Doctors have been freezing sperm for 60 years and embryos (fertilized eggs) for 30. The first pregnancy that resulted from a frozen egg occurred in 1986.
Book on fertility and diet stirs buzz, skepticism
Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health have created a buzz with their new – and controversial – book, “The Fertility Diet.”
The balance between life and disease
Like many other Americans lately, I’ve found myself thinking hard about – and personally identifying with – the dilemma faced by Elizabeth Edwards and her husband, John, the former senator and would-be president.
How to cope with shock of cancer diagnosis
Late last fall, Dartmouth Medical School researchers reported in the journal Cancer that all newly diagnosed breast cancer patients in their study experienced at least some level of distress, and nearly half met the criteria for a significant psychiatric disorder such as major depression or post-traumatic stress disorder.
Well, duh!
Endometriosis Can Afflict Young Women, Too
Christina Shimek, a senior at St. Bernard’s High School in Fitchburg, is only 17, but she has already had more pain than many adults have in a lifetime.
Getting Warmer in Bid to Kill Tumors
A year ago, when Gayle Driscoll’s, breast cancer recurred on her skin, the 63-year-old retired teacher from Barnstable tried an experimental treatment that gave her radiation therapy some extra oomph . Every time she lay down for radiation treatment on her chest, her tumors were also heated with a special device that emitted radio frequency waves. After six weeks, the skin tumors were gone.
Hormones: Does Timing Make a Difference
After years of frightening findings on hormone therapy, there is finally some reassuring news for women who start taking hormones close to menopause.
The new results suggest that there is a “window of opportunity” near menopause during which estrogen therapy may actually reduce heart disease risk, not raise it, as starting hormones a decade or so later seems to do. And this makes good biological sense.
Hormones Given Through the Skin are Worth a Look
True confession time again: Just when I thought I had made peace with the Great Post-Menopausal Hormone Decision — in my case, sticking with very low dose oral hormones, despite the risks revealed in a 2002 study — I have plunged into the murk again.
You’re Getting Sleepy; Could that Stop Cancer?
Melatonin, long known to insomniac Americans as an over-the-counter sleep aid, is now being studied as a way to prevent and treat breast and other cancers.
A Diagnosis Of Cancer Is Trying For Any Marriage
Cancer can be very tough on a marriage just ask Sandro Segalini, 64, of Falmouth.
His first wife died of breast cancer 14 years ago. His second wife, Marcia Woltjer, 59, left him earlier this year, three years after her own diagnosis with breast cancer. Segalini, a retired businessman, had been totally willing to take control of things and help Woltjer the way he had helped his first wife to be, as he put it, “chief cook, bottle washer, bandage changer, and jester.”