SCIENCE BOND

Ovarian tumours are often deadly as they are caught too late.  A 14-year study on 200,000 women, published in the Lancet, has been welcomed as a potentially landmark moment in cancer screening.  But the researchers and independent experts say it is still too soon to call for mass screening because of concerns about the analysis.  Ovarian cancer is difficult to pick up as symptoms, including abdominal pain, persistent bloating and difficulty eating, are common in other conditions.The UK Collaborative Trial of Ovarian Cancer Screening is one of the biggest clinical trials ever conducted and is supposed to give the definitive verdict on screening.  It monitored levels of a chemical called CA125 in women's blood. Doctors tracked changes in the levels of CA125, which is produced by ovarian tissue, over time and if levels became elevated then the women were sent for further tests and ultimately surgery.  The results are now in, but the interpretation is a ...

Her annual report, which focuses on women this year, said tackling obesity should be a national priority to avert a "growing health catastrophe".  She said the food industry needed to do more or it should face a sugar tax.  Dame Sally is also calling for better treatment of ovarian cancer and more open discussion on incontinence.  England's top doctor said obesity was so serious it should be a priority for the whole population, but particularly for women because too often it shortened their lives.  In England in 2013, 56.4% of women aged 34-44 and 62% of women aged 45-54 were classified as overweight or obese.  Obesity increases the risk of many diseases including breast cancer, type 2 diabetes and heart disease.  Dame Sally warned that if the food industry did not clean up its act then new taxes may be the only option.She told "I think it is inevitable that manufacturing has to reformulate and resize, that supermarkets and others need to stop ch...

Researchers asked 345 women about their sexual preferences and compared these with their arousal levels when shown videos of attractive men and women.  They found 28% of straight women were mostly aroused by their preferred sex, compared with 68% of gay women.  The University of Essex study concluded that no woman is "totally straight".Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, measured the arousal of women using eye tracking devices and direct measures of physiological sexual response.  Previous studies had already suggested that straight women were aroused by both sexes when tested, but researchers had never looked at whether the same was true for gay women. Dr Rieger said the study's conclusion that women who identified as being completely gay were much more aroused by their preferred sex was "amazing".  He said their sexual arousal patterns were much more similar to men, whose responses tend to very accurately mirror their stated sexual prefere...

The work showed that women who had a particular version of the BCAR1 gene were more likely than other women to have heart attacks and strokes. In contrast, men who had the gene were not at increased risk. Researchers say this adds to mounting evidence that there are differences in how men and women experience heart disease.  In the study, published in the journal, Circulation: Cardiovascular Genetics, researchers from University College London pooled data from five European research projects, involving nearly 4,000 men and women.  Comparing their genes, the health of their blood vessels and the thickness of key arteries, scientists pinpointed a version of a gene that was linked to a higher risk of heart attacks, strokes and diseased blood vessels in women.  Though they still have work to do to fully understand the link, researchers believe the gene - when combined with a woman's naturally occurring oestrogen - could lead to an increased risk of heart disease. ...