Folic acid is one of those great public health success stories. In the decade following fortification of cereal grains and other foods, the rate of certain birth defects dropped dramatically. As studies started showing that folic acid also could help prevent cancers, it started to seem like a wonder vitamin. Folic acid's heyday may be over. New studies sug...

Your desk is a mess, and you can forget about completing your to-do list -- you don't even have one. Your mind darts from one thought to the next. And that handbag you've been madly searching for on your way out the door? Yes, it's already on your shoulder. Episodes of forgetfulness and distraction happen to all of us, and for most that's all they are -- ep...

Older women can benefit just as much as younger women from Merck's Gardasil vaccine against cervical cancer, researchers in Colombia reported on Monday. They found that women ages 24 to 45 who had no history of cancer-causing genital warts or cervical disease were much less likely to become infected with the wart virus if they got the vaccine than women who...

Diana Adam, 35, and her husband wanted to have a second child this year. The timing just seemed right. She had a job as a software engineer at a big market research company near San Francisco, California, and it had good benefits -- including paid maternity leave. He was looking for a faculty position after finishing his Ph.D. in sociology but had a steady j...

Despite some concerns, the pelvic-muscle exercises many women do during pregnancy do not seem to raise the likelihood of complications during labor and delivery, a new study finds. Prenatal exercises for the muscles of the pelvic floor, also known as Kegel exercises, have long been advocated for preventing incontinence during and after pregnancy. However, ...

A businesswoman is set to become Britain's oldest mother at the age of 66 when she gives birth next month. Elizabeth Munro will beat the previous British record for having a baby, held by Patricia Rashbrook, who became a mother at age 62. Munro reportedly underwent in vitro fertilization with donor eggs to become pregnant. The news of Munro's pregnancy rei...

Few pharmacological advances have done as much to reshape the cultural landscape - at least in Europe, Australia, most of the Western Hemisphere and pockets of Asia and Africa - as the birth control pill. But debate continues to rage on the Pill's health effects. First introduced to the American public for contraceptive use in 1960, "the Pill" freed a ge...

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When women breast-feed their infants for a year, there are lasting health benefits for both mother and infant, according to a new study. In the study, researchers found evidence that increased duration of breast-feeding may lower the mother's risk of high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol, and cardiovascular disease after menopause. The finding, r...

The modern generation of women, with successful careers and high stress levels to match, could find their super-powered lifestyle is affecting their fertility. An international comparison of women in 37 different populations and cultures shows that career women are more likely to look like Keira Knightley than Marilyn Monroe, even though the hourglass figur...

Acupuncture may not help relieve hot flushes in women undergoing menopause, a review of past studies involving the practice has shown. In a paper published in the journal Climacteric, researchers in South Korea and Britain said they trawled though medical literature exploring the efficacy of acupuncture in relieving hot flushes but evidence was scarce. "Ou...

Nursing school seemed like a good idea to Tracy Kidd, but not just because she was interested in medicine. Kidd, 37, and her husband recently took a massive pay cut -- the painting business they own in Mesa, Arizona, once brought in about $70,000 a month. Now they're lucky to get $800 a month. They have moved in with Tracy's father because their house was ...

Women nowadays are three times more likely than those born a century ago to do what men have done for millennia - follow their father's footsteps into his line of work, a newly announced study finds. One way or another, fathers and daughters have been paying more attention to each other, and daughters picked up job cues or assistance from dads, as more and...

A record-setting number of babies were born in the United States in 2007, and it may prove to be just another reminder of prosperity lost. In good times, we reproduce. In bad times, we don't. Health officials on Wednesday released a statistical snapshot of the good times: Births in this country topped 4.3 million in 2007, more than any other year in the ...

People who enjoy a glass or two of wine or beer every day could be helping to keep their bones strong, new research published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition suggests. However, drinking more - and choosing hard liquor instead of wine or beer - may actually weaken bones, Dr. Katherine Tucker of Tufts University in Boston and her colleagues foun...

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