Turns out there may be some truth behind the old adage that kids these days are growing up way too fast. Increasing numbers of girls are hitting puberty early.

Puberty normally starts between ages 9 and 16; girls may not notice any physical changes until 11 to 16 years of age. Today, however, some girls are starting to see changes as early as age 6 or 7.

A research team backed by the Breast Cancer and the Environment Research Centers (BCERC) originally set out to more clearly categorize girls into pubertal maturity stages. What they found was that among roughly 1,200 girls aged 6-8, many showed early breast and pubic hair development.

Ten percent of white girls at age 7 had “breast development to some extreme”, as did 23 percent of black and 15 percent of Hispanic girls. These numbers jumped to 18, 43 and 31 percent for 8-year-old participants. Authors agreed that these rates were much higher than 10 and 30 years ago.

Possible explanations include increased exposure to hormones, such as estrogen. Another hypothesis is that environmental pollutants such as BPAs and parabens may be pushing young girls into puberty. Genetic mutations, endocrine disorders and other health concerns are also on the list, but researcher Dr. Abby Hollander of Washington University’s School of Medicine says we can expect to wait for any real answers.

“If puberty happens earlier because girls are heavier, and gaining that weight is sending hormonal signals to start puberty earlier, is that really normal, or a sign of obesity, which is abnormal?” Hollander asked in an interview with ABC News. “It’s going to take a lot of follow-up to say whether this is really puberty."

Hollander and colleagues plan to further investigate ways the environment may affect the onset of puberty. Until then, read more from ABC News or see the study’s abstract in Pediatrics.

Ladies, stand up for yourselves in the doctor's office. Millions of people are misdiagnosed each year, and many of these cases are women. Women who are less likely to speak up may put themselves at risk in an already overwhelmed clinic.

If there’s a bug going around the office and you wake up with some of the same symptoms, you’ll likely assume you’ve got it, too. Most doctors think the same way. If he or she sees three people with colds in one day, it would be an easy guess that the next person with a stuffy nose and fever has the same thing.

The problem is that a lot of conditions share symptoms, and it can be misleading if not all the symptoms show up. This makes it easy to make a misdiagnosis—as many as one in five diagnoses are incorrect or go undiagnosed.

For women, the most commonly misdiagnosed conditions include ovarian cancer, autoimmune disease and hormonal imbalances. Heart disease, for example, is more common in men. When women experience the same symptoms, especially young women, a doctor may consider stress to be the cause instead.

The best way to avoid a misdiagnosis is to share all of your symptoms. Seeing the same doctor doesn’t hurt, either. When you and your doctor know your history and get the full story, it’s harder to miss the little details that make a big difference. Finally, don’t be afraid to do some research before your appointment and don’t be afraid to ask questions.

If you don’t stand up for your health, no one will. Get the full scoop from MSNBC.

Melinda Gates, wife of Microsoft chairman Bill Gates and co-chair of the Gates Foundation, has generously pledged $1.5 billion to help stop maternal death, or death after childbirth. Although rates are decreasing, Gates says it's time for the world to come together to save women's and children's lives.

“It’s not that the world doesn’t know how to save the 350,000 mothers and 3 million newborns that die every year,” she told The Seattle Times. “It is that we haven’t tried hard enough.”

These numbers have dropped by about 30 percent since 1980, but according to this year’s Countdown to 2015 report by the World Health Organization nearly 2 million deaths occur each year as a result of childbirth and labor complications alone. For many countries, maternal and infant mortality rates remain unchanged.

Hemorrhage and hypertension top the list of causes for maternal death, followed shortly by HIV/AIDS, malaria, and heart disease. Infection after childbirth also presents a threat to mothers, while pneumonia, malaria and diarrhea pose the greatest threats to newborns.

Women Deliver, the advocacy group that received the donation, has set goals to help increase maternal survival. Methods include greater access to family planning tools, prenatal care and access to better healthcare. They also hope to change attitudes about maternal death.

"In many countries the belief that death is inevitable, and therefore acceptable, hasn't yet changed," Gates told MSNBC. "We don't have to tolerate fatalism.”

Read more from MSNBC and The Seattle Times, or learn how you can help by visiting Women Deliver online.

There may be a new prevention method within reach for women at risk for developing breast cancer. The answer lies in a vaccine designed to stop the formation of tumors. The vaccine, developed by doctors from the Cleveland Clinic, has been successful in some animals.

Breast cancer forms in the mammary glands and/or ducts. Tissues in these areas grow and multiply at unregulated rates, forming tumors. The body recognizes these tumors as healthy tissues and will not destroy them as it would a virus. According to the Susan G. Komen Foundation, it could take as long as 10 years before a tumor is large enough to detect.

Most current efforts to treat breast cancer focus on how to destroy or stop the growth of already-present cancer cells using tumor antigens. The problem is that these methods essentially kill the tissues. It can also compromise the autoimmune systems of already vulnerable cancer patients. The Cleveland Clinic's vaccine takes a new approach: It’s designed to stop tumors before they’ve had a chance to develop.

Lead researcher Dr. Vincent Tuohy observed mice predisposed to breast cancer for 10 months. The vaccine targeted alpha lactalbumin, a specific protein found in most breast cancer cells. Half of the mice were given the vaccine, while the other half acted as a control group. At the end of the trial, none of the vaccinated mice had developed breast cancer. All of unvaccinated mice had.

"We believe that this vaccine will someday be used to prevent breast cancer in adult women in the same way that vaccines prevent polio and measles in children," Tuohy said in a Cleveland Clinic press release. "If it works in humans the way it works in mice, this will be monumental. We could eliminate breast cancer."

Although there is still much more to investigate before the vaccine is ready for human trials, the research team hopes to be able to administer the vaccine to women older than 40 and women at high risk in the next 10 years.

Visit the Cleveland Clinic’s website to read the press release, or visit Nature Medicine to read the study’s abstract.

Researchers from Stanford University may have discovered a way to boost fertility by stimulating dormant ovarian follicles. This could benefit women whose reproductive systems have been affected by ovarian cancer or ovarian failure.

The technique involves stimulating dormant ovarian follicles, also known as Graafian follicles. These follicles are small spherical cavities that fill with fluid to develop eggs. Once the egg is developed, the woman ovulates and prepares for fertilization.

If these follicles are damaged, however, a woman may not produce eggs and may experience infertility. Only a small portion of ovarian follicles are used each month, and some remain dormant over the course of a woman’s life. Researchers hoped that by stimulating these follicles, they could boost fertility.

Researchers first tested the technique on mice and were successfully able to produce mature eggs and then pups. They were also able to produce eggs in humans, but did not investigate the technique’s effects on conception.

Experiments are still in the early stages, but these results do provide hope for couples struggling with fertility. Lead author of the study, postdoctoral fellow Jing Li of Stanford University Medical School, says it will be a while before they know whether this method will be as successful in humans as it is in mice.

“We hope that aging women, women who have frozen ovarian tissues prior to undergoing cancer treatments, or women with premature ovarian failure could benefit from our research," Li told Health Day.

Read the original article in Health Day, or visit The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences to view the study’s abstract.

Women have long been claiming chocolate as a comfort food, but research shows that chocolate is something that both men and women reach for. According to a new study, people of both genders with mild or major depression eat more chocolate. Researchers believe depression could trigger this craving.

Researchers from the University of California monitored the diets of 931 men and women, focusing on chocolate consumption. None of the participants were taking antidepressants, and they had their moods assessed routinely.

Those with depression consumed 8.4 servings of chocolate (1 ounce is one serving) per month, while those with major depression ate an average of 11.4 servings per month. Their counterparts who showed no signs of depression ate an average of 5.4 servings per month.

Chocolate sends signals to the brain to release serotonin and endorphins, two “feel happy” opioids. Endorphins are responsible for that satisfied buzz you get after exercise, while serotonin is believed to produce feelings of love and happiness.

This study is the first to examine the chocolate-mood link for both men and women, and, based off their findings, Doctors Natalie Rose (U.C., Davis) and Beatrice Golomb (U.C., San Diego) believe there may be a direct link between depression and chocolate cravings.

"The findings did not appear to be explained by a general increase in caffeine, fat, carbohydrate or energy intake, suggesting that our findings are specific to chocolate," Golomb said in a press release. “Our study confirms long-held suspicions that eating chocolate is something that people (including men) do when they are feeling down."

One speculation is that when a person is down in the dumps, he or she will reach for this “comfort food” to boost his/her mood. Another possibility, however, is that eating chocolate (which is often high in fat and sugar) causes a person’s moods to spike for a short period of time only to crash later.

"Because it was a cross sectional study, meaning a slice in time,” Golomb explained, “it did not tell us whether the chocolate decreased or intensified the depression."

The research team plans to conduct further research investigating the effects of chocolate on mood to gain more insight into this relationship. “Whether there is a causal connection, and if so in which direction, is a matter for future prospective study,” they concluded in their report.

­Read the study’s abstract at the Archives of Internal Medicine, or check out the University of California’s press release for more information.

Two contraceptives—Yaz and Yasmin—will be adding information to their labels informing users about the risk of blood clots.

In two long-term studies of 120,000 U.S. and U.K. women, researchers found that Yaz and Yasmin, two of Bayer’s top-sellers, can cause blood clots in some women. These two contraceptives were released in 2000, so little was known about their long-term effects. This risk is comparative to that of other oral contraceptives, but Bayer Health Care, the company that produces the drugs, plans to provide more thorough information to its consumers.

Higher levels of certain hormones in the blood stream from use of birth control pills can cause blood clots. Drospirenone and ethinyl estradiol, the active ingredients in Yaz and Yasmin, don’t necessarily guarantee clotting problems, but they can promote clotting.

When clots do occur, they bring serious medical risks. One such risk, known as deep venous thrombosis (DVT), occurs when blood clots form in larger veins, usually those in the legs. If this clot breaks off into the blood stream (called an embolism), it can become lodged in vital organs and cause serious damage, stroke, or even death.

The risk of clotting is increased when birth control users smoke, have a history of clots, are overweight, have high blood pressure and/or cholesterol, or are over age 35.

Some contraceptives have, however, been shown to regulate periods, prevent ectopic pregnancy and pelvic inflammatory disease (PID), and has a lower incidence of ovarian cancer and cysts. Yaz in particular can be used to treat  premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD). Talking with your doctor can help you find the solution that best fits your needs.

We are convinced of the fact that Yasmin is a good choice for women who wish to have a simple and reliable method of prevention, if the product is used in accordance with (the health guidelines),” Dr. Kemal Malik said in a press release. Malik is the chief medical officer of Bavarian Schering Pharmaceuticals, and worked on the studies.

The risk of blood clots from contraceptives is relatively low—according to Epigee, only about 3 of every 10,000 women using the pill experience clotting. Choosing the right contraceptive can further reduce those risks.

Visit the Yaz/Yasmin site to get the full scoop on these products.

Ten years ago, soy products were recommended to postmenopausal women to reduce LDL (bad) cholesterol levels. New research indicates that soy may not help as much as previously thought, and a re-evaluation by the FDA may challenge soy producers’ claims about their products as heart healthy.

Many women experience sharp increases in LDL levels during menopause when their bodies no longer produce estrogen. More women also see a hardening of the arteries (atherosclerosis) and an increased risk of heart disease.

Soy products contain isoflavens, natural compounds that mimic estrogen.  These are supposed to increase estrogen levels, and thus improve cholesterol. Keeping cholesterol in check can help coronary artery disease, the leading cause of death in American women.

For the study, 62 women under age 65 with moderate-high cholesterol were asked to increase either soy or casein (milk protein), intake for one year. While HDL (good) cholesterol levels increased slightly for women consuming soy, they experienced little or no change in LDL levels.

“The aim of this study was to examine the effects of soy protein consumption on heart disease risk in postmenopausal women,” authors of the study wrote. “These findings, as well as those from other studies, lend credence to the decision of the Food and Drug Administration to reevaluate the soy protein health claim issued a decade ago.”

Learn more about heart health, or read the study's abstract in Menopause.

Consuming lots of protein was previously thought to take a toll on bone health, but new information from Seattle’s Group Health Research Institute has medical professionals re-thinking the diet advice they give women. As it turns out, eating lots of protein may not be so bad.

The research team, led by Jeannette Beasley, monitored the protein intake of 560 pre-menopausal women. Protein could be animal or vegetable-based.

According to the Mayo Clinic, the average percentage of protein from calories that should be consumed daily is 10-35 percent. The women, aged 14 to 40, consumed between 6 and 28 percent, placing them in the “high protein” category.

“The range of protein intakes for optimizing bone health among pre-menopausal women is unclear,” authors noted in the study. “Protein is a major constituent of bone, but acidic amino acids may promote bone resorption.”

Participants were checked annually for changes in bone mineral density (BMD). According to the report, the average BMD was similar for all participants regardless of protein consumption. Women with low vegetable protein intake, however, tended to have a slightly lower BMD.

“For every percentage increase of energy from protein, no significant longitudinal changes in BMD were observed at any anatomic site over the follow-up period,” study authors concluded. “Data from this study suggest that a higher protein intake does not have an adverse effect on bone in pre-menopausal women.”

Beasley says that protein provides a small benefit to bone health, but that these benefits may not reduce fractions in the long run. “Findings in young women could be different from those in older women because bone mass is still building up before age 30,” Beasley told Reuters.

The important thing is to keep an eye on bone health, get checked regularly, and to keep your meals balanced. Beef, chicken, fish, pork, and tofu? Yes, yes and yes! As long as it’s complemented by plenty of vegetable protein.

Use of certain contraceptives may cause significant bone loss in women, according to a study in Obstetrics & Gynecology. Some women who used the birth control shot and certain oral contraceptives with low hormone doses lost up to seven percent of bone mineral density (BMD).

The study followed 703 Caucasian, African American and Hispanic women using oral contraceptive pills (OCPs), the birth control shot Depo-Provera (depot medroxyprogesterone acetate, or DMPA) or nonhormonal contraceptives. They were divided into age groups—one between 16 and 24, and another between the ages of 25 and 33.

Although women who used nonhormonal contraceptives showed little if any loss, women who took OCPs and DMPA lost 0.4–6.8 percent of bone mineral density. BMD loss appeared to differ most by age.

“DMPA users 16–24 years old lost significantly more bone at the spine (4.2% compared with 3.2%) and femoral neck (6.0% compared with 4.2%) than those 25–33 years old,” authors of the study wrote. “However, OCP users 16–24 years old lost significantly less bone density at the spine (0.4% compared with 0.8%) than women 25–33 years of age.”

Many of the study’s participants chose to discontinue DMPA use. Some switched to nonhormonal contraceptives, and were actually able to regain some bone mineral density—up to 4.9 percent at the spine and 3.2 percent at the neck for nonhormonal contraceptive users. Those who switched to OCPs also regained BMD, but their rates were much lower.

Authors wrote, “Use of very-low-dose OCPs after DMPA discontinuation may slow bone recovery.” Women who switched to OCPs were only able to regain up to 2.3 percent at the spine and 0.7 percent at the neck. According to the study, African American participants recovered bone mineral density in the neck better than Hispanic or white women regardless of which method they chose.

Authors wrote, “Recent prospective studies have demonstrated that once DMPA is discontinued, BMD increases more among prior DMPA users than nonusers, suggesting that DMPA-related bone loss is reversible.”

Although this is very encouraging, authors say more information is needed to fully understand bone mineral density recovery.