We’re currently working on developing a fibroids booklet to address some of the issues that came out of our fibroids survey last year. From the survey we found that:

• There was a general low level of awareness of fibroids amongst participants prior to their diagnosis.
• There was a good level of awareness of the main symptoms of fibroids but a low level of awareness of other symptoms.
• Participants were aware that ethnicity was a risk factor for fibroids but less aware of other risk factors.
• 80% percent of participants stated that they needed information but only 53% said that this was available to them.
• 63% of women said they didn’t feel that they had enough information to make an informed decision about their treatment

In addition to the above some participants stated that their biggest challenge in managing their condition was the lack of information and conflicting information about fibroids. For example, one participant said, “there is not enough information, particularly with regards to surgery alternatives and diet changes.”

What our booklet will cover

Our booklet will provide much-needed information on all aspects of fibroids. It will cover the symptoms of fibroids allowing women to quickly pick up on the possibility that they might have fibroids ensuring an early diagnosis which may mean less invasive treatment, the prevention of unnecessary pain and avoiding loss of fertility. It will also raise awareness of the risk factors and provide information on what changes women can make to their lifestyle to reduce their risk of developing fibroids and it will help women identify whether they are at a high risk of developing fibroids and therefore whether they should be more vigilant about recognizing symptoms and changing their lifestyle to reduce their risk. Finally, it will also cover treatment options so women are aware of what options are available to them.

We appreciate all those who have helped so far

We’re delighted to have had some excellent reviewers work with us. We would like to say a big thank you to Dr Nigel Hacking, Consultant Interventional Radiologist at Southampton University Hospital and Miss Rosol Hamid, Consultant Obstetrician & Gynaecologist and Head of Women Services at Croydon University Hospital for providing very useful and helpful comments and suggestions.  Additionally we’d also like to thank The Brielle Agency for proofreading our work .

We need your help for the final review

Now we are looking for members of the public to read the final draft before it goes off to our wonderful designers, Adinqra, and provide us with feedback on what needs to be improved. If you’d like to help please contact us on info@thelakefoundation.com

An interesting two-week diet swap experiment has been carried out by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh showing the damage a Western diet can cause to our gut. This study recruited  20 volunteers from the USA and 20 from rural Africa and each group was asked to switch diets for two weeks. The African group were asked to eat more junk food (burgers and fries) whilst the American volunteers were asked to eat a low-fat, high-fibre diet. Even though the study was quite a short one the impact of the diet swap was quite significant with the American group showing less bowel inflammation while the African volunteer’s bowel health declined.

This was an interesting study demonstrating the power of our diet in affecting our health, and in this case our gut health and our  risk of developing bowel (colon) cancer with Dr Stephen O’Keefe, from the University of Pittsburgh, saying:

“In just two weeks, a change in diet from a Westernised composition to a traditional African high-fibre, low-fat diet reduced these biomarkers of cancer risk, indicating that it is likely never too late to modify the risk of colon cancer.”

We are absolutely delighted to welcome Dr Nigel Hacking to our fibroids Ask the Expert Panel. Dr Hacking is a Consultant Interventional Radiologist at Southampton University Hospital in the UK and specialises in Uterine Fibroid Embolisation (UFE). He was one of the pioneers of UFE and has one of the largest experiences in the world. He set up and runs both UK Fibroid Experts and Fibroid Caribbean and performs UFE in the UK at Southampton and London as well as in Trinidad and Nairobi.  He also helps train Interventional Radiologists from the UK and overseas to set up their own services. He has published in peer reviewed journals and has recently edited a textbook entitled ‘Radiological Interventions in Obstetrics and Gynaecology’.  For over 10 years he has spoken at most of the most prestigious Interventional Radiology conferences around the world each year on Fibroid Embolisation and other topics.

We are delighted to have him on board and if you have any questions about fibroids please do submit them to our panel here

Researchers from the University of Sheffield have published data from the Yorkshire Health Study which has found that obese people fall into one of six categories and to address obesity strategies should be tailored according to which group a person falls into.

The six obesity groups were identified as: young males who were heavy drinkers, middle aged individuals who were unhappy and anxious, older people who despite living with physical health conditions were happy, younger healthy females, older affluent healthy adults, and individuals with very poor health.

The lead researcher for this study, Dr Mark Green said:

“Our research showed that those in the groups that we identified are likely to need very different services, and will respond very differently to different health promotion policies.

“In the future, we hope that GPs will keep in mind these six groups when offering advice to their patients.”
Researchers explained that what would need to be done to address obesity in the different groups would be to encourage alcohol reduction in young males, while for middle aged individuals who are unhappy and anxious an intervention involving increasing exercise mixed with psycho-social counselling could be beneficial. Young healthy females may not need any intervention, researchers said, as their health problems would be corrected naturally on their own. For those in the poorest health group the study showed advice surrounding exercise may not be reasonable and much more modest goals may be needed. For the affluent healthy elderly weight loss could be a priority.

This study is useful as it helps us understand specific, effective steps that can be taken to tackle obesity.

As a small charity with limited resources communications and PR can be a challenge, but it is important.  We completely understand the power of an effective communication and PR strategy in helping us reach our community with key health messages particularly around cancer and fibroids, our two main focus areas at the moment. With this in mind when we heard about Find a Cure’s workshop on ‘Communications and PR for Small Patient Groups’ we jumped at the opportunity to attend.

This workshop was held today and didn’t disappoint. It was an excellent workshop with very useful presentations from experts in the field of communication. In the first presentation, delivered by Sorsha Roberts, Online Communications Officer at the AKU Society, we learnt of the importance of social media for patient groups. Sorsha highlighted the statistics around the use of social media stating that a significant number of people were using social media to find health information and that 90% of people who found health information on social media trusted it and would use it. Furthermore Facebook is the fourth trusted source of health information and this is because information is delivered in a way that is less clinical, it’s clear, easy to understand and it’s delivered in a friendly and informal environment.

We then moved on to our next speaker Stefania Rucci from  Say Communications who spoke about ‘Working with the media’. This was a very informative presentation where Stefania started with an overview of some of the challenges small charities face in getting noticed in the media. These challenges included: competition with other health messages, the media having its own agenda which may not align with a charity’s agenda and small charities have fewer resources making it hard to break through in the media.  Despite these challenges it is possible to mount a successful media campaign but it needs some planning and the adoption of some key principles. These include: developing a compelling a story; getting to know your media and aligning your agenda with theirs;  targeting media to ensure high impact and high relevance; positioning your organisation as the expert; and always being ready . Additionally Stefania said it was important to produce great content, understand your audience, understand the different types of media (specialist,  national papers, local papers, magazines, TV, radio, bloggers and social media) and tailor your content to fit different types of media, i.e. be able to tell your story in a different way so it appeals to different audiences.

We were recently asked about breast implants and mammograms and in today’s blog we thought we’d address this.

A mammogram is an X-ray that is used during the breast screening process to detect breast cancer at a very early stage and hence aims to give women with breast cancer the best chance of survival.  During a mammogram X-rays are passed through the breast in order to generate images (radiographs) of each breast. If a tumour, cyst or calcium deposits are present this will be detected as bright spots on the radiographs.

Image credit: Prague Beauty

When a woman has a breast implant (breast augmentation/ enlargement), the implant is inserted between her breast tissue and chest muscle or behind her chest muscle.  The implant may make a mammogram less effective at detecting breast cancer as it prevents the X-rays from penetrating the tissue properly and hence distorts the image. This can be overcome by a slight modification in the way in which the mammogram is performed which will allow as much of the breast tissue as possible to be visualised by the x-ray.