PTSD Can Affect Female Vietnam War Vets, Too: Study

WEDNESDAY, Oct. 7, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Women who served in Vietnam may be at far greater risk for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) than female military service members who were stationed in the United States during that war, a new study finds.

“Because current PTSD is still present in many of these women decades after their military service, clinicians who treat them should continue to screen for PTSD symptoms and be sensitive to their noncombat wartime experiences,” wrote study leader Kathryn Magruder, of the Johnson Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Charleston, S.C., and colleagues.

PTSD, an anxiety disorder, can occur after witnessing or experiencing traumatic events. Magruder’s team concluded that job performance pressures and wartime exposure to sexual harassment and discrimination were more prevalent overseas than on U.S. soil, thus accounting for the possible discrepancy in PTSD occurrence.

The researchers sought to understand the impact of wartime deployment on the thousands of American women who served in the Vietnam era — from the mid-1960s to 1973. The study results were published online Oct. 7 in JAMA Psychiatry.

Roughly 5,000 to 7,500 American women served in Vietnam. Another 2,000 were stationed in Asia at bases in Japan, the Philippines, Guam, Korea and Thailand, and 250,000 remained in the United States.

Most of the women deployed to Vietnam were nurses, but some women worked in clerical, medical and administrative positions. Although excluded from combat, they were still exposed to casualties and other sources of stress, the study authors said in a journal news release.

Magruder’s team analyzed survey responses of about 4,200 women who served in the Vietnam War and were interviewed beginning in 2011. The researchers also reviewed VA medical records to validate responses.

Roughly 2,000 of these vets surveyed were stationed in Vietnam, 657 were near Vietnam and about 1,600 served in the United States. The majority who served in the United States and Vietnam were in the Army, while most stationed near Vietnam were in the Air Force.

At some point in their lives, 20 percent of the female Vietnam vets experienced PTSD, compared to 11.5 percent of women serving near Vietnam and 14 percent for women stationed in the United States.

Many of these women, now mostly in their 60s, still suffer because of their experiences. The prevalence for current PTSD (active within the past year) was close to 16 percent for women stationed in Vietnam, about 8 percent for women near Vietnam and about 9 percent for women who served in the United States, the study found.

The results suggest that exposure to stressors such as sexual harassment and job performance pressure increase the odds of PTSD. Sexual discrimination, which was related to PTSD in each analysis, was more common among the women deployed overseas, the researchers also noted.

More information

The U.S. National Institute of Mental Health provides more information on PTSD.

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Suicide Risk May Rise for Some After Weight-Loss Surgery

By Dennis Thompson
HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, Oct. 7, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Troubled people who have weight-loss surgery are more likely to attempt suicide following the procedure, a new study suggests.

These patients were about 50 percent more likely to try to take their own lives after they lost a lot of weight, while more than nine of 10 suicide attempts involved patients with a history of mental health problems, the Canadian researchers found.

“While we are clear and confident about the medical benefits of weight loss, especially through weight-loss surgery, I think we’re not as attentive to the potential psychological benefits or harms of it,” said Dr. Amir Ghaferi, director of bariatric surgery at the Ann Arbor Veterans Administration Healthcare System in Michigan.

Weight-loss surgery can cause a dramatic change in a person’s life, and people struggling with mental illness or depression may not be able to cope, said Ghaferi, who co-wrote a commentary accompanying the study.

The study was published in the Oct. 7 online edition of the journal JAMA Surgery.

Weight-loss surgery helps people who are morbidly obese lose weight. About 6 percent of Americans are morbidly obese, the study authors said, which is defined as a body mass index (BMI) that’s 40 or higher or a BMI higher than 35 if it’s accompanied with a serious health problem linked to obesity.

People who are morbidly obese often suffer from mental health problems, and previous studies have suggested that candidates for weight-loss surgery have a suicide risk that’s four times higher than that of the general population, according to the researchers.

To see how weight-loss surgery might affect that suicide risk, researchers led by Junaid Bhatti from the Sunnybrook Research Institute in Toronto tracked more than 8,800 patients in Ontario for three years before and three years after their procedure.

Out of that group, 111 patients had 158 self-harm emergencies during the follow-up period, the study found. Most of the suicide attempts occurred in the second and third year after the surgery, the findings showed.

And about 93 percent of those suicide attempts occurred in patients diagnosed with a mental health disorder prior to surgery, the researchers reported. The most common type of suicide attempt was an intentional overdose, which occurred in 73 percent of cases.

The researchers said that previous studies have pointed to several possibilities for why this is so: changes in alcohol metabolism after surgery; a substitution of substance misuse for food; increased stress; and changes in the levels of hormones that might affect the likelihood of depression and suicidal behaviors.

However, this latest study did not prove that weight-loss surgeries cause an increased risk in suicide attempts among the morbidly obese.

The findings do point to the need for improved screening of candidates prior to weight-loss surgery and better follow-up care in the months after, Ghaferi said.

People must receive a mental health assessment prior to surgery, but the rules surrounding this requirement are fuzzy, he explained.

“We don’t really have a good way of screening these people,” Ghaferi said. “We don’t have a good standard.”

After surgery, patients often struggle to adapt to the way their rapid weight loss is shaking up their relationships with important people in their lives, Ghaferi said.

He gave the example of couples who are both obese.

“There’s a problem when the partner who has surgery begins to lose weight,” Ghaferi said. “Potentially they gain some self-confidence from that, but then their loved one begins to shun them because they’re no longer alike. I’ve had patients say, ‘My husband left me because I got too thin.'”

Doctors are rarely available to help patients through these changes, Ghaferi said.

“Bariatric surgery follow-up is notoriously poor,” he said. “We try to maintain at least one-year follow-up with our patients, but it’s hard. Patients fall off the radar. They move, or it’s the type of operation where if they’re doing well or doing poorly, they’re not going to come see you.”

Dr. Mitchell Roslin, chief of obesity surgery at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, agreed that some patients with morbid obesity have problems in life that will not be solved through weight-loss surgery alone.

“These may be people who haven’t been doing well in the game of life to begin with,” Roslin said. “You hope that you’ve changed their destiny, and it turns out you haven’t at all.”

However, Roslin said he’s against limiting weight-loss surgery only to well-functioning people with stable support systems, given that there is a chance that the surgery could improve the life of nearly any candidate.

“We know that high-risk patients don’t do as well, but we live in a land of opportunity. Are we going to use outcomes as a way to deny opportunity?” he asked.

More information

For more about weight-loss surgery, visit the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

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Sex May Boost Female Immune System to Aid Fertility

WEDNESDAY, Oct. 7, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Sex at any time in a woman’s monthly cycle may trigger immune system changes that boost the likelihood of getting pregnant, a new study suggests.

The findings could eventually prove useful for couples trying to conceive, researchers from Indiana University at Bloomington said.

“It’s a common recommendation that partners trying to have a baby should engage in regular intercourse to increase the woman’s changes of getting pregnant — even during so-called ‘nonfertile’ periods — although it’s unclear how this works,” said lead investigator Tierney Lorenz, from the university’s Kinsey Institute.

“This research is the first to show that the sexual activity may cause the body to promote types of immunity that support conception,” she said in a university news release. “It’s a new answer to an old riddle: How does sex that doesn’t happen during the fertile window still improve fertility?”

The findings are based on information from 30 women who participated in the Kinsey Institute’s Women, Immunity and Sexual Health Study. Half of the women were sexually active, half were abstinent.

Previous studies found that immune system changes occur during pregnancy, after childbirth and across the menstrual cycle, but this is the first research to show that sexual activity affects immune function, the researchers said.

“The female body needs to navigate a tricky dilemma,” Lorenz said. “In order to protect itself, the body needs to defend against foreign invaders. But if it applies that logic to sperm or a fetus, then pregnancy can’t occur. The shifts in immunity that women experience may be a response to this problem.”

The researchers found clear differences in immune system regulation between women who are sexually active and those who are not.

“We’re actually seeing the immune system responding to a social behavior: sexual activity,” Lorenz said. “The sexually active women’s immune systems were preparing in advance to the mere possibility of pregnancy.”

The researchers also said these findings could potentially have an impact on treatments for autoimmune disorders in the future.

The findings were published recently in the journals Fertility and Sterility and Physiology and Behavior.

More information

The U.S. Office on Women’s Health has more about trying to get pregnant.

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Medical Marijuana Seems Safe for Chronic Pain Patients, Study Finds

By Dennis Thompson
HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, Oct. 7, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Medical marijuana appears mostly safe for treating chronic pain, at least among people with some experience using the drug, a new study suggests.

People who used pot to ease their pain didn’t have an increased risk of serious side effects, compared to people with pain who didn’t use marijuana, a Canadian research team found.

But, medical marijuana users were more likely to have less-serious side effects, the study authors said. These side effects included headache, nausea, sleepiness and dizziness, the research revealed.

“In terms of a side effect profile, we felt the drug had a reasonably good safety profile, if you compare those effects to other medications,” said study lead author Dr. Mark Ware. He is director of clinical research for the Alan Edwards Pain Management Unit at McGill University Health Center in Montreal.

Although this study focused on the safety of medical marijuana, Ware reported that participants also appeared to experience some pain relief through their use of the drug. The researchers also saw improvements in mood and quality of life in the marijuana users.

Findings from the study were reported online recently in the Journal of Pain.

The trial is the first and largest study of the long-term safety of medical marijuana use by patients in chronic pain, Ware said.

The researchers followed 215 adult patients with chronic pain who used medical pot for one year. The researchers compared the marijuana users to a control group of 216 chronic pain patients who didn’t use medical marijuana. The study involved seven pain treatment centers across Canada.

The people using pot were given leaf marijuana containing 12.5 percent THC from hospital pharmacies, Ware said. THC is the chemical in marijuana that causes intoxication. People could use pot however they liked — smoking it, eating it in food, or inhaling it from a vaporizing device.

There was no difference in serious side effects between the two groups, the researchers found.

Marijuana users did have a 73 percent increased risk of minor side effects, the study found.

Mitch Earleywine, chair of NORML, a marijuana legalization advocacy group, said many of these side effects could be reduced by changing the way the pot is used.

“Essentially, people who used vaporized cannabis would have no more adverse events than controls,” said Earleywine, who’s also a professor of psychology at the State University of New York at Albany.

Ware said he hopes the study will provide valuable information for patients considering medical marijuana for pain treatment.

“This is a paper they should bring to the attention of their physician or health care provider,” Ware said. “Anybody who is interested in using cannabis to treat pain should know this information, as it can influence the decision-making process considerably.”

Since the study focused on people familiar with marijuana, however, it might not be as useful for patients who’ve never tried pot before, he added.

“For somebody reading this who’s never tried it, the effects they experience might be different,” Ware said.

Paul Armentano, deputy director of NORML, said the study provides further evidence that the use of marijuana doesn’t deserve to be criminalized.

“These findings, and others like it, are in direct conflict with cannabis’ present schedule I status under federal law, a classification that fails to acknowledge the substance’s clinical efficacy and acceptable safety profile,” he said.

Dr. Jonathann Kuo, an interventional pain management specialist at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, N.Y., said medical marijuana has the potential to be a valuable alternative for doctors who specialize in chronic pain management.

“We frequently find that opioids [such as OxyContin, Percocet, Vicodin] are not a good long-term solution for chronic pain,” Kuo said. “We’d like to see some more of these long-term safety profiles of medical cannabis, and studies like these are important steps forward in that direction.”

However, Kuo said larger follow-up studies looking at pot’s safety and effectiveness are needed.

“I’d like to see more definitive studies before prescribing this to my patients in the future,” he said.

More information

For more on medical marijuana, visit the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse.

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5 No-Treadmill Cardio Exercises

Photo: Getty Images

These moves come to you from DailyBurn 365 trainers Cheri Paige Fogleman, Becca Pace, Prince Brathwaite and Krystal Dwyer. To catch their complete workouts head to DailyBurn.com/365.

Love to hate cardio? You don’t need to hop on a treadmill for hours just to reap the benefits of cardiovascular training. You can improve your endurance, rev your heart rateand burn calories without a single piece of gym equipment.

In fact, you don’t even need to head to the gym at all! The five moves below from DailyBurn 365 trainers will help you work up a sweat, and all you need to get started is your body. (Say bye-bye to those excuses!)

5 Quick Cardio Exercises That Don’t Involve Running 

GIFs: Courtesy of DailyBurn 365

1. Star Jump
How to: Start standing with your feet together and your knees slightly bent. Your arms should be bent up in front of your chest, like you’re carrying firewood (a). Next, step your legs out quickly, one leg at a time and shoot your arms out diagonally so you create a star shape with your body (b). Quickly hop your feet back together and bring your arms back into the starting position (c). Repeat for 60 seconds.

RELATED: 5 ‘No Excuses’ Tricks to Stick to Your Workouts

2. Fast Feet Touchdown
How to: Stand with your feet a little wider than hip-width apart. Bend your knees and turn out your feet slightly. Loosely hold your arms bent in front of your chest (a). Balance your weight on the balls of your feet. Keep your upper body relatively stable and focus on moving your feet as fast as you can (b). Once you step five times on each foot, quickly bend down, touch the ground, and then rise back up and continue hot-stepping from foot to foot (c). Repeat for 60 seconds.

RELATED: 5 Standing Ab Moves for People Who Hate Crunches

3. Single-Leg Skip
How to: Stand with the right leg behind you in a shallow lunge position. As if you’re about to run a sprint, bend your arms and bring the right arm in front of you, left arm behind you(a). Push off your back foot and perform a skip on your left leg, bringing your right leg up and driving up with your left arm (b). Land softly on our left leg and bring your right leg back to the starting “sprint” position (c). Perform 10 reps on this side, and 10 on the left.

4. Overhead Chop
How to: Start facing forwards with your arms extended straight overhead (a). Lift your left leg up straight out in front of you while bringing your arms down like a karate chop. (Engage your abdominals as you chop!) Your leg should be in between your arms (b). Bring your leg back down to the floor while raising your arms back overhead (c). Alternate legs for 15 reps on each side.

RELATED: Is It Better to Do Cardio or Strength Training First?

5. Plank Jack
How to: Begin in a plank position with your hands on the floor, shoulders above your hands and toes tucked under you. Your core should be engaged and your body should be in a straight line from head to toe (a). Bend your knees slightly and quickly jump your feet out to the side, like you’re doing a jumping jack, but with your palms glued to the floor(b). Then, quickly jump your feet back together (c). Repeat for 60 seconds.

Can’t get enough of these moves? Head to DailyBurn.com/365 for new workouts every day, live at 9 a.m. ET.

More from Life by DailyBurn:

5 Moves for Your Butt, Hips and Thighs

9 Healthy Homemade Protein Bar Recipes

3 Quick HIIT Workouts for Beginners

Life by DailyBurn is dedicated to helping you live a healthier, happier and more active lifestyle. Whether your goal is to lose weight, gain strength or de-stress, a better you is well within reach. Get more health and fitness tips at Life by DailyBurn.

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More Than 730 Illnesses Reported in Latest Salmonella Outbreak

TUESDAY, Oct. 6, 2015 (HealthDay News) — A salmonella outbreak that has been linked to contaminated cucumbers imported from Mexico has now caused 732 illnesses in 35 states, U.S. health officials said Tuesday.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the cucumbers were distributed in Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, Texas and Utah. Distribution to other states may also have occurred, the agency added.

Four deaths have been reported in the outbreak: one in Arizona, one in California, one in Oklahoma, and one in Texas.

So far, 150 people have been hospitalized, CDC officials said Tuesday.

Fifty percent of the illnesses reported have been in children under the age of 18, agency officials added.

On Sept. 4, the company considered the likely source of the tainted cucumbers, Andrew & Williamson Fresh Produce of San Diego, recalled its “Limited Edition” brand cucumbers because of their connection to the outbreak, the CDC reported.

On Sept. 11, Custom Produce Sales voluntarily recalled all cucumbers sold under the Fat Boy label starting Aug. 1, the CDC said Tuesday. Unlabeled cucumbers packed into a black reusable plastic container, and sold in Nevada since Aug. 1, are also covered by this recall. These cucumbers were sent to Custom Produce Sales from Andrew & Williamson, the agency said.

If you don’t know if your cucumbers were recalled, the CDC suggests asking your supplier. Or, if you’re in doubt, throw them out.

Symptoms of salmonella include fever, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting and abdominal cramps. Illness typically lasts about a week, but infections can be serious. Children, the elderly and people with compromised immune systems are most vulnerable to having severe illness.

According to the CDC, the states where salmonella has been reported include: Alabama (1), Alaska (14), Arizona (114), Arkansas (11), California (192), Colorado (18), Hawaii (1), Idaho (24), Illinois (9), Indiana (3), Iowa (6), Kansas (2), Kentucky (1), Louisiana (5), Maryland (1), Minnesota (37), Missouri (11), Montana (14), Nebraska (6), Nevada (14), New Mexico (31), New York (6), North Dakota (6), Ohio (2), Oklahoma (12), Oregon (20), Pennsylvania (2), South Carolina (9), South Dakota (3), Texas (34), Utah (53), Virginia (1), Washington (22), Wisconsin (40), and Wyoming (7).

More information

Visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for more on salmonella.

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Ovarian Tissue Transplant Can Help Some Women Have Kids After Cancer Treatment

By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, Oct. 6, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Cancer patients who have ovarian tissue removed and stored for later transplantation have a chance at a successful pregnancy, a new study finds.

Powerful chemotherapy and radiation treatments for cancer can impair a woman’s fertility. This new study shows that ovarian tissue transplants are safe and effective and pose little risk of the cancer coming back, the Danish researchers said.

“This procedure is gaining ground worldwide as an optional fertility treatment for fertile female cancer patients who after cancer treatment most likely will be infertile,” said lead researcher Dr. Annette Jensen, from the Laboratory of Reproductive Biology at Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen.

With this procedure, many women who survive cancer should be able to become pregnant and have healthy children, Jensen said.

Of 32 women who had ovarian tissue frozen and transplanted in this study, 10 women — or 31 percent — had a child, she said.

Many young cancer patients today can expect to live a normal lifespan. Their focus shifts from survival to quality-of-life, explained senior researcher Dr. Claus Yding Andersen, a professor of human reproductive physiology at the University of Copenhagen. “Here, fertility is very important to many young women,” he said.

“The tissue restores ovarian organ function, and women regain menstrual cycles and sex hormone levels that will avoid menopause,” Andersen added.

Dr. Avner Hershlag, chief of the Center for Human Reproduction at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, N.Y., called the new research “innovative and exciting.”

Simultaneous advances in cancer treatment and reproductive medicine have made these scientific leaps possible, he said.

However, Hershlag said he would like to see a pregnancy rate above 31 percent. “The pregnancy rate with frozen embryos is close to 50 percent, and results are getting better,” he said, referring to another option for women hoping for a future pregnancy. “It remains to be seen which method is better.”

The Danish report was published Oct. 7 in the journal Human Reproduction.

For the study, the researchers reviewed the outcomes of 53 transplantations of thawed ovarian tissue in 41 Danish women. The investigators followed the women for 10 years, looking at ovarian function, fertility and safety.

The women’s average age when the tissue was removed and frozen was nearly 30. Average age of the first transplant was 33.

Thirty-two of the women attempted pregnancy. Ten were successful and had at least one child — 14 children in all.

Eight children were conceived naturally, and six with the help of in vitro fertilization, the researchers reported.

Two women had abortions, one because she was separating from her partner and the other because her breast cancer recurred. Another woman had a miscarriage, the researchers said.

For three of the mothers, more than 10 years had passed since the ovarian tissue transplantation. In six cases, it was more than eight years. And for 15 of the women, transplantation had taken place more than five years earlier, the researchers said.

Although three women had a relapse of their cancer, these relapses did not appear related to the tissue transplantation. And no cancer developed in the transplanted tissue, Jensen said.

“So some of these women will still be able to have more children and avoid menopausal symptoms,” she said, noting two more pregnancies have been reported to her laboratory since the study’s publication.

Not all women are eligible for ovarian tissue transplants, however. “In particular, we have not performed transplants in patients who have suffered from leukemia, because the ovarian tissue may harbor cancer cells,” Jensen said.

More information

For more on fertility and cancer treatments, visit the American Cancer Society.

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Early Detection Still Key to Breast Cancer Survival: Study

By Amy Norton
HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, Oct. 6, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Even with recent strides in breast cancer treatment, a woman’s chances of surviving the disease still partly depend on early detection, a new study says.

The study of nearly 174,000 Dutch breast cancer patients found that survival rates improved between 1999 and 2012 — and that included women with more advanced cancer.

Still, women’s survival odds were best when their tumors were caught early, the researchers reported in the Oct. 6 issue of the medical journal BMJ.

“The general prospects for a woman diagnosed with breast cancer in the Western world are very good,” said lead researcher Dr. Madeleine Tilanus-Linthorst, of Erasmus University Medical Center in the Netherlands.

Her team found that among women diagnosed with breast cancer between 2006 and 2012, the five-year survival rate was 88 percent. That compared with 83 percent among women diagnosed with the cancer between 1999 and 2005, the study said.

The brighter outlook extended to women with more advanced cancer. Among those with larger tumors — more than 2 inches across — the research revealed that the five-year survival rate rose from 63 percent to 73 percent.

However, the smaller a woman’s tumor at diagnosis, the better the outlook. Of women diagnosed in more recent years, nearly all survived at least five years if their tumor was caught when it was less than three-quarters of an inch across, the study found.

In fact, their five-year survival rates were comparable to those of an average woman their age who’d never been diagnosed with breast cancer, the study showed.

“Catching the cancer early is still highly important,” Tilanus-Linthorst said.

Of the women diagnosed between 2006 and 2012, she noted, 65 percent had their tumors caught when they were still less than three-quarters of inch in size.

Dr. Harold Burstein cowrote an editorial published with the study. “The cancers caught these days are smaller and better-behaved when you look at them under a microscope,” said Burstein, an oncologist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.

“And this study shows that even with the treatment advances of recent years, tumor size still matters,” he said.

That might sound unsurprising, Burstein noted. But the substantial improvements in breast cancer treatment in the past decade or so have raised the question: Is early detection as important as it used to be?

Those treatment advances include “targeted” drugs such as Herceptin that zero in on specific abnormal proteins found in certain breast tumors; wider use of hormonal therapies that lower the risk of a breast cancer recurrence; and better chemotherapy regimens, according to the study.

In this study, women diagnosed with breast cancer in more recent years were more likely to receive those treatments. They were also more likely to receive “breast conserving” surgery — where only the tumor and some surrounding tissue are removed — and less likely to undergo a mastectomy, the study found.

Even with those therapy changes, though, tumor size at diagnosis remained a key factor in a woman’s outlook, the researchers said.

And that, Burstein said, underscores the value of mammography screening.

The study did not actually look at the effects of breast cancer screening, Burstein pointed out. “But,” he said, “I think this indirectly supports mammography screening.”

That’s important, he said, because the benefits of mammography screening have been debated in recent years, especially when it comes to women younger than 50.

In the United States, mammography guidelines vary. The American Cancer Society and some other groups suggest yearly mammograms starting at age 40.

However, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) suggests that women begin screening at age 50, and continue every two years. Women in their 40s are advised to weigh the pros and cons of screening.

The “cons” include false-positive mammography results that lead to invasive testing — as well as unnecessary treatment of tiny tumors that would never progress to threaten a woman’s life, according to the USPSTF.

The “pros,” Burstein noted, include catching and treating tiny tumors that would have threatened a woman’s life.

More information

The American Cancer Society has more on treating breast cancer.

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9 Pumpkin Beauty Products to Take Your PSL Love Next-Level

It’s that time of year: Pumpkin Spice Lattes are back and grocery store shelves are filled with pumpkin everything—from Oreos to hummus. Another place you’ll find your favorite fall treat? In the beauty aisle. The fibrous orange flesh is used in some of the most potent skin- and hair-care products, thanks to its terrific smell and secret anti-aging powers. Scrub, lather, and enjoy these picks, all packed with pumpkin.

RELATED: 8 Best Overnight Beauty Products to Wake Up Gorgeous

For the shower

Philosophy Pumpkin Icing Shampoo, Shower Gel and Bubble Bath ($18, ulta.com)
The pumpkin scent is spellbinding, but this ain’t no witches brew. It’s formulated with sugar beet extract for a gentle wash that conditions, too. Or, for a relaxing treat, pour some into a bath and make bubbles. The sweetness will linger lightly on skin and hair throughout the day—in a good way.

Acure Body Wash, Ultra Hydrating Coconut + Pumpkin ($12, amazon.com)
This wash combines the best of both worlds: the sweet smell of summer (think pina coloda) and the richness of fall (pumpkin lattes!). Moisturizing oils leave skin soft and supple.

Wen by Chaz Dean Fall Ginger Pumpkin Cleansing Conditioner ($40, chazdean.com)
This multitasker does the job of your shampoo and conditioner so you can skip a step in your AM hair routine and hopefully have enough time to make a Starbucks run. It leaves your hair squeaky-clean without stripping strands of natural oil and luster—and smells wonderfully delicious!

RELATED: 29 Expert Beauty Tips Every Woman Should Know

For dry skin

Arcona Pumpkin Body Lotion ($35, nordstrom.com)
This creamy lotion boosts moisture and improve skin’s texture and tone, thanks to a dose of glycolic acid. It absorbs quickly without leaving behind sticky residue and smells amazing.

Desert Essence Organics Hand Repair Cream, Pumpkin Spice ($8, amazon.com)

A combo of nourishing pumpkin seed oil and hydrating jojoba oil leaves hands soft and smooth—not greasy—and helps heal dry cuticles. Licorice leaf extract is also a real treat; it may help even tone and fade dark spots. The scent is subtly sweet without smelling like you just won a jack-o’-lantern carving contest.

RELATED: 8 Body Wipes That Can Replace a Shower, Self-Tanner, and More

For luscious lips

Eminence Cinnamon Kiss Lip Plumper ($13, amazon.com)
Pumpkin extract hydrates and smooths chapped lips while cinnamon plumps. Bonus: It tastes good enough to eat! Swipe it on before you apply lip color or on its own for natural-looking fullness. The tingling sensation? That’s just the cinnamon bringing on the plump.

For younger looking skin

Drunk Elephant C-Firma Day Serum ($80, sephora.com)
Packed with antioxidants (pumpkin ferment, pomegranate enzymes, and ferulic acid to name a few), this super serum helps fight off the UV- and pollution-induced free radicals that break down collagen and elastin. Use in the morning after washing your face for softer, firmer skin and to protect it from future damage.

Peter Thomas Roth Pumpkin Enzyme Mask ($58, sephora.com)
The enzymes found in pumpkin have gentle exfoliating powers that will help remove dead skin cells to reveal a brighter, more even complexion. Apply this grainy mask to clean skin and let sit for 3-7 minutes (depending on skin sensitivity) before massaging rinsing with warm water. It gets skin so glowy you’ll want to use it more than the recommended two to three times a week, but don’t get too carried away—everything in moderation right?

And finally, for clean hands

Pumpkin Treats PocketBac Sanitizers ($8, amazon.com)
‘Tis also the season for cold & flu! These hand sanitizers come in three yummy scents: Pumpkin Pecan Waffles, Pumpkin Cupcake and Pumpkin Marshmallow Latte—no typical overpowering alcohol smell here. Formulated with conditioning agents, they leave hands feeling clean and soft, never tight and dry.

RELATED: Best and Worst Pumpkin-Flavored Treats

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Is the Best Treatment for Early Breast Cancer No Treatment?

 

If you’re diagnosed with breast cancer, you have surgery and get rid of it. Right? Not quite. For some women with early-stage breast cancer, a watch-and-wait approach, highlighted in the video above by Time, may be a better option.

Ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) is considered to be “stage 0” breast cancer; it involves an abnormal growth that’s confined to a milk duct (as opposed to invasive cancer, which spreads to other parts of the breast or beyond). These days, DCIS accounts for as many as a quarter of all cancers found via mammography.

RELATED: How Regular Mammograms May Lead to ‘Overdiagnosis’

It may also be massively overtreated, experts say. While women with DCIS commonly opt for surgery, some even going so far as to get a double mastectomy (as Sandra Lee did earlier this year after her own DCIS diagnosis), the latest research suggests that many cases of DCIS will never progress to invasive cancer and become life-threatening.

In June, a team of researchers from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center in Boston reported that surgery doesn’t improve survival rates for women with low-grade DCIS. And a study published in August in JAMA Oncology found that women diagnosed with DCIS have the same risk of eventually dying of breast cancer as women in the general population—and aggressive treatment doesn’t improve the odds.

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Unfortunately, doctors don’t yet have the ability to tell which lesions will grow and spread and which won’t. That means that all cancers tend to be treated aggressively, with many women getting perhaps unnecessary mastectomies.

“We are talking about major surgery,” Shelley Hwang, MD, chief of breast surgery at Duke University and Duke Cancer Institute in North Carolina, told Time. “It can involve revisions, prolonged pain, hernias. I think the best way to understand it is that it may require surgeries for the rest of your life. Some small, some major. But it’s not like you’re done and you can forget about it. It just doesn’t work that way.”

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The alternative: active surveillance, or watchful waiting, in which patients opt out of the standard surgery/chemotherapy/radiation protocol (and the side effects and toxicities that go along with it) and instead are closely monitored by doctors. There are currently large studies underway in both the U.S. and the United Kingdom to see if active surveillance works and which patients are the best candidates.

With all the arguments over breast cancer screening in recent years, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that finding cancer is only the first step. “It’s not the ‘finding more’ that we need to work on,” Dr. Hwang told Time. “It’s what are we going to do with the more that we find?”

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