As seen on The Huffington Post:

You don’t have to be Jamie Lynn Spears or Bristol Palin to understand that today’s teen girls are conflicted about their responsibilities and overwhelmed with tough decisions. Between raging hormones and a not-so-healthy dose of media and peer pressure, there’s still school work, the Homecoming Dance, soccer practice, family commitments, drooling over the hottie in algebra class, planning for college and getting used to their brains on PMS. It’s a wonder any woman makes it into her 20s as a functional member of society.

I remember my own highs and lows quite vividly. The cute surfer guys hanging out at the lunch tables at Oceanside High School, who never seemed to notice us girls, and the daily battle with an embarrassing pimple, jealousy of prettier or smarter girls, a bad hair day or cramps, not to mention the heartbreak the year my boyfriend’s parents sent him away to New Zealand. Dealing with the daily intrusions of what seemed like an unbearably strict father and a well-meaning but perfectionistic mother didn’t help my self-esteem much either.

These personal memories coupled with what I see daily at the Women’s and Teen Girl’s Mood & Hormone Clinic at UC San Francisco, which I founded in 1994, have compelled me to help young women understand and manage their emotions. Since my book, “The Female Brain,” was published, I have received so many questions on my web site from teen girls who have read the chapter called “The Teen Girl Brain” and are confused about everything from their periods to their changing relationships with their mothers and fathers to the truth about sex. This week I’m proud to announce my new site, TeenBrainPower.com, a place for girls to learn about what’s really happening to their brains, emotions and bodies during this confusing time. (more…)

We hear from a woman wondering how to handle her daughter’s extreme PMS and a breast cancer survivor asking how her illness will affect her during menopause. We also respond to a woman who asked if women who have multiple orgasms are ever satisfied with sex the way that men are.

Click here or press the play button on the blue Blog Talk Radio box to the right >> on our home page.

A new study finds that the more carbs and sugars you eat, the more your brain’s appetite-control cells are damaged. BOTTOM LINE: keep your brain’s appetite-suppressing cells alive and healthy as you age by eating fewer sugars and carbs. It looks like those higher protein diets pay off for the brain after all. The study finds that the attack on appetite suppressing cells creates a cellular imbalance between our need to eat and the message to the brain to stop eating.

People in the age group of 25 to 50 are most at risk. The neurons that tell people in the crucial age range not to over-eat are being killed-off. 

Today we’ll hear from a dietician who is concerned about her personal weight gain and a 17-year-old experiencing intense PMS. Also we’ll discuss Dr. Brizendine’s comments in a recent issue of “O” magazine about a critical time in childhood development to address self-esteem in young girls.

To listen click the play button on the blue Blog Talk Radio box on the right >>.

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Being overweight may be your brain’s response to a defective dopamine signal, which mediates emotion and pleasure. Researchers at the Tufts University School of Medicine will publish a report on their findings in The Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology Journal this month, but you can read about it on PsychCentral here. A preview below:

“Previous research has demonstrated that food intake leads to an increase in the release of dopamine, in the circuits that mediate the pleasurable aspects of eating,” Emmanuel Pothos, PhD, assistant professor in the department of pharmacology and experimental therapeutics at TUSM explains … “Also, chronic food deprivation resulting in decreased body weight leads to decreased dopamine levels. Therefore, increased food intake may represent a compensatory attempt to restore baseline dopamine levels.”