Osteoporosis

A study in the journal Radiology indicates that an ultrasound of the heel may be used to predict if someone has a greater chance of fractures due to osteoporosis: Simple ultrasound exam may predict osteoporosis risk

Pregnancy

Some new guidelines regarding blood clot prevention for pregnant women were released: New blood clot guidelines for pregnant women

“Pregnant women who receive treatment for substance abuse early in their pregnancy can achieve the same health outcomes as pregnant women with no substance abuse”: Treatment for cigarette, alcohol and drug use in pregnancy improves outcomes for mom and baby

Pregnancy may help protect against bladder cancer

Ovarian Cancer

This is interesting - Ovarian cancer’s specific scent detected by dogs - I’ve heard of other cancers being able to be detected by dogs, now some researchers have “trained dogs to distinguish different types and grades of ovarian cancer, including borderline tumors. They found that the odor of ovarian cancer does seem to differ from those of other gynecological malignancies, such as cervical, or endometrial cancers, suggesting that a particular, distinguishable scent is associated with ovarian cancer. They additionally found that early-stage and low grade ovarian cancers emit the same scent as advanced tumors”. I don’t think they plan on actually using dogs to check people for it. Given how serious an ovarian cancer diagnosis is though maybe they should consider until someone finds another way to detect it early.

This isn’t really anything new as far as I can tell: Symptom screening plus a simple blood test improves early detection of ovarian cancer.The CA125 test has been around for a while and by itself isn’t really helpful and still, the other symptoms are so vague.

Other

HealthGrades releases Fifth Annual Women’s Health in American Hospitals study. Women who give birth at top hospitals have 76 percent fewer complications for C-Section, 51 percent fewer for vaginal birth

I’ve been meaning to include this link for a while - there is lots of reproductive health information here: http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/