News and Issues

July 3, 2007

Urinary incontinence, memory loss and exercise top the list of older women's unmet health needs and concerns

Montréal- A Canadian study of older women's health needs and concerns published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal in July 2005, and reported widely in the media, has sparked a new website directed at both patients and health practitioners: www.wowhealth.ca

Known widely as 'WOW' or the 'What Older Women Want' study, conducted by Drs. Cara Tannenbaum, Nancy Mayo and Francine Ducharme, the study asked 5000 older women across Canada which of their health needs they felt were not being met or addressed adequately by their health practitioners.    

Their answers surprised many in healthcare provision, since the key topics the women highlighted were not concerned so much with critical care concerns or disease treatment, but primary care and disease prevention.  

Among the top unmet concerns Canadian senior women mentioned were: screening and treating urinary incontinence; counselling about memory loss (or perceived memory loss); and exercise strategies to address falls and functional decline.  

"Women were very satisfied with the care they were receiving to treat their blood pressure and prevent heart attacks and stroke, but emphasized gaps in care surrounding more 'taboo' issues, such as discussing urine or memory loss," says Dr. Tannenbaum, a Geriatrician at the Institut universitaire de gériatre de Montréal , and lead author of the WOW study. "It may be that women are uncomfortable talking about these issues with their physicians because it is embasrassing, because they believe it is a part of normal aging or because they are unaware that treatments exist."

By Electra Kaczorowski

Women's Health Activist May/June 2007

Statin drugs are the best-selling class of drugs in the U.S. These medications (sold under the brand names Lipitor, Crestor, Pravachol, and Zocor, to name a few) block an enzyme in the liver that aids in the production of cholesterol, thereby reducing cholesterol levels and, hopefully, rates of coronary heart disease (CHD). (Most of the cholesterol in the human body is produced by the liver; we also get smaller amounts from our diet). Between 1987, when the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Mevacor, the first statin, and 2002, statins became one of the most widely prescribed class of drug in the U.S, with 13.1 million monthly prescriptions from June 2006-December 2006. 1

With tens of millions of people -- most of whom are healthy -- taking statins daily, important questions must be asked. What have statins been proven to do? What do they prevent or treat? Who is taking them? Who benefits from them? How do women fit into this picture? Although the answers to all of these questions should have been established long ago, they remain unclear, inconsistent, and largely unavailable to the public.

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National Women's Health Network

The menopause hormone promoters are back with a new study to support their latest theory about how there might still be some way that taking estrogen could be good for women's hearts..

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London , Ontario - St. Joseph 's Health Care, London will be playing a starring role in the much-anticipated release of Sicko, set to make its North American debut in London today.

Oscar-winning director Michael Moore will be on hand to introduce the documentary before its screening at Silver City ( Masonville Place ).

Sicko, which challenges the U.S. health care industry, contains images of and interviews with a surgeon and patient of St. Joseph 's Hand and Upper Limb Centre (HULC). The patient, a Woodstock area man, lost all the fingers on one hand in an industrial accident and had them reattached at HULC. His story is contrasted with the experience of a man in the U.S. who also lost his fingers but couldn't afford to have all of them reattached.

The film, already generating much buzz, also features interviews with patients in St. Joseph 's Urgent Care Centre.

"The expertise of our HULC team has been a source of pride for St. Joseph 's since it opened in 1992," says president and CEO Cliff Nordal. "Now the world will know of the excellence provided by this highly acclaimed and cutting-edge facility."

The HULC success stories are many, adds HULC director Dr. James Roth, a founder of the centre. "To share our achievements in the bright lights of the entertainment world is certainly a new experience, but I'm pleased the excellent work of our team is being recognized on such a grand scale."

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For more information contact:

Linda Whitmore, Communication & Public Affairs
St. Joseph 's Health Care London
519 646-6100
linda.whitmore@sjhc.london.on.ca

You are invited to participate in the online discussion on the theme "Financing for gender equality and the empowerment of women", which is being organized by the United Nations Division for the Advancement of Women. The discussion will run for four weeks from 18 June to 15 July 2007 . The purpose of the online discussion is to contribute to a further understanding of the existing mechanisms and processes of financing for gender equality and the empowerment of women at the national, regional, and global levels; identify good practices and lessons learned; and highlight gaps and challenges requiring further action.

The online discussion is part of the preparatory process of the 52nd session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) to be held 25 February to 7 March 2008, which will consider "Financing for gender equality and the empowerment of women" as its priority theme.

To register: http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/forum/forum-daw-financing.htm

If you have any questions about the registration process, please contact Mr. Rajkumar Cheney Krishnan (cheneykrishnan@un.org) at the Division for the Advancement for Women. Contributions made to this online discussion will serve as a resource to the work of the Commission on the Status of Women in developing concrete recommendations on the issue of financing for gender equality and the empowerment of women.

Themes of the online discussion

The online discussion is scheduled to begin on 18 June 2007 and to continue for four weeks. Each of the first three weeks of the discussion will be devoted to one theme, while the last week will provide the opportunity to raise additional issues and wrap up. Further details and questions on the themes will be posted shortly on DAW's website.

Week 1: 18-24 June 2007
Public finance: Using budgets for promoting gender equality

OTTAWA - Health Canada is aware of the growing body of evidence on the role of vitamin D in relation to health. Before Health Canada can issue a revised recommendation concerning vitamin D, a comprehensive review that looks at both benefits and safety needs to be undertaken.

http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/ahc-asc/media/advisories-avis/2007/2007_72_e.html

Globe and Mail, Thursday, June 21, 2007

Siri Agrell

Every day, Helen Engel-Gray makes sure she consumes less than 1,500 calories.

She calculates the fat, protein and carbohydrate content of each morsel that passes through her lips, and if she eats something unhealthy, she tells herself angrily that she deserves to be overweight.

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By Judy Norsigian, Women's Media Center

May 25, 2007, Alternet

Selling anxiety sells medicine. Drug companies know this and profit by it. But are women benefiting as much as the industry's bottom line?

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From the National Women's Health Network

You've seen the news, now get the facts.

Yesterday the Food and Drug Administration approved Lybrel, the first birth control pill designed to completely eliminate a woman's monthly period. Along with Seasonale and Seasonique, pills that reduce periods to four times a year, this is an alternative for menstrual suppression that may be attractive to some women.

From a safety perspective, Lybrel and other pills that suppress menstruation are probably a reasonable option for most women. If you can take birth control pills safely, you can probably take these. But there are concerns about how these products will be marketed and presented to women. If manufacturers and health care providers leave out the downsides and overstate the benefits, as some have in the past, girls and women may be misled.

One of the most important downsides is likely to be the high rate of break-through bleeding - which can last as long as a regular period but which happens without the predictability of a monthly cycle. Half the women in the studies of Lybrel dropped out, many because of this inconvenience. Those who stayed in the trial found that it could take up to a year before this bleeding stopped. Another concern is that women won't be able to use a missed period as a sign of possible pregnancy, so the FDA recommends that women taking Lybrel use pregnancy tests if they suspect they might have gotten pregnant.

Some doctors have said that it's more natural, and even healthier, to suppress periods than to have monthly cycles. This is not supported by good evidence, and is a troubling message particularly for young teens and girls who are just beginning to learn about how their bodies work.

By Guy Dauncey and Michael Gilbertson, Globe and Mail

This month, the American Cancer Society's journal, Cancer, published a database identifying 216 chemicals that are known to cause breast cancer in animals. Many of the same chemicals are also present in consumer products, food contaminants, air pollutants, and in our places of work.

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