Updates

31st January 2014 - 1st Feburary 2014 - HRT Excellence Days - an international collaboration between IMS, the EAU Menopause Society, and Abbott Laboratories, Abu DhabiPost meeting report by Rodney Baber, President electIMS held an educational weekend on the menopause in Abu Dhabi, 31st January - 1st February 2014.Rod Baber, President - elect reports 'The… Read More

At first glance, the new study by Williams [1] seemed, well, just another study showing how important physical activity is. Indeed, exercise reduces morbidity and mortality in a large list of diseases including cardiovascular, respiratory and oncological diseases. Clicking the key words 'breast cancer' and 'exercise' in PubMed yields about 2000 hits. So what's the… Read More

Ko and colleagues have recently reported that metformin may improve survival in women with endometrial cancer [1]. They retrospectively studied 1495 women who were diagnosed between 2005 and 2010 at two tertiary US academic institutions. Median follow-up was 33 months. Demographic, pathological, clinical and follow-up data were obtained from medical records. Body mass index (BMI)… Read More

Africa, except for a few areas, such as South Africa or the African Mediterranean countries, is usually missing from international medical forums or conferences that discuss menopause-related issues. For many of us, Africa is still an enigma although one may speculate that the problems surrounding the climacterium are similar to those elsewhere in the world.… Read More

If you are the superstitious type, you might have thought that the year 2013 would be problematic, since many people believe that 13 is an ominous number. But, in fact, the year 2013 was not so bad, except for some natural disasters and wars, which unfortunately become part of 'normal' history. The field of menopause… Read More

Do you remember the traditional lipid-lowering targets? Years ago, normal low density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol levels were set at 150–160 mg/dl; then came the large studies demonstrating the association between therapy for hypercholesterolemia and decreased cardiovascular morbidity, as a result of which the LDL cholesterol norm was changed to < 130 mg/dl. Later on, cardiologists… Read More

Mind and body go together, and psychosomatic interactions are very common, although not fully understood. Traditional medicine is perhaps a very good example for the healing potential of alternative therapies. Hot flushes, although believed to be derived from menopause-associated hormonal changes, may be influenced by a variety of emotional and psychological factors. Two recent studies… Read More

6-8th December 2013 - The International Congress on "Challenges in Women's Health - New Dimensions in the 21st Century" - was held between 6th to 8th December 2013 at Hotel Grand Hyatt, Mumbai, India. The Congress was jointly organized by the International Menopause Society (IMS) and the Indian Menopause Society (IMS-India) and was supported by… Read More

Screening for osteoporosis with bone mineral density (BMD) is recommended for older adults; however, it is unclear whether repeating a BMD screening test improves fracture risk assessment. The aim of the study presented below was to determine whether changes in BMD after 4 years provide additional information on fracture risk beyond baseline BMD and to… Read More

The WHI database will probably provide an infinite number of publications. This time the focus of the analysis was to explore whether pretreatment levels of sex hormones modify the effect of estrogen + progestin (E+P) on breast cancer [1]. This was a nested case–control study within the WHI randomized clinical trial of E+P. The trial… Read More