Both the NY Times and WebMD have articles this week about how keeping your ovaries (when having a hysterectomy) may boost your health and enable you to live longer!

The New York Times article “Women Who Keep Ovaries Live Longer” points out that a woman’s ovaries are removed, along with their uterus, in order to protect them from ovarian cancer. However, a new study indicates that keeping your ovaries in fact allows you to live longer. By having your ovaries removed, women are almost entirely eliminating their risk of ovarian cancer, but they are more likely to develop heart disease than women who keep their ovaries. The study shows that unless you have a family history that places you at a high risk for ovarian cancer, you are more likely to die if you have your ovaries taken out. Please go to their article to read more as to what their study found and why it is that they are more worried about heart disease than ovarian cancer (Hint: Ovarian cancer is much rarer than heart disease).

The WebMD article “Spare Ovaries, Boost Health?” points out many of the things that the New York Times article does but also includes many statistics about ovarian cancer vs. heart disease. For example, “Among women in the U.S., ovarian cancer kills 14,700 women a year, but heart disease kills nearly 327,000 women.” For more statistics and information from WebMD please link to their article to see what else they had to say!