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Dr. Teresa Woodruff and Megan Faurot, WHSP Directors, with high school graduate who will be entering college in the fall.
For the third consecutive year, 100% of the high school seniors who participated in the Women’s Health Science Program for High School Girls and Beyond (WHSP) have successfully graduated from high school and will be going on to college in the fall.  Students selected to participate in WHSP attend Young Women’s Leadership Charter School (YWLCS). Twenty-one of the 51 student 2010 senior class of YWLCS participated in one or more of the WHSP academies.  To date WHSP has offered three academies, Oncofertility Saturday Academy, Cardiology Summer Academy, and Infectious Disease Summer Academy. The 21 WHSP high school seniors were accepted to a total of 63 colleges and universities across the nation.
A primary goal of WHSP is to provide the high school students with the opportunity to explore and prepare for academic programs and careers in science and medicine.  There are now a total of 53 WHSP students who have made the successful transition from high school to college.  The WHSP research team is tracking the academic and career behaviors of the students for up to 10 years after graduating from high school.
Colleges and universities where the WHSP students will be dispersing to in the fall, include:
Tennessee State University
University of Illinois at Chicago
California State University, Los Angeles
Clark Atlanta University
North Park University
Ursinus College
DePaul University
The College of Wooster
Knox College
Coe College
Michigan State University
Arizona State University
Alabama A&M University
Kennedy King College
Sweet Briar College
Congratulations WHSP students!
To learn more about WHSP visit whsp.northwestern.edu.

Ms. Magazine has a new blog post about the drug Flibanserin, which is touted as the female Viagra. The post brings up some interesting points about the psychosocial issues surrounding female sexuality and encourages the FDA to reject the drug. Rather than treat low female libido with pharmaceuticals, the article encourages the government to increase their commitment to sexual education.

While I agree that it is necessary to address the cultural pressures on women, it is also important to help women with medical arousal problems. Some of these problems are actually caused by other pharmaceuticals. The birth control pill, itself, comes with a significant side effect. In exchange for reproductive freedom, many women on the pill experience problems with sexual arousal and climax.
Flibanserin is a mix of two drugs that affect the neurotransmitter serotonin. It is an agonist, or activator, of the serotonin receptor called 5-HT1A, and an antagonist, or inhibitor, of the 5-HT2A serotonin receptor. In clinical trials, the drug only moderately improved sexual function but the side effects didn’t seem that severe either. They included dizziness, nausea, fatigue, and insomnia, which seem to be on all drug labels these days. Given all this information, should the drug be on the market? Give the FDA a chance to decide.

The article below was recently released by the National Institutes of Health.  It is important information but I post it with caution because it could make some people panic before the facts are in.    It is somewhat alarming if you do have symptoms of early menopause—-but it doesn’t always mean you have a serious health condition.     I went into menopause at age 41 when my children were teenagers and, and while it was concerning,  it was just early menopause.     Of course, any atypical health symptoms need to be  checked out, no matter how old you are!
NIH News:   Hot flashes, night sweats, loss of regular menstrual periods and sleep problems. These familiar symptoms of menopause appear in most women around age 50. But if they arise before age 40—which happens for about 1 in 100 women—it’s a sign that something’s wrong. Early symptoms like these could be a sign of a little-understood condition called primary ovarian insufficiency (POI).
Most women with POI are infertile. They’re also at risk for bone fractures and heart disease. And many aren’t aware they have POI.
“Symptoms of POI can be missed because young women may not realize they’re having symptoms similar to menopause. They may not think hot flashes are worth mentioning to a doctor,” says Dr. Lawrence M. Nelson, a researcher and physician at NIH. “Some teens and young women think of the menstrual cycle as a nuisance, and they don’t mind missing periods. They don’t take it seriously, and that’s a mistake.” Missing or irregular periods are a major sign of POI.
When young women have POI, their ovaries don’t work normally. They stop regularly releasing eggs and cut back production of estrogen and other reproductive hormones. These same things happen when older women go through menopause, which is why the symptoms are similar. As with menopause, POI symptoms can often be relieved by hormone replacement therapy, usually an estrogen patch. And as with menopause, POI puts women at risk for bone loss. But with a proper diagnosis of POI and early treatment, bone health can be protected.
POI was previously known as “premature menopause” or “premature ovarian failure.” But research has since shown that ovarian function is unpredictable in these women, sometimes turning on and off, which is why many physicians now prefer the term primary ovarian insufficiency. Many aspects of POI remain mysterious—including its cause. Only 10% of cases can be traced to either to a genetic condition or to autoimmunity—a disorder in which the immune system attacks the body’s own tissues.
Nelson’s research has shown that the unexpected loss of fertility often leads to grief and symptoms of anxiety and depression in women with POI. But a recent study from his lab suggests that most young women and teens with POI still have immature eggs in their ovaries. The finding raises the possibility that future treatments might be developed to restore fertility to some affected women. Even without treatment, up to 1 in 10 women with POI may unexpectedly become pregnant after their condition is diagnosed.
Irregular or stopped periods might be a sign of other conditions, including eating disorders or too much exercise. A simple blood test for elevated levels of a molecule called follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) can help to confirm a diagnosis of POI.
“Having regular menstrual periods is a sign that the ovaries are working properly,” says Nelson. “If that isn’t happening, it’s important for girls and young women to talk to their health care provider and find out why.   Nelson is now looking for 18- to 42-year-old women with POI to enroll in clinical studies at NIH. For more information, visit http://poi.nichd.nih.gov.

An article was released in the June 10, 2010 edition of the well-respected journal, Nature, that raises the question of doing research studies on pregnant women.    Women  get colds, the flu, infections and other diseases during their pregnancies that have nothing to do with their mom-to-be status.   Many women simply “toughen it out” hoping their condition is just a virus that will run its course.   Other times, they rely on their obstetrician’s experience with other patients who may have been prescribed an antedote that the physician has used successfully in her/his practice, but has not actually been studied in well-designed research studies that included pregnant women.
Are these women being shortchanged?   Are they simply not supposed to get sick through their pregnancy?     Here’s a bit of history:   It wasn’t until 1994, that the Food and Drug Administration (the regulatory agency that approves drugs for safety and effectiveness)  lifted the ban on inclusion of women with childbearing potential from the early clinical trials.    This ban had been in place since 1977 and not only excluded pregnant women, but “women who had childbearing potential” and certainly impacted the number of women participating in clinical studies.   No wonder our knowledge of sex differences in disease remains inadequate!
An important and legitimate concern, of course, is the safety of a potential fetus.    Anyone over age 50 recalls the thalidomide (a drug prescribed for morning sickness)  tragedy of the late 50s/early 60s that resulted in far too many babies, especially in Europe, being born with deformities.   While this tragedy alerted us to potential in-utero harm, it also slowed the progress we need to be sure tragedies of this nature never happen again while collecting important data on drug use in women.    The author of the Nature article  provides a logical strategy that should be considered and supported by all women’s health activists. Click  Pregnant Women Deserve Better to view article.