Our Bodies Ourselves

I know fair number of transgender women and one thing I can almost universally say about 95% of them is they…

do not sleep … hardly at all

It’s truly baffling to all of us. But now I might have some ideas on what’s making us become such zombies…damn good lookin’ ones but zombies none-the-less (thank GOD for under eye makeup cover).

In an article titled, “Why We Can’t Sleep?“, Gayle Greene, Professor of Literature and Women’s Studies at Scripps College, teases out some interesting points in her Ms. Magazine article:

• A 2007 poll by the National Sleep Foundation found that 67 percent of women frequently experience sleep problems

• 29 percent of women use some type of sleep aid at least a few nights a week

• 75 percent of sleep research has been done on men, and until recently the researchers have been primarily men. The major texts for sleep studies have had, until recently, little to say about women’s sleep

• There’s a tendency to assume that the problem is psychological. When 501 physicians were interviewed about how they treated insomnia, they revealed that they asked an average of just two and a half questions, mostly about psychological problems. And since doctors believe it’s all in the head, there’s little impetus to research insomnia. In 2005, the National Institutes of Health spent less than $20 million on the condition, although it affects as many as a third of the U.S. adult population. Most of those funds were directed toward treating and managing the problem, while less than $4 million went to investigations of neurophysiological and neuroendocrinal mechanisms — the kind of basic research that might lead to an understanding of cause. (barista note: this whole approach kinda reminds me of how those of us who have GID are treated…we have to be crazy in the head not really being driven by some internal intersex issue none of us can identify but many of us know in our hearts).

The article is very eye opening about how the medical community may be hiding it’s head under the pillow on a cause and help on a real issue in this country. It’s enough to make you stay up late to read! You can read the full article at Ms. Magazine at their link here.

(Photo courtesy of LunaDiRimmel, used under Creative Commons license)

Boston University is using a self-administered questionnaire to understand how facial appearance impacts the quality of life in male-to-female transgender individuals. Your responses are completely confidential and anonymous. Your email address or name is not required. Your participation is entirely voluntary and you can stopthe survey at any time.

WHY
- Your responses will hopefully allow us to better understand the best way to help the transgender community.

WHO
- Dr. Jeffrey Spiegel and Tiffiny Ainsworth from Boston University and Boston Medical Center are researchers studying the quality of life in male-to-female transgender individuals in the hopes of better understanding the best way to help the transgender community medically. Dr. Spiegel is the chief of facial plastic and reconstructive surgery at Boston Medical Center and an associate professor at the Boston University School of Medicine with appointments in the department of otolaryngology, head and neck surgery and the department of plastic and reconstructive surgery. He has significant experience in facial feminization surgery.

HOW
- Go to our website to fill out the online version of our survey at http://bmc.org/survey The Password for the survey is: Boston

WHO CAN PARTICIPATE
- Male-to-female transgender individuals between the ages of 18years and 64years are eligible for participation in the survey.

QUESTIONS?
- Please contact Tiffiny Ainsworth at tiffann@bu.edu

Researchers at Fenway Community Health are exploring possible uses of rapid HIV home testing. The study includes an optional HIV test. Researchers for this study are looking for WOMEN who:

• Are 18-65 years of age
• Are fluent in English
• Are HIV-negative
• Are sexually active
• Have sex with men.

If you’re interested in finding out more about this study, please call 617.927.6030 or visit Fenway Health here . They will need to ask you a few questions to see if you qualify to participate in this study. There is no compensation for the screening. Participants in this study will be compensated with $40. Enrollment ends September 24, 2007.

Admit it, at some level you knew it was just plain old healthy to come to Beck’s Cafe and have a steaming cup of java. Well, now we have proof

As reported by the BBC,

Italian researchers looked at the coffee drinking and smoking habits of 166 people with blepharospasm.

Sufferers have uncontrollable twitching of the eyelid which, in extreme cases, stops them being able to see.

One or two cups of coffee a day seemed to reduce the risk of the condition, the team reported in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry.

To read the full article at the BBC, Coffee ‘could prevent eye tremor’, click to the BBC at this link HERE….and don’t forget to bring a mug of coffee with you

Harvard University’s School of Public Health and the University of Athens Medical School released a startling study that should make us all wake up to the importance of SLEEP…ready?

Midday napping (siestas) reduced coronary mortality by about one third among men and women. The study appears in the February 12, 2007 issue of The Archives of Internal Medicine.

How’s that for a reason to get some well needed Zzz’s? In a nutshell, the researchers looked at 23,681 individuals living in Greece who, at the beginning of the study, had no history of coronary heart disease, stroke or cancer. The researchers then followed these people for 6 years. The researchers found that study participants who took regular naps, which they defined as napping at least three times per week for an average of 30 minutes, had a 37% lower coronary mortality than the participants who did not take naps. The effect was strongest among working men and weaker among retired men. Curiously, among working women there were too few death to be significant (perhaps women have much better work like balance than everyone thinks!). The researchers aren’t sure why napping three times per week for 30 minutes at a time has this effect but it may be related to being a sort of release valve for stressors in the body.

So, next time you want a health boost take a snooze. Being well rested may be this centuries secret miracle potion and it’s most sought after commodity.

(You can check out the press release at the Harvard School for Public Health at their web site HERE. You can see the original study by visiting the Archives of Internal Medecine by clicking HERE).

Think AIDs is only an issue if you shoot up? Or maybe if your a gay male cruising three or four times a night for sex? Think again, and read about Regan Hoffman. You might be surprised:

Regan Hofmann grew up in the tony suburbs of Princeton, N.J. When she went to high school in the 80s, she was terrified of AIDS.

“By the mid-90s, I had never heard of a woman — a heterosexual woman who was not an IV-drug user — having HIV,” Hofmann says. “I perceived myself to be literally at no risk for HIV.”

But in 1996, Regan contracted HIV from her first and only boyfriend after her divorce. She was so embarrassed that she kept it a secret. And because she had health care, she could keep it a secret from her friends. For about eight years, she only told her immediate family.

You can - and should - read the rest of her story at the National Public Radio web site. You can reach Ms. Hofmann’s important story by clicking to it at this link at NPR HERE.

(photo courtesy of ElektraCute’s Photos, used under Creative Commons License)

Today is World’s Aid Day. The facts on this scourge are pretty telling:

• 38.6 Million people are living with HIV worldwide
• At the end of 2003, an estimated 1,039,000 to 1,185,000 persons in the United States were living with HIV/AIDS
• 2.8 Million people died of AIDs in 2005
• Over 15 million children have been orphaned by AIDs worldwide
• Nationwide, AIDS is the leading cause of death for African-American adults aged 25-34
• The younger women are, the more vulnerable they are to HIV infection. Across the country, among teens (13-19) who are infected with HIV, girls accounted for more than half (57%) of new HIV infections in 2001.