For how we live.
A Global Burden of Disease analysis finds the share of female breast-cancer deaths tied to high fasting plasma glucose rose from 1990 to 2023 and is projected to keep rising — but the design cannot prove causation.
In nearly 40,000 UK women, abnormal blood pressure six weeks after a hypertensive pregnancy roughly doubled later cardiovascular disease. A Dutch cohort shows pregnancy history sharpens risk prediction.
Among 84 women on aromatase inhibitors, CO2 laser did no better than a fake laser for sexual function at 12 months. Both groups improved — on moisturisers and vibrators given to everyone.
A 60-woman phase 2A trial found the dual PPAR agonist reduced liver fat by nearly 15 percentage points more than placebo over 24 weeks — an early, small signal in a group usually left out of fatty-liver drug trials.
An observational study of 8,127 UK women on GLP-1 drugs, almost all tirzepatide, reported 16.1 kg average loss at six months and 91.4% retention. There was no control arm.
From 300 million laboratory tests, an Israeli team reconstructs trajectories and finds bone, liver, kidney, hormone and lipid markers shift abruptly at the final menstrual period — changes starting a decade earlier.
A 96,000-woman registry emulation found pre-conception GLP-1 or GLP-1/GIP therapy in PCOS tracked with lower pregnancy risk than metformin. It is not a trial, and says nothing about use during pregnancy.
In a Canadian cohort of 228 women with HIV, antibody titres matched those of women without HIV and cervical precancer was not recorded — but protection tracked with viral suppression.
A post hoc analysis of the BAMBINI trial asked whether losing too much weight could backfire on fertility in PCOS. It did not: every degree of weight loss was linked to a better chance of ovulating.
There has been no reliable way to prevent pre-eclampsia at term. PREVENT-PE screened over 8,000 women late in pregnancy and offered earlier birth to those at highest risk — and pre-eclampsia fell by nearly a third.
Injecting one sperm into each egg was meant for severe male-factor cases, yet clinics now use it widely. Pooling six randomised trials found no live-birth advantage over standard IVF when sperm is not the problem.
A meta-analysis of 36 studies and 2.6 million women found iatrogenic menopause raised stroke and cardiovascular risk. The death-rate excess was confined to menopause before 45, with null estimates after.
A Korean cohort of 1.37 million women found more dementia after hypertensive pregnancies. The association did not survive adjustment for the vascular and metabolic conditions that followed.
Falling cervical cancer rates after HPV vaccination are well known. A 2026 analysis of mortality data goes further: among women vaccinated at 12–13 with ~90% coverage, no deaths were recorded against about 23 expected.
In a double-blind trial of 65 etonogestrel-implant users with frequent or prolonged bleeding, a five-day course of tranexamic acid worked no better than placebo on any bleeding measure.
In a 76-woman randomised trial, a six-hour daily eating window and standard calorie restriction each produced about a 4% weight loss over six months, with no advantage for either approach.
A European trial stopped early for futility: clinical pregnancy occurred in 15.7% of women given transdermal testosterone before IVF and 14.9% given placebo. The trial was funded by Ferring.
In a 4,376-woman trial across 24 Chinese centres, natural-cycle embryo transfer gave the same healthy-live-birth rate as a programmed hormone regimen, with less pre-eclampsia and postpartum haemorrhage.
In 410 German women, 68% who had liposuction met the pain-reduction target at 12 months versus 8% on conservative therapy. Serious adverse events were higher after surgery.
Visceral fat packed around the organs tends to be shed preferentially with modest weight loss. What lingers is subcutaneous fat — and you cannot choose where it comes off, which is what makes the belly feel stubborn.
In midlife women the usual cause is the menopause transition, where hot flushes and night sweats last a median of seven years. In older adults they are common, mostly benign, and rarely a mortality signal.
Feeling cold when others are comfortable can point to an under-active thyroid or iron-deficiency anaemia. Fingers and toes that turn white then blue in the cold are usually Raynaud's, a blood-vessel spasm.
The crushing chest pressure is real and common. But in a registry of more than a million patients, 42% of women arrived without chest pain, against 31% of men — and the gap was widest in the young.
In people who are iron-deficient without anaemia, supplements ease self-reported fatigue in trials — but do nothing for objective exercise capacity, and the benefit hinges on being iron-deficient, not just tired.
About 7.5% of sexually active women in Britain reported pain lasting three months or more, a national survey found. The usual causes — dryness, vulval pain, infection, endometriosis — are treatable.
Popular extras like embryo genetic testing and endometrial scratching did not raise live-birth rates in their biggest randomised trials, and the UK regulator warns most patients need none of them.
For the HPV tests now used in primary screening, a self-collected vaginal sample is about as accurate as one a clinician takes — and mailing kits to under-screened women roughly doubles uptake.
There is no reliable screening test, so symptoms matter. Bloating, feeling full quickly, pelvic pain and urinary urgency — new, frequent and persistent — are the cluster a 2007 study built into a symptom index.
The Women's Preventive Services Initiative now endorses patient-collected HPV tests for average-risk women aged 30 to 65. HRSA has adopted the update for no-cost insurance coverage from 2027.
A positive urine LH test was followed by ovulation within 48 hours in 92% of cycles in one study. But the tests predict ovulation rather than confirm it, and a surge can occur without an egg released.
The chronic skin disease is often missed for years. In a cohort of 507 women, those who kept up topical steroid treatment developed no vulval cancers; those who did not had a 4.7% rate.
In 370 nulliparous women, instilling mepivacaine into the uterus before IUD placement lowered pain by about 15 mm on a 100-mm scale versus saline. It is a real effect, not a cure for the procedure.
Waking up drenched is common and, the best review found, usually nonspecific — not a sign of shortened life. In women the leading identifiable driver is the menopause, which can last far longer than most expect.
A 140-woman randomised trial found diet-and-exercise coaching, added to hormonal treatment, cut some pain scores more than usual care — but the differences were small and menstrual pain did not budge.
Two systematic reviews point the same way: for the pill, IUDs, implants and most methods, about 8 in 10 women conceive within a year of stopping — similar to using no method at all.
Cognitive behavioural therapy is one of the few non-hormone options the North American Menopause Society backs at its top evidence level. What it changes is how much flushes bother you, not the thermostat.
Long seen as a disease of women over 40 found only at hysterectomy, it turns up on ultrasound in about one in five gynaecology patients — and every option short of surgery controls symptoms, not the disease.
A landmark US cohort found frequent hot flushes lasted a median of 7.4 years, and 4.5 years after the last period. When they start earlier in the transition, they tend to last far longer.
A retrospective analysis of 54,114 women on a digital weight-loss service found those with PCOS lost as much as those without. But only 40 PCOS users reached the 10-month mark, and the data are observational.
Sold as natural, safer and tailored by hormone testing, custom-compounded menopausal hormones are untested against approved options — and expert panels advise restricting their use.
A 4,153-woman trial found progesterone did not raise live births overall. The benefit concentrated in women who were bleeding and had had three or more previous miscarriages.
In the LIFTMOR trial, brief twice-weekly heavy lifting raised spine bone density in postmenopausal women with low bone mass, while a gentle home programme lost ground. A Cochrane review finds a smaller but real effect.
In a study of 750 women, those with 'low' ovarian-reserve hormones were no less likely to conceive. Professional guidance says the test shouldn't be used to counsel women who aren't already infertile.
A postpartum smoking programme and a safe-sleep video series each failed the question they were designed to answer. What they reported next is where the interpretation gets difficult.
A small single-arm trial of the PD-1/CTLA-4 antibody cadonilimab with lenvatinib reported a 40.6% response rate in previously treated advanced endometrial cancer.
In the 571-woman ECLIPSE trial, the hormonal coil improved quality-of-life scores more than standard tablets over two years, and far more women stuck with it. A Cochrane review reaches the same conclusion.
A meta-analysis of 78 studies found the menstrual cycle has at most a trivial effect on performance. A randomised trial found timing strength training to cycle phase built no more muscle than training consistently.
Cochrane reviews rate anti-inflammatory painkillers a very effective treatment for menstrual cramps, roughly doubling the odds of good pain relief. Exercise helps too, but on lower-quality evidence.
Trials put the pregnancy rate after emergency contraceptive pills at roughly 1-3%. But the risk rose more than threefold in obese women, and the levonorgestrel pill fared worst of all.
Pelvic-floor muscle training cured stress incontinence in 56% of women versus 6% on no treatment. Guidelines put it and bladder training first, ahead of medication.
US guidelines now let women aged 30 to 65 screen every five years with an HPV test. One major body would make that the primary test from age 25 — and self-collected samples work about as well.
Dense tissue raises breast-cancer risk and hides cancers on a mammogram. US facilities must now tell patients — but the evidence on what to do next is a real trade-off: more cancers found, more false alarms.
The professional guideline now frames recovery as an ongoing process through at least 12 weeks, and one pelvic-floor study found birth injuries still resolving a full year after delivery.
A 200,000-woman trial found that screening caught more early-stage disease. It did not save lives — a result that explains why guidelines recommend against screening the general population.
Most breast pain is self-limited, and cancer is rarely the cause — though it should be ruled out. A 2025 meta-analysis found no clear benefit from vitamin B6, a widely recommended remedy.
A Cochrane review found women doing pelvic floor muscle training were eight times more likely to report their stress incontinence cured than untreated women — with the strongest evidence for that one condition.
In a study of 543,167 cycles, calendar-based apps misclassified a fertile day as safe in two-thirds of cycles. Apps that track a real biological signal do better, but plain calendar apps remain the most common kind.
The June commitment is the largest private push into midlife women's health yet. The named grants so far fund clinician training and maternal mental health — not the preclinical gap the field keeps citing.
A study of more than 72,000 women found simple ovarian cysts carried no higher cancer risk than normal ovaries, while complex or solid masses did. A large screening cohort found most cysts resolve on their own.
In one study of 62,685 women, iron deficiency prevalence ranged from 3% to 15% depending on the ferritin threshold. On treatment, a recent trial found alternate-day iron caused fewer side effects than daily dosing.
Two randomised trials tested whether thyroid-hormone tablets help women who carry thyroid antibodies but have normal thyroid function and a history of miscarriage or infertility. Live-birth rates did not move.
Hormones, surgery and painkillers can reduce pain and improve fertility, but none reliably alter the disease itself — and even removing the uterus does not guarantee the disease goes with it.
Endometriosis takes up to a decade to diagnose. A modelling study estimated a digital symptom checker could cut that by 4.36 years — but the tools still lack the external validation to trust in practice.
The 2023 global guideline puts lifestyle first for everyone, letrozole first for fertility, and the pill for cycles and excess hair — while rating much of its own evidence low to moderate quality.
A systematic review of 43 studies judged cups a safe option, with leakage similar to or lower than pads and tampons. For the newer reusable products, published research is mostly about acceptability, not safety.
Cochrane pooled 47 randomised trials in 5,290 women. The drug most often named alongside minoxidil as first-line — spironolactone — had no randomised evidence, and the review asked for some.
Most women have a recurrence within a year of standard treatment. A 2025 trial stopped early once treating a woman alone proved inferior to treating her and her male partner together.
In two large clinics, the live birth rate per woman who returned to use her eggs was around 39-50% under 35 or 38, but far lower for older women — and most women who froze never came back to use them.
Weekly fluconazole kept most women free of thrush during treatment, yet by 12 months, six months after stopping, the advantage had narrowed sharply. A newer drug shows more durable suppression.
In modern couples timing intercourse, an estimated 18% of women aged 35-39 failed to conceive within a year — not one in three. The most alarming figures come from models, not from watching real couples try.
In the 240-woman ALTAR trial, methenamine hippurate was non-inferior to standard low-dose antibiotic prophylaxis over a year. Most other non-antibiotic prevention strategies still rest on weak evidence.
In a 22,785-user study of one temperature-based app, typical use failed 6.9 per 100 woman-years and perfect use 1.0 — but the study came from the maker, and traditional methods vary widely.
A million-woman Danish cohort found a modest rise in antidepressant use among hormonal contraceptive users. A Cochrane review of weight found no evidence the pill causes weight gain.
PMDD is the severe, mostly psychological form of premenstrual illness, affecting about 3.6% of women in one study. For it, SSRIs are the best-evidenced treatment, with side effects that are common and dose-related.
The numbers most methods advertise are perfect-use figures from clinical trials. In everyday use the pill fails about seven users in 100 a year, the condom about 13, withdrawal about 20.
A Global Burden of Disease comparison puts the 2023 US maternal mortality rate at 33.8 per 100,000 live births, alongside cardio-kidney-metabolic risk burdens several times those of other high-income countries.
A 398-caregiver study across all five island groups finds the single biggest predictor of HPV vaccination was knowing the vaccine was free — after a decade of the programme running.
Stress peaked during the fasting month and fell afterwards, but depression and anxiety stayed flat. The consistent finding across every phase was that sleep quality tracked mental health.
A double-blind trial found a lidocaine paracervical block lowered pain during IUD placement, most in women who had never given birth. A separate meta-analysis found the benefit hinges on the drug and route.
A systematic review of 27 studies finds women reach higher drug concentrations at the same psychotropic dose. A separate review of 103 atrial fibrillation trials finds 43% under-enrolled women against disease prevalence.