More Evidence Shows Newer Forms of 'Pill' Raise Clot Risk, FDA Says

THURSDAY, Oct. 27 (HealthDay News) -- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Thursday said it "remains concerned" that a newer generation of birth control pills may raise the odds for serious blood clots more than older forms of the Pill.

The announcement concerns oral contraceptives containing a newer type of progestin hormone called drospirenone, which includes Bayer's Yaz or Yasmin. According to the FDA, the new study found a higher risk of venous thromboembolisms (VTEs) -- potentially dangerous clots -- in women on the drospirenone-containing pills vs. those on older forms of oral contraceptives.

The FDA-funded review involved the medical histories of more than 800,000 American women, all of whom were on some type of birth control between 2001 and 2008. The study found that women taking the newer oral contraceptives experienced a higher rate of clots than women on older forms of the contraceptive pill.

The review also found that women on two other forms of birth control -- the Ortho Evra patch from Johnson & Johnson and the NuvaRing vaginal ring from Merck -- had a higher rate of clots.

For now, the FDA is not advising that most women switch to another form of contraception. "If your birth control pill contains drospirenone, do not stop taking it without first talking to your health care professional," the agency said. "Contact your health care professional immediately if you develop any symptoms of blood clots, including persistent leg pain, severe chest pain or sudden shortness of breath. If you smoke and are over 35 years of age, you should not take combination oral contraceptives because they increase the risk that you could experience serious cardiovascular events, including blood clots."

Thursday's announcement was not the FDA's first word on this issue, nor is likely to be the last. The agency issued a similar warning in September, and in a statement released Thursday said that, "given the conflicting nature of the findings from six published studies evaluating this risk, as well as the preliminary data from the FDA-funded study," it plans to host a public meeting on the issue on Dec. 8.
The announcement Thursday comes a day after the release of a study in BMJ that also found newer birth control pills were tied to a higher risk for clots.
In that study, researchers reviewed data on all Danish women, aged 15 to 49, who were not pregnant between January 2001 and December 2009. During that time, more than 4,200 first episodes of VTEs occurred.
Women taking birth control pills with a newer progestin hormone had twice the risk of clots compared to those who took the older form of contraceptive pills.
Compared to women who did not use birth control pills, the risk of VTE was three times higher among those who used pills with levonorgestrel and six times higher among those who took pills with drospirenone, desogestrel or gestodene.
But the absolute risk of VTE associated with taking the newer pills remained relatively low, about 10 per 10,000 women, according to the University of Copenhagen researchers.
For every 2,000 women who switched from using newer pills to pills with levonorgestrel, there would be one less case of clots a year.
While some doctors may choose to prescribe birth control pills with a lower risk whenever possible, it is crucial not to exaggerate the risk of VTE, Dr. Philip Hannaford of the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, wrote in an accompanying editorial in the journal.
"Oral contraceptives are remarkably safe and may confer important long-term benefits in relation to cancer and mortality," he said in a journal news release.
Dr. Glenn Jacobowitz, vice chair of the division of vascular surgery at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City, said: "The information for Yaz is not new. That has recently already been shown in studies to have an increased risk of blood clots than other oral contraceptives. The information on NuvaRing and Ortho Evra would be a new, but similar finding. This is certainly worrisome, particularly for women over age 35 and for smokers."
More information
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has more about birth control pills.

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Most Baby Boomers Will Work for Life

Many baby boomers will continue to work after retirement. The decision to work during the traditional retirement years may be a choice or beyond our control. We may want to work in order to stay busy or we may need to work to replace savings lost in recent years.

Retirement USA recently calculated a very scary number representing the gap between where retirement savings should be and how much Americans actually have. The total deficit was estimated to be $6.6 trillion dollars. In many cases, senior citizens will have no choice but to keep working past traditional retirement age.

[See The 10 Best Places to Retire in 2012.]

Your retirement career. If you plan to work, don't resign yourself to a retirement career that is boring or unpleasant. Over your career, you have honed and perfected many skills. You know what it takes to get the job done and have built a record of successful achievements to prove it. Here are three ways to leverage this background as you make your move back into the working world:

1. Self-analysis. No one knows your likes and dislikes better than you. Take some time to contemplate what you like to do and what you are good at. Do you work best left to your own devices or do you prefer guidance from a supervisor? Do you prefer to work alone on projects or are you happier in a team environment? Is learning something new exciting or intimidating for you? Are you a creative force or do you prefer to follow predefined processes? Realize that as a senior citizen you may be physically limited as to what you can manually do in a job. But don't sell yourself short.

[See 30 Fast-Growing Careers for Older Workers.]

2. Analysis of the company. What kind of company and work environment do you want to engage with? Decide whether you prefer a large or small company and whether you want to follow the same career path you were on or try something new. Think about the particular industry that you want to pursue and the type of corporate culture that is to your liking. Create a profile of the ideal company and do your homework to carefully compare your options. Before you sign on it is a great idea to talk with people who work there to get first-hand accounts of the company culture.

[See 7 Tips for Working for a Younger Boss.]

3. Positive outlook. How you choose to face each day in your retirement career can be an important determinant of what kind of a day you will live. It is easy to be happy when you are off to do what you want to do. But even if you are not so lucky, focus on the positive in your life and try to enjoy what you do. Remember that you are an active contributor who is working toward achieving a goal and getting paid for your effort.

There are no guarantees we will live a perfect retirement life and these days we need to adapt just to survive. Seniors facing a new retirement career have the best chance to excel if they take time to find the right work environment where they will be engaged, challenged, and active. Don't settle for less.

Dave Bernard is not yet retired but has begun his due diligence to plan for a satisfying retirement. With a focus on the non-financial aspects of retiring, he shares his discoveries and insights on his blog Retirement-Only the Beginning.

import from: http://news.yahoo.com/most-baby-boomers-life-155236190.html

How to Avoid Feeling Stressed

I received an email from a college student who told me she was feeling overwhelmed by the very heavy demands of school and social life. She wanted to know how to avoid feeling "stressed out."
We all know how it feels to be stressed, but what does it mean to be stressed out?

Where does stress come from?
You probably know about the "fight or flight" response--that's the adrenalin kick we get when we're either very excited or in mortal danger and must mobilize our mental and physical resources to defend ourselves.
But what happens when the danger is "merely" looming, and not immediate? There's nothing to fight and nowhere to run. This, in biological terms, is what is meant by stress. And in order to cope with prolonged threat or privation, the body begins to shut down some systems in order to conserve its resources.
College students, for example, tend to start their new semesters, with a rush of excitement, in anticipation of the joys and terrors just ahead--both kinds of excitement come with that animating surge of adrenalin. The feeling of being "stressed out" generally starts sometime after the first week, when the adrenalin wears off but the exciting opportunities and daunting demands remain. But now, without the adrenalin surge, where is the energy to take all that work and play on? The body can't continue to pump out adrenalin, so it shifts into conservation mode, which leaves one feeling stressed--under siege by social and academic demands but lacking the resources to cope.
This feeling of high stress may begin to subside if mid-term exams and social activities go well, because by then the student has acquired some evidence that he or she can cope with the demands of school.

Two strategies for handling stress
No one likes to feel stressed, but perhaps there's another way to look at this problem. The key word in the first paragraph above was "avoid." Stress, it's important to realize, isn't always something to avoid.
Stress can mean 1 of 2 things. The first thing a prolonged sense of stress can mean is that one is genuinely overwhelmed. But feeling overwhelmed is not a reason to avoid the stressor; on the contrary, this distressing feeling is a sign that the life circumstances causing the stress must be dealt with. How? Either by eliminating those conditions altogether, or by reducing their effect on you. You might be able to alleviate the effects somewhat by better balancing work and play, or by increasing your exercise or meditation times, or by talking with friends or a counselor.
The second thing stress can mean is that you have come up against a challenge that you need to overcome. Soldiers walk bravely into high-stress situations when they go to boot camp or to war; young doctors in some specialties compete for the honor of entering the most stressful internships. Students challenge themselves by juggling a heavy course load and an active social life. Why? Because stress is also a sign that one is being presented with an opportunity for growth. To feel stressed--and yet to win the struggle against the forces that caused it--is to gain mastery and maturity and confidence.

Learn more?
Two Web sites that have all sorts of good information about stress are eMedicineHealth and How Stuff Works.
Also, feel free to email me if you have a question you would like me to take up. I don't promise a rapid or personal response, but I do promise that messages are confidential and, to protect your privacy, I won't quote you directly in this blog.