Here are the most interesting items we saw this week in women's health:
💊 ALABAMA'S MONTHLY PREGNANCY TESTS FOR CANNABIS PATIENTS. Alabama now requires women ages 11 to 50 to pass a pregnancy test in a doctor's office every 30 days to keep accessing medical cannabis. No other state has built routine pregnancy surveillance into medical cannabis access. Patients pay for each test themselves.
🩺 THE MENOPAUSE BOOM HAS A FORGOTTEN WAITING ROOM. As hormone therapy gets marketed online as a midlife fix, women who medically can't take it because of breast cancer, clotting disorders, or heart risks say they feel cut off from the whole conversation. Nonhormonal options exist, including newer drugs fezolinetant and elinzanetant, but many doctors don't raise them and patients don't know to ask.
💪 TWO HOURS OF WEIGHTS, 44% LOWER HEART ATTACK RISK. Women who did at least two hours of strength training a week had a 44% lower risk of heart attack than women who did none, an analysis of around 117,000 nurses found. Each additional hour tracked with led to an additional 14% drop in risk, and the benefit held even among women already meeting aerobic exercise targets.
TOP CLICKED STORIES THIS WEEK
Strength training linked to lower heart disease risk in women // EurekAlert
Millions of Women Are Left Out of Menopause’s Moment // New York Times
The Mysterious History of the Female Body // New York Times
In Alabama, patients are forced to take monthly pregnancy tests for medical cannabis // AL.com
What would it take to stop women from bleeding to death after childbirth? // NPR
A nasal spray reaches a woman's brain differently depending on the week, and it may explain why a promising brain drug looked like a failure // EurekAlert