Guest Blog: Cardiovascular Health and Sexual Identity

From Open Minded Health:

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death in the United States. And it’s growing, largely because the factors that lead to CVD are growing too: obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diets based on meat, and physical inactivity. We have data on how CVD risk varies depending on sex, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. But we don’t have strong data on how gay, lesbian, and bisexual peoples risk factors add up to actual CVD risk.

CVD risk is often calculated using data from the Framingham study, a massive multigenerational study started back in 1948. The risk calculators that still come from that study today are some of the most well validated calculators we have. A physician can plug in a few numbers and get a good estimate of your risk of having a cardiovascular-related event over the next few years. The calculators are publicly available, but really do need training to interpret.

Why do I bring up the Framingham study? Because the study I’m examining this week uses those same calculators and other factors to try to estimate the cardiovascular risk of lesbian, gay, and bisexual cisgender people. Let’s take a look at what they did!

[links] Wonderful Things in the Sky and Elsewhere

First, a beautiful image of the Trifid Nebula to brighten your day:

Mountains of opaque dust appear on the right, while other dark filaments of dust are visible threaded throughout the nebula. A single massive star visible near the center causes much of the Trifid's glow.

 Thank you, Hubble Space Telescope!

From Open Minded Health: Article Review: Sexual Orientation Identity Disparities in Awareness and Initiation of the Human Papillomavirus Vaccine Among U.S. Women and Girls

Human Papilloma Virus

Lesbian, bisexual, and straight women had heard of the HPV vaccine. There was no difference there. However, 28% of straight women, 33% of bisexual women and 8.5% of lesbian women received the HPV vaccine. That’s 8.5% of lesbians vs 28-33% of non-lesbian women. Why?? Lesbians are at risk for HPV infection too!

In case you despaired of there being no new animal species left to be discovered, here is a beautiful new species of lemur:

About the size of a small squirrel, the animal weighs 250-310 g. It is reddish-brown in color with a white underside and has brownish-black rings around the eyes.

This galaxy (MBM 54) in the constellation Perseus isn't really awash in dust.  

The faint but pervasive clouds of interstellar dust ride above the galactic plane and dimly reflect the Milky Way's combined starlight. Known as high latitude cirrus or integrated flux nebulae they are associated with molecular clouds.

Guest Blog: Article Review: Differences in Health Risk Behaviors Across Understudied LGBT Subgroups

From Open Minded Health: 

I’ve been saying for years now that the phrase “LGBT community” is insufficient when it comes to health. It’s not one community — it is multiple communities. The social issues and health issues that a gay transgender man faces every day are different from the issues a bisexual cisgender woman faces every day. There are some similarities and grouping the communities together has been politically useful. But it should never be forgotten that L, G, B, and T all face different types of health concerns and have different civil rights battles to face.

A study came out in August that has to be one of my favorites this year. Researchers in Georgia surveyed over three thousand lesbian, gay, bisexual, pansexual, transgender, gender non-conforming, and queer people. They asked about health behaviors of all kinds. And then they did statistical analysis, comparing the various genders (cis male, cis female, trans male, trans female, genderqueer) and sexual orientations (lesbian, gay, bisexual, pansexual, queer, straight). Let’s look at what they found!

• Diet and exercise: The researchers asked about fatty foods, eating while not hungry, quantity of vegetables and fruits eaten, and about hours and types of exercise. Transgender women had the least healthy diet of all genders. As a group, they were less likely to eat many fruits and vegetables, and more likely to drink sugared drinks and eat when they weren’t hungry. Both cisgender and transgender men were also less likely to eat many vegetables compared with other groups. Genderqueer people and gay cisgender men were most likely to exercise.

Guest Blog: Puberty Blockers, Trans Youth, and Bone Loss

Another thought-provoking article from Open Minded Health, this time a review on an article that examines a possible down-side of puberty blockers.

Puberty blockers (“GnRH agonists”) can be extremely helpful for transgender (trans) and gender non-conforming (GNC) children and their families. They are used to “pause” puberty. The pause allows time for negotiation, thought, and discussion. Schools need to be contacted and negotiated with. Families may need time to ask questions and do their own research. The trans/GNC young person is relieved from the distress of an unwanted puberty.

Simply, puberty blockers work by telling the body “It’s not time for puberty yet — stay as a pre-puberty body”. That message keeps ovaries and testes from producing their sex hormones. For young people just beginning puberty, it’s like pressing “pause” on puberty. But they can also be used post-puberty to reduce overall sex hormone levels. So “puberty blockers” can be used as testosterone blockers in trans women. They’re not used often in the United States that way because they’re expensive, but they’re very effective.

Puberty blockers are generally safe. They have been in use for a long time for children with precocious puberty. However there is one unknown that’s been a concern for both parents and their children: Bone health.