The event raises money for health programs that Fenway Health offers to the community.  About 1200 lesbian, bi, and transgender women with their supporters and allies will be there to celebrate women’s health and raise money to implement it through Fenway Health.  It’s a fun time and for a great cause.  Mayor Menino and Governor Patrick are generally there as well so you can bet it’ll be swarming with lots of bling and fun. This year Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin will receive the Dr. Susan M. Love Award

So, while I can’t be there I’m raising a big, steaming mug of coffee to say Best of Luck to you June, Deb and Molly for this year’s event!!

Want to be part of a resource guide for transgender and other gender-variant people?

Trans Bodies, Trans Selves features a line-up of wonderful transgender and genderqueer authors, and they’re looking for your help to make the book amazing.

Take the survey and your thoughts could appear in the book!

Go to http://www.transbodies.com/Survey.html for surveys designed for:
-Transgender/genderqueer people
-Parents of gender-variant children
-Partners of transgender/genderqueer people

Please forward widely.

YOUR VOICE is greatly appreciated!

Laura Erickson-Schroth, MD, MA
Editor, Trans Bodies, Trans Selves
transbodies@gmail.com
www.transbodies.com

Jenny Boylan and Jamison Greene are on the project so it should be worth all our time to give them a little piece of our mind.

A&A, in Newton MA, is offering Express Facials now, for a limited time, for $30 for 30 minutes!   I asked what the catch was and here’s the details on what they’ll do for your face:

• Cleanse
• Tone
• Moisturize
• Exfoliate
• Teach you how to take care of your skin

For $30 that’s a great deal.   If you make an appointment, please tell them Becki sent you.   Beck’s Cafe doesn’t make any money from this and you won’t get a better deal than the $30, but it’ll be nice for her to know that some of us do really listen to her suggestions to take care of our skin!

Fenway Health is the one of the leading community health centers in the United States that includes LGBTIQ people as well.  In their words:

The mission of Fenway Health is to enhance the physical and mental health of its community, which includes those who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, the people who live and work in our neighborhood, and beyond.

Fenway has a comprehensive set of services for breast cancer screening and, if you can’t afford to pay for such services, please let them know!  If you are a trans-woman, don’t let your lack of job or insurance be a barrier, contact the Fenway Transhealth Navigator program to help you.

Way back in February, 2006 Beck’s Cafe ran an article entitled, “Breast Cancer Self-Exams Just Got Easier“.  In that article we noted some of the latest developments in breast cancer exams to make the whole proecess nicer, easier and less painful.  We’ve re-perked it up for this 2009 Breast Cancer Awareness Month.  The dead links have been pulled and the existing ones on that post updated, so all that material is ready to go, like your morning coffee    Click here to get to our article “Breast Cancer Self-Exams Just Got Easier”

MTPC is creating a plan in order to advocate for resources, support,and further services for the transgender community that will hopefully lead to eliminating transgender health disparities in Massachusetts. The findings from the survey and our state wide health care community forums will inform MTPC’s health care advocacy plan.

Purpose of the Survey:

• Gather experiences and needs of the transgender community when it comes to access of health care and quality of care.
• Inform MTPC, policy makers, and key stakeholders about the needs,gaps, and current access to health care and social services of the Massachusetts transgender communities.

To take this anonymous survey please go to: MTPC Health Care Survey 2009

For more info or questions please ping:

Gunner Scott
Director
Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition
PO Box 301897, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130
617-778-0519
gscott@masstpc.org
http://www.masstpc.org

The National Breast Cancer Foundation Early Detection Plan Tool (or NBCFEDPT) can walk you through the process on-line to get your very own plan.  Here’s some reasons why all of us should do this:

• Nearly 200,000 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year.
• 1 in 8 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer during their lifetime.
• Over 30% of women are diagnosed after breast cancer has spread beyond the localized stage.
• When breast cancer is detected early (localized stage), the 5-year survival rate is 98%.

So take that cup o’ java (the coffee not that pile o’ code on  your server begging for your love) and go give it a try  
The National Breast Cancer Foundation Early Detection Plan Tool

That’s when Dr. Love presented to all us 1000+ women the concept of recruiting 1 million women to be a part of her Army of Women so that proper research could be done with women themselves on breast cancer.  Sounds like a pretty good plan to me.   Here are Dr. Love’s words herself on this incredible initiative (taken from The Army of Women site):

“Over and over I’ve heard scientists lament how difficult it is for them to find the volunteers they need for research studies. I’ve long believed that helping scientists overcome this obstacle would accelerate our understanding of what causes breast cancer and how to end it. By responding to this need, the Army of Women will change the face of breast cancer research.”

And here’s how this initiative works (by the way, about this point in the Fenway Dinner, while listening to Dr. Love challenge us all to join her Army of Women, I actually did drop my chocolate dessert right onto the floor next to my shoe. Only fate saved me from destroying my dress or that of my companion Diane!).

• Women who are interested register on the Love/Avon Army of Women website, providing very basic information such as name, age, city, and state of residence.
• You will receive email updates from the Love/Avon Army of Women announcing new research studies looking for volunteers just like you. The email will detail the research project and who and what the researchers need.
• If you fit the criteria and you’d like to participate, all you need to do is click “Yes Sign Me Up”, this lets us know you’ve accepted our “Call to Action”.  From there, you will be asked to log-in to your account and then directed to the next steps.
• If you accept the Call to Action by clicking “Yes, Sign Me Up”, you will be asked a couple of screening questions to make sure you qualify for the study.
• Once we confirm your qualification for the specific study, your information will be given to the researcher conducting the study and you will be contacted by the researcher for a secondary screening to make sure you meet the study criteria and answer any questions you might have about study participation.
• You will never be pressured to take part in any study. The decision to take part is yours — and yours alone. If you meet the study criteria as determined by the researcher and are interested in taking part, the study researcher will let you know what you need to do next.

You can still sign up and be a part of the army!  Just jog your mouse on over to The Army Of Women and enlist!  And many thanks to the Avon Foundation For Women for funding.

Joy is the defending 80-and-over champion in the New York City Marathon.  You read that right, 80 and over.  She’s so good and so fit she increased the intensity of her training when she thought she might be slipping.  I had no idea the 80 and over bracket was so competitive!   You can read her inspiring story and see her training even at the Wall Street Journal at this link here

I think Joy’s story draws me in since she so inspires me as does Elaine Mansfield’s story of her transformation through strength training at age 55.   Both women show it’s never too late.  It’s never too late to take control back of your own personal health if you want to.   That is quite and inspiration for me and, if you read their stories, for you too I hope.

Now to get the coffee ready for tomorrow morning

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)

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

• 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.

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

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).

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.

You can help the fight against AIDs right here in the Boston area by making a donation to the Fenway Community Health Center. Since Fenway diagnosed the first HIV cases in New England, they have been at the forefront of the battle to end this epidemic. Make a gift today to help them continue that fight.

In honor of World Aids Day, give today and your gift to Fenway could be worth three times as much!
Through the generosity of a special benefactor, all eligible online gifts made to support World AIDS Day will be matched on a $2 for $1 basis. If you give $100 today, your gift could be worth as much as $300 to help Fenway fight HIV and AIDS. Click over to Fenway to make a donation by clicking this link HERE.

Learn more about aids at these links:

• Boston Aids Consortium
• Aids Action Committee of Massachusetts
• AIDs.gov

]]> http://beckscafe.com/2006/12/01/world-aids-day-donate-to-fenway-community-health/feed/ 0 http://beckscafe.com/2006/11/01/msnbc-tv-and-menopause-relief/ http://beckscafe.com/2006/11/01/msnbc-tv-and-menopause-relief/#comments Wed, 01 Nov 2006 15:41:33 +0000 Rebecca http://sun.asmallorange.com/~becki/2006/11/01/msnbc-tv-and-menopause-relief/    MSNBC is hosting a special report tonight on their nightly news broadcast on menopause and alternatives to using HRT to treat it. The trailer for it looked pretty good. You can see what time MSNBC is on in your area by clicking to their program schedule at this link here. You can check out their health reports on menopause by clicking to the women’s health section of MSNBC as this link here.

(photo courtesty of Looper-312 Photos, used under Creative Commons license)

]]> http://beckscafe.com/2006/11/01/msnbc-tv-and-menopause-relief/feed/ 0 http://beckscafe.com/2006/09/07/a-sad-heart-could-be-a-sick-heart-too/ http://beckscafe.com/2006/09/07/a-sad-heart-could-be-a-sick-heart-too/#comments Thu, 07 Sep 2006 11:28:17 +0000 Rebecca http://sun.asmallorange.com/~becki/2006/09/07/a-sad-heart-could-be-a-sick-heart-too/ Could a sad heart lead to an unhealthy heart? That seems to be what is suggested from a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) led by Dr. Mary Whooley, a physician at the University of California, San Francisco (see link to abstract at JAMA here). A recent article published by her discusses how major depression is a risk factor for the development of heart disease in healthy patients and for poor outcomes in patients with known heart disease.

In Dr. Whooley’s study she looked at over 7500 elderly women and tracked them over 7 years. She tracked them on a sort of depression scale to see how many symptoms and signs of depression they had. What she discovered was that 7% of women with no signs of depression passed away over the period of her study while 17% of women with three to five signs of depression passed away. Most alarming of all, 24% of the patients with six or more signs of depression passed away. In short, the more depressed her study subjects were the more likely they were to die of heart disease. Dr. Whooley was able to make the link between heart disease and depression by correlating her data with that of many other studies, most notably:

• A study in Denmark of 700 men and women that was followed for 27 years showed that those with depression had a substantially greater risk of hear attack and death
• Another study of 8000 men and women that showed an increase risk of coronary heart disease in depression patients
• a study of patients who were healthy and free of heart disease but for whom the risk of developing heart disease and dying from it was actually caused by depression.

But what might be the connection between depression and heart disease? Is it simply being blue clogs your heart or is depression a trigger for biological changes that bring on the disease? In an article by Dr. Tedd Mitchell for USA Weekend (July 28-30, 2006 edition) and an in an interview for National Public Radio (NPR) of Dr. Sydney Spiesel, Yale Medical School professor and Slate medical columnist, they both note the following possible biological connection between heart disease and a sad heart:

• Depressed people have a greater resting heart rate potentially leading to heart stress or abnormal heartbeats
• Hormones that control blood pressure and heart rate are higher in depressed patients
• Blood platelets are more activated in depressed patients that could lead to a greater incidence of blood clots and heart attack or stroke
• Behavioral issues come to play too, depressed patients tend to generally smoke more, exercise less, eat more poorly and are less compliant to taking medications that you’ve been prescribed to help keep heart disease from advancing.

So since being depressed is one cause of heart disease, what to do if your so blue? There are a number of potential weapons at your disposal that will help your mood and your heart too. Anti-depressants are one way to go. Dr. Whooley notes in her study that treatment with anti-depressants with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors is a generally safe approach to alleviate depression. But some studies have shown that exercise is actually more effective.

In a study done in the British Journal of Sports Medicine (April 2001;35:114-117) found that just 30 minutes of walking daily improved depressed patients symptoms faster than medication. And in another study, published in Psychosomatic Medicine (September/October 2000;62:633-638) the researchers found when comparing treating depression with either 45 minutes of exercise three times per week or Zoloft, a popular anti-depressant that is a selective seratonin reuptake inhibitor, the exercise group were more likely to be partially or fully recovered from depression than those in the medication group.

So a sad heart can indeed be a sick heart too and treating it best may include anti-depressant medication or perhaps plain old exercise to make your heart happy and healthier too. My bet is on the exercise, it’s easy and cheap and has many side benefits in helping you physically and mentally, a combination that is time efficient and can’t be beat.

(silver heart photo from Lonely Angel Photos, used under Creative Commons license)

]]> http://beckscafe.com/2006/09/07/a-sad-heart-could-be-a-sick-heart-too/feed/ 0 http://beckscafe.com/2006/08/24/cervical-cancer-caused-by-a-virus/ http://beckscafe.com/2006/08/24/cervical-cancer-caused-by-a-virus/#comments Thu, 24 Aug 2006 06:21:24 +0000 Rebecca http://sun.asmallorange.com/~becki/2006/08/24/cervical-cancer-caused-by-a-virus/ I know two people who had cervical cancer. One caught it early enough and lived. The other did not and died just two weeks ago. I can’t answer why one figured it out somehow and the other did not. Maybe one had regular check-ups and pap smears and the other did not. I just don’t know. But what I do know is that it’s caused by a virus of all things. That virus is HPV.

HPV is short for human papillomavirus. It’s present in both men and women. For men, the risks include anal and penile cancers and genital warts. For women, there is also the risk of genital warts as well as cervical cancer. Cervical cancer is the second leading cause of cancer related deaths among women. The American Cancer Society has determined that 38% of all diagnosed cervical cancer cases will end in death in 2006. A large and very sobering number.

So what to do? Well the most important thing to do is get a regular pap smear. As Merck points out at it’s excellent web site on this subject:

A: Most women learn they have HPV as a result of abnormal Pap tests. A Pap test (also known as a Pap smear) is part of a gynecological exam that can help detect abnormal cells in the lining of the cervix before they have the chance to become precancerous or cervical cancer. Many cases of cervical precancer are related to HPV and can be treated successfully if detected early. It’s also important to note that cervical cancer is one of the most preventable cancers. That’s why it’s really important to follow your doctor’s advice regarding how often you should have a Pap test.
Learn about Pap tests and other follow-up tests.

The keys to prevent or limiting your chance to getting HPV? Either abstain from sex or use condoms to protect both the guy and the girl. And guys, this is a SHARED responsibility – you own this too.

To learn more about the serious dangers on HPV and to get tools to tell others click to Merck’s excellent site on the topic at “Tell Someone“. You can also learn about this silent killer at the Centers for Disease Control site at this link HERE.

]]> http://beckscafe.com/2006/08/24/cervical-cancer-caused-by-a-virus/feed/ 0 http://beckscafe.com/2006/07/07/research-on-making-breast-cancer-therapy-easier/ http://beckscafe.com/2006/07/07/research-on-making-breast-cancer-therapy-easier/#comments Fri, 07 Jul 2006 19:31:39 +0000 Rebecca http://sun.asmallorange.com/~becki/2006/07/07/research-on-making-breast-cancer-therapy-easier/ If you know anyone undergoing treatment for breast cancer you and they will like the sound of this I think. Shorter, simpler treatments for breast cancer that are also more convenient for the patient and potentially less expensive for everyone. Sounds like a great deal!

Radiotherapy is a therapy given to women who are post-operative for breast cancer surgery to reduce the risk of the cancer returning. Generally 25 doses are given over a five week period. But what if the number of exposures to radiotherapy as well as the time period could be reduced?

Professor John Yarnold of The Institute of Cancer Research and the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust and his team have been studying just that. They have been performing breast cancer treatment trials using short course radiotherapy. They’ve been experimenting with this for the past 10 years. As reported in the journal, Lancet Oncology (see link to abstract abstract HERE), their study compared the shorter and more concentrated dose of radiotherapy with the standard treatment on 1410 women. After monitoring the health of the participants for a ten year period, Yarnold and team found that the shorter course was as good as the standard extended treatments.

Dr. Yarnold and his researchers are awaiting the results of other trials in order to confirm that the proposed shorter course is more effective in the long run. If these results are confirmed there is a real opportunity here for less hospital visits and better outcomes for patients. Good news indeed.

(source information for this post came from the 5/31/06 edition of the Wall Street Journal)

(Photo courtesy of Gretchen’s Photos, used under Creative Commons license)

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