Word: estrogen
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...more pronounced, however, in females. Vigorous training, for example, can temporarily lengthen or even eliminate a runner's menstrual cycle. The response appears to have a healthy effect. In a separate study of ten rowers at Harvard, Frisch found that active women produce a less potent form of estrogen than their sedentary counterparts. Result: breast and uterine tumors that depend on the hormone cannot develop as easily. In addition, athletes lack excess body fat, which can predispose people to diabetes...
Frisch cautions that low estrogen levels can lead to temporary infertility. Still, the benefits of exercise seem to outweigh the risks, particularly for teenagers. Frisch notes that very active girls started menstruating around 15, three years later than average. The advantages, she believes, are twofold: better health later in life and a lower risk of teenage pregnancy...
...sexual ability have also been wrongly equated with advancing years. Women supposedly lose interest in sex after menopause; in fact, desire normally remains strong throughout life. The dampening of sexual urges often results from physical problems, such as hot flashes and vaginal dryness, which may be alleviated by estrogen therapy, lubricants and attention to nutrition and exercise. Older men, for their part, routinely accept continued impotence as normal. It is not. As a man ages, he does need more time to achieve an erection. But almost all impotence, whether psychological or physical, is reversible. Among the common physical causes: diabetes...
...anything about endometriosis is clear, it is that once the disease has begun, it will probably get worse. Stimulated by the release of estrogen, the implanted tissue grows and spreads. Cells from the growths break away and are ferried by lymphatic fluid throughout the body, sometimes, although rarely, forming islands in the lungs, kidneys, bowel or even the nasal passages. There they respond to the menstrual cycle, causing monthly bleeding from the rectum or wherever else they have settled...
...smoking does prevent endometriosis, "it's probably working by destroying enzymes that produce estrogen," Cramer told the New York Times. "And that has been associated with other pregnancy-related diseases caused by smoking...