Keeping the Women we Love Healthy

In August 2107, our very own Dr. Andrea LaCroix presented the health benefits of sleep during the Howell Lecture Series I mproving the Snooze: Sleepi ng Better as we Age .  "Almost everything is related in some way to our ability to function as we grow older; and sleep is perhaps one of the most important functions,"  comments Dr. LaCroix.  She, along with Dr. Carole Banka, Dr. Meg Richman and Board Chair and Registered Nurse Abigail D'Agostino, are part of the Foundation's Speakers Service; a newly launched initiative focused on extending the organization's mission of "keeping the women we love healthy." The 5 takeaways of her presentation are: 1. Sleep is regulated by a process called homeostatic process.  It means that the body is set up to want to be in balance with other internal processes. Our sleep drive -- when we get tired and feel sleepy, that drive to sleep -- is balanced with the way we operate while awake.  There are many internal and...

Going from red to pink in 30 seconds and a call to put my money where my mouth is! I was sitting on the couch just last week when a sensitive issue on women’s health came up:  Research was showing that breast cancer survivors had a higher risk for heart disease . Great...  Just GREAT!  I was immediately reminded of the struggles I had to go through to make sure I got the preventive care I needed after my diagnosis.  Because of the type of insurance coverage, I depended on ‘official’ published guidelines.  That meant that if I wanted additional screening, I had to either wait because of these suggested “guidelines”, or pay out of pocket to get a mammogram for my peace of mind (which doesn’t come cheap!).  What if I have a history of breast cancer in my family? I don’t. And yet I still was diagnosed with it.  Much has been said about screening for prevention; however one can also ascertain that inappropriate or unnecessary screening...