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The onset of menopause signals more than just an end to a woman’s menstrual cycle.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists lists these changes that commonly affect women during menopause:
Irregular periods, heavy bleeding or periods that stop.
Hot flashes.
Night sweats and difficulty sleeping.
Vaginal dryness and reduced bladder control.
Thinning, weakening bones.
Moodiness, diminished memory and reduced concentration.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is warning consumers not to buy or use Hardcore Energize Bullet or New Whey liquid products sold in test tube-like vials due to suspected product tampering. The products are being recalled.

The suspected tampering involved a utility knife blade found in one vial of Hardcore Energize Bullet drink, manufactured in the United States and sold in Canada, and another blade in one vial of New Whey liquid products, manufactured and sold in the United States. No one is known to have been hurt.

Hardcore Energize Bullet and New Whey liquid products are manufactured by Protica Inc., of Whitehall, Pa. Protica is investigating this incident.

Hardcore Energize Bullet liquid products were distributed in Canada and are being recalled by iSatori Technologies of Golden, Colo. The liquid is packaged in 2.9 ounce clear, test-tube like vials and in two flavors, Blue Rage and Black Rush.

The affected lots for the Blue Rage liquid product are: 1961, 1962, and 1794. The affected lot for the Black Rush liquid product is 1963.

New Whey liquid products were distributed and are being recalled by IDS of Oviedo, Fla. and were sold at various retail stores. The liquid is packaged in 2.9 ounce clear, test-tube like vials and two flavors, New Whey Fruit Punch 25g and New Whey Blue Raspberry 42g.

The affected lot for the New Whey Fruit Punch liquid product is 1960. The affected lot for the New Whey Blue Raspberry liquid product is 1944.

The FDA advises consumers who may have purchased these products not to consume them.

Health care professionals and consumers are encouraged to report serious adverse effects or product quality problems with the use of Hardcore Energize Bullet and New Whey liquid products to the FDA’s MedWatch Adverse Event Reporting program online, by regular mail, fax or phone.

A lucky few can get by just fine on six hours of sleep, and a new study suggests a genetic mutation might help explain why.

The finding doesn’t appear likely to help people with insomnia. Still, it “opens a door” to greater understanding of why people sleep as long as they do, said study co-author Ying-Hui Fu, a professor of neurology at the University of California at San Francisco.

Armed with this research, scientists may be able to eventually develop safe ways to tinker with people’s bodies so that they can sleep less, she said. “At the same time, we’ll feel fine.”

According to Fu, about 5 percent of people get by on six hours or less of sleep a night without any ill effects. “They’re perfectly fine, and they don’t have a problem,” she said. “For them, six hours is like eight hours for me.”

For most people, however, eight or 8.5 hours of sleep are best, she said.

“We spend one-third of our life in a state of sleep, and we know that sleep is required. If you deprive any mortal organism of sleep, it will die,” Fu said. “But we don’t know what is regulating how much we need. That’s the bottom line about why this study is exciting.”

Fu and her colleagues examined the DNA of a mother and daughter who each get by on about six hours of sleep and compared it to that of other family members. They report their findings in the Aug. 13 online issue of Science.

The researchers found that the women shared a genetic mutation but other members of their family did not. Further research found that mice with the mutation slept less and recovered more quickly after being deprived of sleep.

It’s not clear, however, how the mutation actually affects sleep patterns.

Future research could provide more insight into how the mutation works, and Fu said her dream is to find a way to create a drug that would allow people to sleep less.

This could have benefits beyond more wakefulness. Studies have shown that people who sleep an average amount of 30 to 60 minutes below average live the longest, said Dr. Daniel F. Kripke, emeritus professor of psychiatry at the University of California at San Diego.

But genetics are only part of the picture, he said.

“Sleep amounts seem to be determined as much as 50 percent by genetics, and the rest by habits, social and work situations, recreation — exercise, the Internet and late-night TV — and environmental factors such as noise and light,” he said.

As for the new study, Kripke cautioned that even if the genetic mutation does affect sleep, it’s not clear if that helps people who have it. “We do not know if the amount that the people with the variation are sleeping is good or bad for them,” he said. “We do not know if the gene effect should be called ’sleep deprivation’ or ‘enhanced energy.’”

Surprising new research shows that female supervisors are more likely to be the targets of sexual harassment than women in lower-level positions.

Men who described themselves as having more feminine qualities or who were assumed by their co-workers to be gay were also among those most likely to be harassed, according to the study, which was scheduled to be presented this week at the American Sociological Association annual meeting, in San Francisco.

The findings call into question stereotypes about which women are most at risk of harassment, said study author Heather McLaughlin, a sociologist at the University of Minnesota.

When sexual harassment was first exposed as a workplace issue in the 1970s, the assumption was that women in lower positions, who were more economically vulnerable and had fewer options for walking away, were most at risk of being harassed.

“You assume people with less power are less likely to tell on people with more power, because they are more dependent on keeping the job,” McLaughlin said. “But we found women who had more workplace power, who did supervise others, were more likely to be sexually harassed.”

The study, sponsored by the National Institute of Mental Health and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, is one of the largest and most detailed looks at who faces sexual harassment in the workplace.

Researchers used data on nearly 600 men and women aged 29 and 30 who took part in the 2003 and 2004 Youth Development Study, a prospective study of adolescents that began in 1988 when participants were in the ninth grade in St. Paul, Minn., public schools. The data also included in-depth interviews with 33 participants.

About 36 percent of men and women had experienced some form of sexual harassment in 2004, including offensive material, discussions of sex, staring or leering, invasion of personal space, questions about one’s private life or unwanted touching.

About 46 percent of female supervisors and 33 percent of women who didn’t supervise others had experienced sexual harassment. According to one statistical model, women who supervised others were 137 percent more likely to be harassed, the researchers said.

Non-immigrants were also 2.8 times more likely to be sexually harassed than those born outside the United States, the study authors noted.

Participants worked in a variety of professions, including professional, technical and service industries.

“We found this paradox,” McLaughlin said. “You would expect supervisory status to protect women from harassment, like inappropriate touching or a sexual gaze from others, but in our study women supervisors were more likely to be harassed.”

Supervisors and effeminate men were also at greater risk of experiencing more severe or multiple forms of sexual harassment. Men and women who reported being labeled as non-heterosexual by others or who self-identified as being gay, lesbian, bisexual or unsure were nearly twice as likely to experience harassment.

Men were most often the perpetrators, both against women and against other males. While holding a managerial position increased the likelihood of harassment for women, it did not increase a man’s risk.

“Men are using harassment as a workplace equalizer, to strip women in these positions of their power, prestige in the workplace,” McLaughlin said. “Harassment isn’t about sexual desire or wanting to establish a romantic relationship, but more about control and domination.”

Sexual harassment can have severe health effects, including anxiety and depression.

Vincent Roscigno, a professor of sociology at Ohio State University, called the study “cutting-edge.”

“They couple rigorous statistical analyses with in-depth interview material,” Roscigno said. “This gives us the sense of what concretely is happening in these workplaces.”

As in this study, previous research has shown that women in traditionally male-dominated fields are more likely be to harassed.

“It seems that these men are using sexual harassment as a way to put her in her place, make her feel uncomfortable, undermine her authority and sexualize her,” Roscigno said. “Sex harassment seems to be a way that males in these environments level the power differential.”

So what can be done about it?

McLaughlin recommends increasing and improving anti-sexual harassment education programs, which are sometimes not taken seriously by workers.

“A lot of times, they’re perceived as kind of a joke and companies are doing this just to cover themselves from liability,” she said. “It’s important for companies to send the message that this is important.”