You are here: Home / 2010 / Archives for June 2010

Late Abortion Ups Later Pregnancy Termination Risk

June 3, 2010 By

Women who have an abortion in the second trimester of pregnancy are more likely than women who terminate their pregnancies earlier to have repeat abortions, new research shows.

And women who initially have a late abortion are also substantially more likely to have a second late abortion, Dr. Oskari Heikinheimo of Helsinki University Hospital in Finland and colleagues found. They also found that being younger than 20 sharply increased a woman’s risk of having repeat abortions, and of having repeat late abortions.

The further along a woman is in her pregnancy the more risky it is to terminate the pregnancy, the researchers note in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology.

“Several studies have shown that the later the abortion is performed, the greater the risk of complications is,” Heikinheimo explained in an email to Reuters Health. “The most common complications are bleeding and infection.”

Abortion is still very common around the world even though birth control options have improved in recent years. Late termination of pregnancy — meaning abortion at 13 weeks gestation or later — represents 5 to 10 percent of all abortions, the researchers note, while from 30 to 47 percent of women who have an abortion will have another later on.

To better understand factors associated with repeat abortion, as well as risk factors for having an abortion after the first trimester, Heikinheimo and colleagues looked at 41,750 Finnish women who had an abortion between 2000 and 2005 — 1,900 of whom terminated their pregnancies in the second trimester.

Compared with women who had first trimester abortions, those who had second-trimester abortions were 40 percent more likely to have had a second abortion by the end of 2006, the researchers found, while they were nearly four times as likely to have a second late abortion, and five times as likely to have an abortion after 16 weeks’ gestation.

And women younger than 20 years old were seven times as likely as older women to have repeat abortions, and more than 12 times as likely to have a second abortion during their second trimester of pregnancy.

Lack of access to abortions was unlikely to be a factor in whether or not women had late abortions, the researchers note, given that by Finnish law there must be “no unnecessary delays” in performing abortion once a woman decides to apply for one; also, almost all of the abortions in the study were done in public hospitals.

“Late abortion might also be a ‘marker’ for difficulty in a young woman’s ability to manage her own life,” Heikinheimo told Reuters Health. “So these women need special care, such as easy access to reproductive services and provision of free of charge contraception.”

The best strategy to helping at-risk women avoid having repeat abortions, he added, would include counseling and making free, long-acting reversible methods of contraception easily available.

“Sexually active and highly fertile young people need high quality services and effective contraception,” he added. “The services must be provided so that they are easy to access and reach.” By Anne Harding, Yahoo Daily News

Filed Under: Health & Fitness Tagged With:

Breast Cancer Genes Not Worsened By Lifestyle

June 2, 2010 By

Genes that make women more susceptible to breast cancer don’t have any link to lifestyle factors that also raise their risk, a new study says.

Some experts previously thought there might be dangerous interactions between breast cancer mutations and other risk factors for the disease, like taking hormone replacement therapy – and that these women had a particularly high risk of breast cancer.

According to a study published Wednesday in the medical journal, Lancet, that isn’t the case.

British researchers studied 7,610 women with breast cancer and 10,196 women without it. All of the women provided a blood sample for genetic testing and information about other risk factors like obesity, alcohol consumption and hormone replacement therapy.

The scientists used a statistical analysis to examine the relationship between genetic and lifestyle factors. They found that although genetic mutations and lifestyle choices both contribute to cancer, they do so separately and do not mix for a more deadly effect.

The genetic mutations studied are carried in up to 60 percent of women and increase a woman’s breast cancer risk from 10 to 20 percent. The study did not include the rare BRCA genes which dramatically increase the risk of breast cancer. The study was paid for by Britain’s Medical Research Council and Cancer Research UK.

Ruth Travis of the Cancer Epidemiology Unit at the University of Oxford and the study’s lead author, said it was reassuring she and colleagues didn’t find any proof of synergy between breast cancer mutations and lifestyle factors.

“There’s a danger of feeling you’re at the fate of your genes,” Travis said. “But whatever you’re born with, there are things you can do to modify your risk.”

Experts said lifestyle factors are often more important in avoiding breast cancer than genetic ones. For example, being fat elevates your risk by 40 percent and taking hormone replacement therapy doubles it.

Susan Gapstur, vice president of epidemiology at the American Cancer Society, said the findings would not change the group’s prevention messages to women, like avoiding weight gain, staying physically active, and minimizing hormone replacement therapy. Gapstur was not connected to the study.

She said the research underlined the complexity of breast cancer and that scientists still don’t completely understand what triggers it. “It likely won’t be a single genetic factor (that causes breast cancer) but maybe several genetic variants in combination and some environmental factors,” she said. By Maria Cheng, The Newsobserver

Filed Under: Health & Fitness Tagged With:

Just How Healthy Is Alcohol?

June 1, 2010 By

I have at least one glass of wine each evening and a few more at the weekends. I’ve heard that moderate drinking may help to prevent diseases such as Alzheimer’s, but also causes cancer. I’m confused.

The bottom line is that light to moderate drinking, which on average means between one to eight units of alcohol a week, is the optimum to get the potential health benefits, while not endangering your short or long-term health — with the exception of breast cancer.

Of course, any observed benefits that come with drinking are wrecked by overdoing it. And so, while research now indicates that 1 to 3 drinks a day helps to lower the risk of heart disease, go above this and the benefits turns to increased risk. The same goes for type 2 diabetes.

With Alzheimer’s the evidence that drinking may help to protect the brain from this disease is in its infancy but again, if more proof confirms a link, it is almost bound to be from a regular small indulgence and not heavy drinking.

Bones may also benefit from moderate drinking. Katherine Tucker, of Tufts University, Boston, US, discovered from a study of more than 2,200 people that the apparent protective effect of alcohol on bone density was larger than for any single nutrient — even calcium. This effect was particularly strong for postmenopausal women. Those having two drinks a day had a 5 to 8.3 per cent increased bone density in their hips and spines compared with their teetotal peers.

Another quirky positive for alcohol is that female moderate drinkers have a potential lower body weight compared with non-drinkers. Having scrutinised the food and drink intake of more than 19,000 women of normal weight aged 39 plus, researchers found that after 13 years, although there was a progressive average weight gain, moderate drinkers gained around 3.5lb (1.6kg) compared with 7lb gains in abstainers.

Women who had taken one to two alcoholic drinks a day proved to have an almost 30 per cent lower risk of becoming overweight or obese. It is possible that this is because teetotallers substituted other drinks, such as fizzy pop, squashes, etc, for their couple of glasses of wine. Men, on the other hand, tended to add alcohol to their daily intake of other drinks, making them more at risk of weight gain from moderate drinking.

So, a drink a day could be just what the doctor ordered. Unfortunately, analysis of some 53 population studies has revealed an increase in risk of breast cancer for every 10g of alcohol drunk. 10g is about a unit which is a 125ml glass of 8-9 per cent strength wine, half-a-pint of lager or a shot of spirits.

Scientists believe the reason for this could hinge on alcohol’s ability to increase levels of the oestrogen circulating in our blood. Ultimately, sticking within the safe drinking guidelines of 3-4 units per day for men and 2-3 for women is about as good as the advice currently gets. By Amanda Ursell, The Times

Filed Under: Health & Fitness Tagged With: