About 16 percent of the 74 breast cancer patients studied by researchers at the Ohio State University Medical experienced PTSD 18 months after their cancer diagnosis. These same patients were three times more likely to have had anxiety disorders.

"What is unique about breast cancer patients with PTSD is that they have already had this double hit of both anxiety and mood disorders even before they got the diagnosis," study co-author Barbara Andersen, a professor of psychology at Ohio State University, said in a prepared statement. "So when they are in a new situation that is very anxiety-provoking -- cancer diagnosis and treatment -- it is not surprising that they are at risk for developing PTSD."

While the study suggests most cancer patients aren't at risk for post-traumatic stress disorder, Andersen said mood disorders are a concern.

"I think depression is the mental health condition that needs the most attention as far as treating breast cancer patients, even more so than PTSD," she said. "That's the direction our research is going, and we are working to develop an intervention to treat cancer patients with depression."

She said the findings, published in the April issue of the Journal of Traumatic Stress, suggest screening newly diagnosed breast cancer patients for past mood disorders might help avoid their developing post-traumatic stress disorder.

Another 20 percent of those in the study had "subsyndromal" post-traumatic stress disorder, a condition in which they experienced significant symptoms of PTSD but not at the level of those with the full diagnosis.

About one-third of women with PTSD also had past problems with alcohol/substance abuse or dependence, compared to one-fifth of subsyndromal women and one-tenth of women with no PTSD.

Also, patients who developed PTSD tended to have a history of traumatic life events, the study reported. Half of the PTSD patients reported being physically attacked or abused previously, compared with less than 17 percent of the other women.

More information

The U.S. National Institute of Mental Health has more about post-traumatic stress disorder.

These findings may help in planning and evaluating screening programs, clinical trials and other studies, the researchers say.

Using a new mathematical model, the scientists were also able to estimate the numbers of breast cancers detectable by mammography. This is a new approach to estimating the growth rate of tumors and the ability of mammograms to find them.

"There are enormous implications for the sensitivity of breast cancer screening programs," lead researcher Harald Weedon-Fekjr, of the Department of Etiological Research, Cancer Registry of Norway, said in a statement.

"We found that mammography screen test sensitivity increases sharply with increased tumor size, as one might expect. Detection rates are just 26 percent for a 5 millimeter tumor but increase to 91 percent once a tumor is 10 millimeter in size," he added.

The report was published in the May 8 issue of the online journal Breast Cancer Research.

In the study, Weedon-Fekjr, and colleagues tested their model using mammography results from 395,188 women aged 50 to 69.

The researchers found that the growth rate of tumors varied significantly between patients. About one in 20 tumors doubled in size, from 10 to 20 millimeters in just over a month. However, a similar number of tumors took more than six years to double in size.

Based on this finding, Weedon-Fekjr's team estimated that it takes an average of 1.7 years for tumors to double in size. Moreover, tumor growth appeared to be faster among younger women and slowed as women aged, the researchers noted.

"Tumor growth and test sensitivity estimates can be directly linked to tumor size in a full population study, resulting in very useful growth estimates directly connected to a biologically relevant measure," the researchers wrote.

"Tumor growth seems to vary greatly between tumors, with higher growth rates among younger women. Most tumors become visible at screening when they reach a diameter of 5 millimeters to 10 millimeters," they concluded.

One expert thinks this study again confirms the need for women to have a mammogram every year.

"This study continues to prove why we need to screen women every year, starting at age 40," said Debbie Saslow, director of breast and gynecologic cancer at the American Cancer Society.

This is another study that shows that tumors grow faster in younger women, Saslow said. "It just doesn't make sense to have guidelines that say younger women should be screened every one to two years and every year as they get older," she said.

More information

For more on breast cancer, visit the U.S. National Cancer Institute.

Osteoporosis-related fractures in men result in substantial disease, death and health costs, and the one-year death rate in men after hip fracture is twice that of women.

"Older men, especially those over the age of 65, need to be assessed regularly for risk factors for osteoporosis," Dr. Amir Qaseem, senior medical associate in ACP's clinical programs and quality of care department, said in a prepared statement. "Osteoporosis is not just a woman's disease. It is significantly under-diagnosed and under-treated in men. Not enough older men are being screened."

Risk factors for osteoporosis in men include: older age, low body weight, weight loss, physical inactivity, previous fractures not caused by substantial trauma, low-calcium diets, and ongoing use of certain drugs, such as corticosteroids like prednisone or drugs that are sometimes used to treat prostate cancer.

The new guideline says doctors should periodically assess older men for osteoporosis risk factors and should order a DEXA (dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry) scan for men who are at increased risk for osteoporosis and are candidates for drug therapy.

The guideline, based on a review of previously published studies, was published in the May 6 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Current U.S. rates of osteoporosis are estimated to be 7 percent in white men, 5 percent in black men, and 3 percent in Hispanic men. However, osteoporosis rates among U.S. men are expected to increase almost 50 percent in the next 15 years, and hip fracture rates could double by 2040, according to background information in a news release about the new guideline.

The National Osteoporosis Foundation recommends a bone mineral density test for men aged 70 and older. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force doesn't have an osteoporosis screening recommendation for men.

More information

The U.S. National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases has more about osteoporosis in men.

Sports such as soccer -- with the combination of weight-bearing exercise and repetitive, "impact-loading" from jumping and running -- have been shown to build bone mineral density in adolescent girls better than some other activities.

Building bone density during the teen years is considered crucial for healthy bone development, helping to ward off osteoporosis, the disease that causes bones to become brittle and break later on in life. Peak bone mass is typically achieved by age 30, according to the National Osteoporosis Foundation.

"It's those years of adolescence, and early teens to late 20s, that are most important" for bone building," said James W. Bellew, an associate professor of physical therapy at Louisiana State University Health Science Center-Shreveport.

Bellew and his colleagues compared the effects of soccer, weight-lifting and swimming on the bone mineral density of teen and pre-teen girls, ages 10 to 17. The groups included 29 swimmers, 16 soccer players and 19 weightlifters.

Soccer players had the best bone density, followed by the weight-lifters and then the swimmers. Bellew's team compared the groups' average bone mineral density to what is considered the norm for a 25-year-old woman.

Soccer players' bone density was significantly greater than the norm, and the weight-lifting group was equal to the norm. The swimmers were lower than the norm. Still, that's not cause for alarm, he said, because the girls were still in their teens and have time to accrue bone density.

Soccer and other "impact" sports expose the body to repeated impact, and that activity is thought helpful to bone health. "Basketball and volleyball may very well do the same" as soccer in building bone, he said. Jogging and tennis may also be good, he added.

The study results, published in the journal Pediatric Physical Therapy, don't surprise Susan Randall, senior director of education at the National Osteoporosis Foundation. "Swimming is not a weight-bearing exercise," she said. "Soccer increases the loading on the bone which actually stimulates bone production."

Bellew isn't discouraging those who love swimming to give up the sport. "The odds are the swimmers' density [in the study] will be fine, because they are active, but our data suggest they aren't accruing as much bone as those who do weight-bearing exercise."

"If your primary objective is to increase bone mass, swimming is not the best," he said. "But in terms of weight maintenance, it's good."

Besides exercise, Bellew suggests teens can boost their bone health by reducing their soda intake and increasing their milk consumption. "Genetics is probably the largest factor," he added, so those with a family history of osteoporosis may want to pay even more attention to bone-building exercise.

Randall agreed that families should pay even closer attention to their children if a parent or grandparent suffers from low bone density. And parents can emphasize a healthy diet for their sons as well as daughters. While men are less likely than women to suffer osteoporosis, they still need to build bone, she said.

One of the first foods teen girls often abandon are dairy products, Randall said, because they perceive them as fattening. Parents should be sure their children get the recommended 1,300 milligrams of calcium a day. That's roughly the amount of calcium in four glasses of milk. And the milk can be low-fat, she said.

More information

To learn more about bone health, visit the National Osteoporosis Foundation.

"Most commercial lubricants are toxic to sperm, and couples who want fertility should think about carefully choosing the lubricant they want," said study author Dr. William H. Kutteh, a reproductive endocrinologist at the University of Tennessee, in Memphis.

For the study, Kutteh and his team tested four commercially available lubricants against a new "fertility-friendly" lubricant developed by the researchers.

Their lubricant, called ConceivEase, didn't adversely affect sperm motility, Kutteh said, although the other four lubricants did. The new lubricant, with a patent pending, is made by Reproductive Laboratory Inc. in Memphis. Kutteh is an owner of the company and the product is distributed by Sepal Reproductive Devices in Boston, he said.

Kutteh was to present the findings Monday at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists annual meeting, in New Orleans.

The test results could be good news for couples having difficulty conceiving, he said. "People are afraid of going to a fertility doctor because they think they will have to spend $10,000 on IVF [in vitro fertilization]," he said. "Sometimes all you need is a $14.99 oil change."

If sperm aren't moving properly, fertility is affected, Kutteh said. "The sperm have to move through the vagina, through the cervical mucus and out to the fallopian tube. Anything that decreases the motility of the sperm will make the pregnancy rate decline. Sperm can live for 48 to 72 hours."

For the study, five men who had initial sperm counts above 65 percent motility donated sperm. Kutteh's team then exposed the sperm to four commercially available lubricants -- K-Y Jelly, Replens, Touch and Astroglide, along with ConceivEase.

The effects on sperm motility were evaluated at 1 minute, 15 minutes, 30 minutes and one hour. While the ConceivEase maintained sperm motility at 65 percent, the others did not. At one hour, the motility of the sperm exposed to Touch was down to 10 percent, while sperm exposed to the other three lubricants was down to zero, the study found.

Kutteh said he first began noticing the effect of lubricants on sperm more than a decade ago. While at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, he published a report in the International Journal of Fertility showing that commercial lubricants were harmful to sperm motility, he said.

Kutteh said he's been giving the lubricant to his own patients for years. Lubricant use during intercourse is common among couples undergoing fertility treatment, he said, partly because ovulation-inducing agents can cause vaginal dryness.

The new lubricant includes light mineral oil, Vitamin E, and glycerol buffered with a certified growth medium. It protects the sperm from pH changes and other factors that can decrease fertility, according to literature from the company.

Dr. Jennifer Wu, an obstetrician-gynecologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, called the new study interesting, adding that it "holds promise because it doesn't alter sperm motility at one hour."

But, she added, she'd like to see results beyond the one hour, up to 72 hours.

Wu said she typically advises couples trying to conceive not to use commercial lubricants at all, and she thinks that's common advice from doctors. "We don't want to do anything that narrows the window of opportunity for sperm to meet the egg."

And, while the commercially available lubricants were found to kill off sperm, Kutteh added a caveat for those couples not trying to conceive: Don't trust them as contraceptives.

More information

To learn more about infertility, visit the American Society for Reproductive Medicine.