CHICAGO — The more an older woman weighs, the worse her memory, according to new research from Northwestern Medicine. The effect is more pronounced in women who carry excess weight around their hips, known as pear shapes, than women who carry it around their waists, called apple shapes. The study of 8,745 cognitively normal, post-menopausal [...]
Tag Archives: mental health
Sex on the Brain: Differences Between Men and Women
July 7, 2010 – 4:50 pm
Many people assume that brain differences between men and women result from sex hormones like estrogen and testosterone. This is not true. In fact, increasing numbers of studies find large reliable distinctions between the sexes. These effects are often seen early in development and before sex hormones are expressed. The research examining sex-specific brain mechanisms [...]
Sex Differences in Alcohol Metabolism
June 10, 2010 – 12:16 pm
According to the World Health Organization, alcohol is one of the most significant risk factors for diseases including chronic conditions like cancer, diabetes, and heart disease. Compared with men, women become more cognitively impaired by alcohol and are more susceptible to alcohol-related organ damage. Women develop damage with less intake and over a shorter period [...]
Eating Disorders and Disordered Eating
May 19, 2010 – 8:00 am
You may have seen the cover article on our Spring Newsletter titled “Spotlight on Obesity: Is it just your weight?” This article focuses not only on the epidemic of obesity in the U.S. but also on the serious health conditions that may result from obesity. Although obesity is on the rise, however, eating disorders such [...]
Unintentional Drug Poisoning on the Rise
March 19, 2010 – 9:53 am
In recognition of Poison Prevention Week (March 14-20), the Center for Disease Control (CDC) is highlighting the growing issue of unintentional drug poisoning in the United States. More than 26,000 deaths from unintentional drug poisoning occurred in the U.S. in 2006. Opioid pain medications (e.g., oxycodones and methadone) were involved in more than half of [...]
Dr. Roseanne Armitage- “Sex Differences, Sleep, and Depression”
January 20, 2010 – 11:20 am
We probably all have first hand knowledge of how a bad night’s sleep can affect us the next day: we’re irritable, in a bad mood, and it can be hard to concentrate. It may not be all that surprising then, that how we sleep can be a very big part of depressive disorders, an incredibly [...]
Is there a good way to receive bad news?
October 29, 2009 – 9:36 am
Medscape Today recently wrote an article detailing the physician’s dilemma regarding delivering test results, and how this may differ based whether the results are normal or identify a potentially dangerous problem. Much of the discussion uses PAP smear results as way to discuss the issue: it something women are supposed to do fairly regularly, and [...]
Watch your weight – for your brain’s sake
August 26, 2009 – 11:07 am
News related to obesity has recently been splattered all over the news, even more than usual in my opinion. The latest headline is that obese or overweight patients had significantly less brain matter than those whose weights were considered normal. The research article, “Brain Structure and Obesity,” resulted from a collaboration between the University of [...]
Optimism is good for your heart?
August 18, 2009 – 12:53 pm
A study was recently published online in the journal Circulation, the journal of the American Heart Association, showing that optimistic women are less likely to suffer from, or die of, heart disease. The study is actually really fascinating (the article abstract and the downloadable entire article can be found here.) I think this particular study [...]