Andrews in Fife, UK, have found that women’s facial attractiveness is directly related to their oestrogen levels.Miriam Law Smith and colleagues photographed...

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Problem drinking may dampen both a man's sex life and his chances of having children, according to a new study. Researchers in India found that men being treated for alcoholism had lower testosterone levels and more sperm abnormalities than non-drinkers did. They also had a far higher rate of erectile dysfunction (ED) - 71 percent, versus 7 percent of abstainers. Some past studies have suggested that heavy drinking can take a toll on men's reproductive health. One recent study found that couples had a higher miscarriage risk if the man had consumed 10 or more...

Menopause Doc Fudged Data BURLINGTON, Vt., June 21, 2005 Millions of women have taken hormone therapy, only to learn in recent years that its health benefits were never proved and there were risks involved instead. Now it turns out a key researcher who touted the benefits of hormone replacement is facing a five year jail term, reports CBS News Correspondent Sharyl Attkisson. Dr. Eric Poehlman was renowned for his groundbreaking research on women and menopause. He theorized that menopause makes women lose muscle and gain fat, and causes health problems hormones could help fix. His work was considered so significant...

BIRDS do it, bees do it. But not necessarily all of them. Among bees the sisters of queens do not engage in sex. And in certain species of birds - Florida scrub jays, for one - some individuals, known as helpers, do not breed but only help the breeders raise their offspring. But could indifference to sex extend to humans, too? An increasing number of people say yes and offer themselves as proof. They describe themselves as asexual, and they call their condition normal, not the result of confused sexual orientation, a fear of intimacy or a temporary lapse of...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A new report adds weight to the idea that recurring breast cancer may be related to which hormones are used in therapy for women after menopause. One trial, called HABITS, was halted in 2003, after women receiving the hormones estrogen and progestogen showed an increased risk of breast cancer recurring, compared to women not receiving hormones. But a second study, the Stockholm trial, using a different therapy concentrating on estrogen, had no increase in breast cancers, according to a paper appearing in Wednesday's issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Both studies, done in Sweden,...

REALLY? THE FACTS - In 1997, when a large study found that girls were starting puberty sooner than usual, many Americans began to cast a suspicious eye on milk. Could artificial growth hormones that had been widely used on cows since 1993 be speeding development in children? Sales of organic dairy products took off rapidly, but newer studies have found no link. Instead, if girls are maturing sooner, a notion some scientists still dispute, it may have more to do with obesity than milk. The early puberty theory came from a study suggesting that many girls were developing breasts and...

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - How long a man's second finger is relative to his fourth finger appears to predict whether he is prone to be physically aggressive toward others, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada. But it's not finger length that causes aggression, study author Allison A. Bailey warned in an interview. She explained that the important factor is the male hormone testosterone. Fetuses are exposed to various levels of this hormone in the womb, and research shows that men who were exposed to higher levels tend to have shorter second...

Pollution Suspected Cause of Anomaly in River's South Branch MOOREFIELD, W.Va. -- The South Branch of the Potomac River is as clear as bottled water here, where it rolls over a bed of smooth stones about 230 miles upstream from Washington. But there is a mystery beneath this glassy surface. Many of the river's male bass are producing eggs. Scientists believe this inversion of nature is being caused by pollution in the water. But they say the exact culprit is still unknown: It might be chicken estrogen left over in poultry manure, or perhaps human hormones dumped in the river...

When Eileen Haraminac, 53, of St. Clair Shores, Mich., began experiencing symptoms of menopause - intense hot flashes, as many as 15 a day, waking in the middle of the night drenched in sweat and fitful sleep - she knew she needed help. But she was also aware that there were problems with hormone therapy, the standard treatment for menopause symptoms. Studies have linked it to a higher risk of heart disease, stroke, blood clots and breast cancer. This concern, combined with Mrs. Haraminac's general philosophy about medications - avoid them if possible - persuaded her to try a more...

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Men with prostate cancer that does not appear to have spread have better survival chances when they get short-term hormone treatment along with standard radiation, rather than radiation alone, a small study has found. Almost five years after treatment, 88 percent of men who received the combined treatment were still alive, compared with 78 percent who had only radiation. The study involved about 200 men and was conducted by researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. An article on the study appears in the current issue of The Journal of the...

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - New research involving male-to-female transsexuals lends further credence to the theory that sex hormones are involved in migraine generation, physicians report in the medical journal Neurology. "We know that migraine is more frequent in women than in men," co-investigator Dr. Tamara Pringsheim told Reuters Health, "so a lot of research goes into what estrogen does to the brain." A new way to examine this issue, she added, is to look at a population of genetic males who take antiandrogens and estrogen to induce female sex characteristics. Pringsheim, at the University of Toronto, and Dr. Louis...

WASHINGTON, June 28 (Reuters) - Hormone replacement therapy may be especially dangerous for older women with diabetes, researchers said Monday. A group of doctors led by Barbara Howard, president of MedStar Research Institute in Washington, studied 423 women past menopause who had atherosclerosis, a hardening of the arteries. The women who had abnormal glucose tolerance - meaning that they had diabetes or a precursor - and who took hormones had changes in their blood suggesting they had a higher risk of heart disease, Dr. Howard's team reported in the American Heart Association journal Circulation. The study was based on an...

      Hormones converge for couples in love   19:00 05 May 04   Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition. Subscribe and get 4 free issues.   Men are from Mars and women from Venus - except when they are in love. During this intense period, men and women become more like each other than at any other time.We already know that falling in love is a bit like going crazy. Donatella Marazziti of the University of Pisa in Italy showed in 1999 that levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin, which has a calming effect, dip below normal in those who say they...

Threat of women's pee no piddling problem for humanity By Ryann Connell Staff Writer April 27, 2004 Women's weewee has the potential to wipe the Japanese off the face of the earth, screams Weekly Playboy (5/11-18). And changes in the Tokyo Bay environment suggest this is no piddling problem. "Marine life (in Tokyo Bay) has gradually been developing female characteristics for years and it was generally thought that this was caused by hormone balancing disrupting substances in the environment that people have been talking about for a few years now," a scientific journalist tells Weekly Playboy. "Actually, though, a Tokyo...

New studies in mice suggest that the hormone leptin can fundamentally change the brain's circuitry in areas that control appetite. Leptin acts during a critical period early in life, possibly influencing how much animals eat as adults. And later in life, responding to how much fat is on an animal's body, it can again alter brain circuitry that controls how much is eaten. Researchers say the findings, published today in the journal Science, are a surprise and add new clues to why weight control is so difficult in some humans. Scientists knew that leptin is released by fat cells and...

<p>When 24 volunteers sat down for a buffet lunch, they knew every calorie would be counted. But they didn't know whether researchers gave them an extra dose of a hormone that curbs the appetite. The results showed that the hormone worked, telling their brain that they were full and cutting their appetite by nearly a third.</p>

Lesbians are more than twice as likely to suffer from a hormone-related condition, fuelling theories that hormones play a role in developing their sexuality. The latest research, presented at the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology conference in Madrid on Monday, came from a clinic which is one of only two in the UK to offer fertility treatment to lesbian women. Doctors there noticed a "staggering" number of lesbian women, who, on investigation, were found to be suffering either from polycystic ovary syndrome, or a less serious but related condition in which their ovaries showed many of the same...