Aging is inevitable, but there are steps to take to stay healthy at any age. Katharine Saunders, MD, family medicine physician at University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, talks about steps women can take to stay health throughout their lives.
At what age should a young woman start to see a physician on a regular basis?
We like to see adolescents every one to two years for a physical, starting when they become sexually active or at age 18. That physical will include a pap smear.
Women have all heard about certain screening tests they should obtain throughout their lives. I am going to list several screening tests for women - could you tell us at what point a woman should start to be screened for these particular concerns and why it is important to be screened?
• Sexually transmitted diseases or infections
The general public has been made aware of several sexually transmitted infections. HIV is the one that rings the most alarms for people. People who have multiple partners or have used IV drugs are at most risk for contracting HIV and, along with that, the hepatitis viruses. We screen folks and offer screening if people have had multiple partners or think they might have been exposed. We offer that to the majority of our patients who have multiple partners. We also screen for gonorrhea and chlamydia in young women who are sexually active and have had intercourse without a condom. You can been exposed to those two infections and not have any symptoms.
• Breast cancer
We do annual breast exams as a component of the physical and we also recommend that women do their own breast exam on a monthly basis throughout adulthood, and starting at age 50, we recommend an annual mammogram. We also do earlier mammograms if there's a family history of breast cancer in sisters, mothers, and grandmothers.
• Cervical cancer
The whole point of the pap smear is to identify cervical cancer. We have identified the HPV virus as the virus causing 80 percent or more of cervical cancer. So if you have an annual pap smear, that helps us to identify exposure. You could have been exposed without realizing it, your partner may have no symptoms.
• Obesity
Obesity if a growing problem, it's considered an epidemic in the U.S., along with the high blood pressure and diabetes. We do a weight and blood pressure screen at all visits, whether the person is coming for a physical or an illness.
• High cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes
A serious growing problem in America, people have switched to unhealthy eating habits and lack of exercise, so we are proactively encouraging people to look at their health and try to change those behaviors if they fall into that category.
• Colorectal cancer
This is a growing problem in the United States, as well, and we're not clear as to why the numbers are increasing; however, we start screening women, in particular, men as well, at age 40 with a rectal exam looking for blood in the stool, and at age 50 we recommend a colonoscopy. If there had been blood in the stool any time prior to that, we would recommend the colonoscopy, as well.
• Osteoporosis
Again, a very big problem, particularly as the baby boomers are getting older. Calcium really wasn't pushed in the food pyramid many years ago. We're trying to push it more now. Women need about 1,200 mg of calcium and regular exercise to maintain healthy bones.
Screening and testing aside, are there things women can do daily to stay health?
They want to have lots of exercise as part of their routine; want to have healthy eating habits, including dairy products and lots of fruits and vegetables, avoiding the sugary foods; keep their weight down; and, basically, any kind of exercise is good exercise. One to two alcohol beverages in an evening is about the most you want to consume. Red wines contain antioxidants and so are a good choice, less benefit for many other forms of alcohol. But one to two are safe to use.
Do you recommend women take medications to prevent diseases?
There are no particular medications that are necessary for prevention, unless you have family or personal history of a medical condition. For example, aspirin is beneficial if there's a personal or family history of heart disease over the age of 50. Basically, a lot of common sense, know your family history, and just make smart decisions, not just in a day or two, but over the course of a lifetime. I also want to add that there is a new vaccine, that HPV virus that we talked about a little while ago, there's a vaccine for young women ages 10 to 25 that can help prevent that virus from causing any problems if they've been exposed. |
