Health care activists charge that medical researchers have long failed to conduct detailed studies into the specific health issues of women. But a number of new studies suggest that researchers are responding to the criticism with important investigations.
The results of the studies, providing vital information for women of all ages, suggest that exercise and diet are keys to longer, healthier lives. Women are responding by embarking on aerobic exercise programs, yoga workouts and carefully selected diets that assure proper vitamins and nutrients while limiting "harmful" fats.
Consider these recent studies:
EXERCISE AND BREAST CANCER
A recent study reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute suggests that exercise may have an impact on a woman's risk of developing breast cancer. Scientists at Columbia University's School of Public Health wrote that higher levels of physical activity "may be associated with a reduction in risk."
The research findings were based on a review of 25 studies exploring the relationship between breast cancer risks and physical activity. Decreases in risk -- ranging from 12 to 60 percent -- were found among both premenopausal and postmenopausal women.
Possible relationships between the two, including "duration, frequency or intensity of exercise," should be examined further, the researchers say, before exercise or other activity guidelines are developed.
CERTAIN FATS KEY
Researchers have found that certain fats can reduce a woman's risk of developing breast cancer. Canola and olive oils, which contain monounsaturated fats, reduce breast cancer risk by 45 percent. However, they say fats contained in other types of vegetables oils and seafood can increase the same risk by nearly 70 percent.
Writing in the American Medical Association's Archives of Internal Medicine, researchers from Sweden's Karolinska Institute in Stockholm conducted a three-year study of more than 61,400 women aged 40 to 76. The researchers discovered that the benefit lies with monounsaturated fats as a category, rather than specifically with olive oil. The studies did not show a link between intake of saturated fat and cancer risk.
Fat comes in three main types -- saturated (found primarily in meat and dairy products), monounsaturated (found in canola, nut and olive oils), and polyunsaturated (found in seafood, soybean, corn, safflower and sunflower oils).
The researchers also looked at studies from Spain, Greece and Italy indicating "consumption of olive oil, the main source of monounsaturated fat in the Mediterranean diet, was associated with a decreased risk of breast cancer."
Health care activists charge that medical researchers have long failed to conduct detailed studies into the specific health issues of women. But a number of new studies suggest that researchers are responding to the criticism with important investigations.
