Keeping the Women we Love Healthy

With all the hardships of advancing age (not ready to say "we're old" just yet), new ongoing research shows us the way to age, not only gracefully, but intelligently. Osteoporosis will happen as we age, and the more information we have to make a healthy decision, the better!  Often referred to as an asymptomatic, silent illness,  people with osteoporosis either lose too much bone mass, make too little new bone tissue, or both, according to the National Osteoporosis Foundation (NOF). There are many factors that cause Osteoporosis: being female following menopause, a poor diet, lack of exercise, smoking, alcohol use, being over the age of 50, and not getting enough vitamin D and Calcium are just some of the causes.  Ongoing research shows that vitamin K12 is as important as vitamin D when discussing bone health! The severity of the body's bone loss is measured by 'T scores', one of the metrics utilized to determine the condition.  A score of ...

Kathleen Franklin (left) and Abigail de Agostino (right) are the new Howell Foundation Co-chairs.  They are responsible for leading our team into ensuring that women are informed on the importance of women's health research! “I have written about both, Kathleen and Abigail before,” comments fellow Howell Board Member Carolyn Northrup.  “I am excited about the growth the Foundation is experiencing and am delighted to be collaborating with them. I truly admire their passion for women’s health!” If there is someone who clearly understands the need for women’s health research, it’s Kathleen Franklin .  Serving on the Board of Directors of the Howell Foundation since 2006, she has seen first-hand the efforts the Foundation has put forth to keeping the women we love healthy.  "The Foundation has come a long way since I joined the Board over 10 years ago!" Kathleen Franklin is retired Superintendent of a large territory of parks and beaches in the Malibu area. ...

Just last month we heard Dr. Sears talk about the negative impact of sedentary behavior and nutrition in the presentation ' Simple Lifestyle Changes for Improving Women's Health' ; where research on diet and sedentary behaviors opened our eyes to important risk factors in cardiovascular disease, diabetes and cancer. With obesity being characterized now as a national epidemic , it is becoming imperative that we do revise our lifestyle and most importantly, change it.  As to whether it is simple or not, that depends on the lens under which you are seeing the issue. Whenever someone prefaces any sentence with 'simple' there is an expectation of effortless actions.  Many times our lives will depend on those changes to maintain our health, but  'simple' ? The idea is to create a series of healthy lifestyle 'habits' to improve and sustain our health, as difficult as it might sound!  The National Institute of Diabetes and Kidney Diseases created th...

Jaidev Bapat , one of  the recipients of the Mirandon Foundation Scholarships is focused on a form of cancer--ovarian.  Jaidev's work in the lab will focus on ovarian tumor metastasis and on understanding how it acquires drug resistance, as well as alternate approaches for treatment. Jaidev's project, "Exploring the Effects of Heterozygous Deletion of BECN1 and MAPILC3B Genes in Ovarian Cancer Cells," centers around understanding how either initiation of autophagy or inhibition of autophagy alters growth dynamics of ovarian cancer cells. Jaidev is a second year student at John Muir College majoring in molecular biology.  Jaidev is specifically interested in cancer because many of his family members have suffered from various forms of cancer. The Howell Scholarship has enabled him to center his research in the area of ovarian cancer.  He finds oncology a fascinating field of research; he believes the experience that he will gain from this research project will h...

Tiffany Lee  received one of three scholarships awarded by the Mirandon Foundation for Hope, indicating an interest in cancer, especially of the breast. Tiffany Lee's project title is "Dissecting the Molecular Basis of Breast Cancer Metastasis Dormancy." Since most cancer-related deaths are due to metastasis--when, after primary tumor removal, disseminated tumor cells enter a dormant state and then reactivate cell proliferation to form metastatic outgrowth.  Dr. Jing Yang's laboratory has established a breast cancer metastatic dormancy mouse model to monitor the disseminated tumor cells and characterize dormant tumor cells at distant organs.  Tiffany's project aims to perform histological and molecular characterization of this novel tumor dormancy mouse model. In her personal statement, Tiffany describes this particular story of her childhood, told by her mother, which defines her today.  "When I came home, I found her chewing on a whole apple with her...

Jonathan Pham's  topic of research is the "Role of Sirt1 during Mouse Trophoblast Injury." Jonathan, the second Mirandon Foundation for Hope scholar,  will focus on the roll of the protein deacetylase and the stem cells that give rise to the placenta. He notes that defects in placental development contribute to pregnancy complications such as pre-eclampsia which affects 3-10% of the pregnancies worldwide. Jonathan's interest in curing pregnancy-related diseases led him to the Parast lab min the Department of Pathology at UCSD. Dr.Parast's laboratory is part of the Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine. In the future, Jonathon plans to continue his research on pre-eclampsia and trophoblast stem cells in an effort to fight maternal diseases that result in fetal growth restriction and stillbirth. Mana M Parast, MD, Ph.D., in her letter of recommendation, notes that Jonathan has grown immensely as a researcher.  Jonathan now assists both graduate student...

The Howell Foundation will be hosting Dr. Sears on May 20th with the presentation "Simple Lifestyle Changes for Improving Women's Health"; where she will be talking about the latest research on the effects sedentary behavior has on chronic diseases such as obesity, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and type 2 diabetes. We believe that exercising IS a simple lifestyle change that can help your overall health.  Even though tons of research strongly suggests that exercise benefits practically every single part of your body, the statistics continue to be staggering: only 3 of 10 Americans do enough exercise to keep healthy; 4 of 10 confess they do not exercise at all! Here are some of the most important benefits of exercise. So let's get moving already!  ### About the Doris A. Howell Foundation: The Doris A. Howell Foundation for Women’s Health Research is committed to keeping the women we love healthy, advancing women’s health through researc...

Deepika Suresh, 2015 UCSD Howell Scholar, presented her work at the Howell Foundation's 20th anniversary luncheon.  She, along with H. Irene Su MD MSCE and Sally Dominick PhD MPH, are working on developing an education intervention on genetic risk assessment in young breast cancer survivors (YBCS).  "My objective is to develop content about genetic risk assessment in YBCS for a web-based survivorship care plan that my lab is in the process of creating", Suresh comments. "The three main steps in developing this content include going through the professional society guidelines to see what they recommend about these YBCS undergoing genetic risk assessment, completing a systematic review, and conducting interviews with genetic counselors. Ultimately, I wanted to find out what the main barriers are that prevent young breast cancer survivors from undergoing genetic risk assessment and how to overcome these." An update of her work below.  Thank you Deepika for...

                                                                       ### About the Doris A. Howell Foundation:  The Doris A. Howell Foundation for Women’s Health Research is committed to keeping the women we love healthy, advancing women’s health through research and educating women to be catalysts for improving family health in the community. The organization does so by funding scholarships to students researching issues affecting women’s health; providing a forum for medical experts, scientists, doctors, and researchers to convey timely information on topics relevant to women’s health and the health of their families through its Lecture and Evening Series, and by funding research initiatives that improve the health of under-served women and increase awareness and advocacy in the commu...

We believe that women's health starts with research and ends with education. Our own Carole Banka has her 'cheerleading' hat on promoting the relevance of women's health in our community.  "If we can touch the life of ONE woman in our community, then it'll be ONE woman that will advocate for her own health", she comments.   "We need to address gender differences, even if it is one woman at a time". The presentations she gives go beyond the obvious differences between men and women and delve into subjects such as the relationship between obesity, stress, depression, heart disease and hormones.   In the past two months, she has been invited to speak at two organizations that are making a difference in women's lives in our community:  The National CHEERS Foundation, and Las Damas de Fairbanks. The secret to her success as a key note speaker lies in her humor:  "It is said that a man's testosterone level increases as he approache...

Pictured above Hamilton Loeb (left) and Irving Tragen (right).  It is eternally, tiredly and jokingly stated that women really do not need to be understood...  just loved.  But nothing could be farther than the truth according to Hamilton Loeb and Irving Tragen; especially when it comes to women and their health. So why should women's health be important to men? For the same reason that men's health should be important to women.  For Irving and Hamilton, there is just a symbiotic relationship between men's and women's health.    Both having dealt with the health of the women in their lives at some point, the complexity of the illnesses around them made them start paying attention to women's health issues. "Women's health is about respect; it's about caring enough to try and explain to each other what's happening".  It's about two perspectives; two totally different worlds in which women's health research will be the answer t...

Soroptimist International held its Annual Award Ceremony this past June to honor individuals and organizations who are making a difference in the community, in their lives and the lives of others.  The Doris A. Howell Foundation was honored with a Scholarship award from our dear partner, Soroptimist International. "The support we have received from this amazing organization has been crucial to our success.  We are proud to continue partnering with organizations such as Soroptimist International to better the lives of women in our community" comments Dr. Carole Banka, Chair for the Howell Foundation. It was back in 1995, when, in recognition to Dr. Howell's efforts to better the lives of women in the community, Soroptimist International helped establish the Doris A. Howell Foundation for Women's Health Research. Since then, the Foundation has held over 80 informational events on issues affecting women's health, has donated over half a million dollars to ...

Last year, the Doris A. Howell Foundation hosted Dr. Robert Bonakdar, who gave an in-depth presentation on what constituted an anti-inflammatory diet to manage pain. "Think mediterranean diet", he advised.   You can read about all the ingredients here.   Research shows that following a Mediterranean diet reflects on our health; anywhere from improving our cognitive function and keeping our brain in top shape, preventing heart disease and Alzheimer's disease, to anti-aging properties and the pains of "growing up".   The top ten health benefits of a Mediterranean diet are:    In an older population, a Mediterranean diet supplemented with olive oil or nuts is associated with improved cognitive function .  (1) Following a Mediterranean diet promotes cell health , which ultimately results in healthy aging.   (2)  Following a Mediterranean diet is associated with a significant reduction in the risk of diabetes .  (3) Following ...

Meet Betty Braysahy, fundraiser for the Doris A. Howell Foundation.   Her business is in the dough... not the one to bake with (although she is a very good cook), but that one required to fund perhaps the single most important aspect in women's health: education. If you know Betty, you also know she has been in the business of education pretty much all her life.  A pioneer of her time, Betty started her career in radio and TV as a programmer and advertising copy writer at KCBQ Radio, and KFMB TV.   But rather than becoming a media star, she chose to follow a career as an unofficial philanthropist until she became the stellar fundraiser at the Doris A. Howell Foundation. It is only natural that she would take the fundamental role of fundraising for the Foundation as education has always been a top priority for her.   With studies at UCLA and SDSU, and a pioneer in conceptualizing new methods of education, Betty led an initiative focused on putting TVs in clas...

There are many factors that cause Osteoporosis-- a poor diet, lack of exercise, smoking, alcohol, being over the age of 50, not getting enough vitamin D and Calcium being some of the causes.  Osteoporosis however affects women more than men due to two main causes: 1.- Women tend to be smaller than men, having smaller bone structures; and 2.- Estrogen production, which makes our bones stronger, diminishes in women going through menopause.   As a matter of fact, it is estimated that women will lose 20% of their bone mass 5 to 7 years after going through menopause.  Osteoporosis is a serious illness yet s imple and healthy habits can change our risks for this silent illness.  Take preventive measures and talk to your doctor bout the best ways to prevent it!                                                        ...