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Women Who Maintain a Healthy Weight Get 60 Minutes a Day of Moderate Activity, Study Finds Weight gain with age is common. But middle-aged women who start out at a healthy weight and get in an hour of moderate activity every day can avoid weight gain, according to a new study. There is plenty of research on how to lose weight and keep it off, but "there's very little research on preventing weight gain in the first place," says the study lead author, I-Min Lee, ScD, an associate epidemiologist at Brigham and Women's Hospital and associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston. So her team addressed that question, trying to pinpoint the amount of physical activity needed to prevent weight gain over time, without calorie restriction, a question that is much debated with little consensus. The study is published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Exercise and Weight Control: Study Details Lee and her colleagues followed more than...

March 23, 2010 -- An experimental new drug may ease menstrual cramps by targeting the cause rather than the symptom of the pain. Researchers say the drug, now in phase II clinical trials in the U.K. and U.S., works by blocking the hormone vasopressin, which is involved in contractions of the uterus. Increased levels of this hormone are believed to cause the pain associated with menstrual cramps. Menstrual cramps, known in medical terms as dysmenorrhea, affect more than 50% of women of childbearing age. They occur when the smooth muscles of the uterus contract with increasing frequency. The most common symptoms are abdominal and back pain, but dysmenorrhea may also cause nausea, vomiting, sweating, and dizziness. Treatments for dysmenorrhea include pain relievers, anti-inflammatory drugs, and contraceptives that stop menstruation. But researchers say these only relieve the symptoms of the condition rather than the underlying cause and may have unwanted side effects. "We hope th...