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MENSTRUATION
Seed Cycling Is the Latest TikTok ‘Health’ Trend
What: The latest women’s “health” TikTok trend is…seed cycling. Which basically boils down to eating specific seeds at certain points of your menstrual cycle to “help with hormonal regulation.” Vogue talks to an OBGYN, and while there is a theory behind the idea (“the consumption of seeds in different phases of the cycle has the objective of ensuring the micronutrients necessary to support each phase”), per usual there’s no real hard evidence behind it.
Why it matters: These videos have hundreds of thousands of views on TikTok.
Source: Vogue
BIRTH CONTROL
Senate Republicans Won’t Stop Birth Control Bans
What: Senate Republicans had a chance to go on the record supporting access to contraception this afternoon. Most of them didn’t take it. Only two of the 49 members of the GOP voted in favor of debating the bill, which needed 60 votes to happen. As Sen. Lisa Murkowski, one of the two Republicans who voted yes put it: “If it’s a messaging bill, my message is women should have access to contraception.”
Why it matters: As Murkowski’s comment gets at, this bill wasn’t expected to become law. Democrats put it on the floor as a political maneuver. But that doesn’t make it less frightening that so few Republicans (including several female GOP senators) felt they couldn’t vote in support of it. This isn’t a chicken little situation—Trump could win the White House and we could not rely on a Republican-controlled Senate to stop him from banning contraception like IUDs and Plan B.
Source: CBS
ABORTION ACCESS
One Idaho OBGYN’s Letter Goodbye
What: An OBGYN in Idaho made the difficult decision move her practice to Washington after abortion was banned in the state. Harmony Schroeder planned to retire in Idaho but ended up sending this letter to her 3,000 patients after 20 years of practice: “I want to be transparent with you about why I am leaving. It has become increasingly difficult to practice safe and effective medicine due to lawmakers interfering with our exam room, the ones you and I share, in our medical decision-making about what’s best for you.”
Why it matters: Schroeder is one of many, according to the Idaho Medical Association: “The number of interested candidates has dropped off dramatically, and it is taking twice as long to fill positions…Idaho is digging itself into a physician workforce hole that will take many years, if not decades, to fix.”
Source: Idaho Statesman via Yahoo
ONCOLOGY
Large Majority of Women Don’t Know About Alcohol and Breast Cancer Risk
What: Two alcohol and cancer researchers are trying to increase the number of women who know the links between alcohol consumption and breast cancer risk. They asked over 5,000 women over age 18 if they were aware there is a link between alcohol consumption and breast cancer and found only about 25% said yes, while 35% said there was no link at all.
Why it matters: “The World Health Organization and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism lay it out pretty clearly: Compared to those who don’t drink, just one drink a day can bump up your breast cancer risk by 5% to 9%.”
Source: The Conversation
ENDOMETRIOSIS
It’s Not Just In Your Head
What: All Up There is only a six-minute film, but director Bonnie MacRae manages to say a lot of women’s health care in that time: “Bookended by home footage and audio of her own flare-ups, the project visualises a very personal story. Bonnie says: ‘I would end up in hospital every month with what I now know is endometriosis – a chronic, incurable gynaecological condition with little research, funding or understanding behind it […] I found it really hard to put into words exactly how I felt, and that’s where All Up There started.’”
Why it matters: The movie’s end credits offer one tough fact: 54% of people don’t know what endometriosis is, despite 1.5 million people in the UK (where the film was made) having it.
Source: It’s Nice That
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