The Rosenthal Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine

 

 

presents

 

 

 

 

 

 

Grazyna Jasienska, Ph.D.

 

Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University

Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland

 

 

 

The Fragile Wisdom of the Female Body:

An Evolutionary View of Trade-Offs

in Health and Disease

 

 

Monday March 26th, 2007

12:00 pm to 1:00 pm

 

Merritt Conference Room
P&S 3-418, 630 W. 168th Street [next to Student Affairs Office]
 

 

 

 

 

Dr. Grazyna Jasienska is Assistant Professor, Institute of Public Health, Jagiellonian University, Krakow,

Poland.  In 2005-2006, she was a Radcliffe Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University.

Her research interests are reproductive ecology, endocrinology, human evolutionary biology, and reproductive cancers.

She has been studying how endogenous steroids fluctuate within and across the individual women she is following in her

field study in rural southern Poland, the Mogielica Human Ecology Study Site. She also has been involved in studies of urban women in Poland, Norway and the United States. Her talk will focus on data showing the significant effect of a lifestyle of hard physical labor on lowering circulating estradiol, which has implications for breast cancer risk, in menopausal women. Her data and methods provide support for findings within both mainstream and integrative medicine for women’s health.

                                                               

 (See over for speaker brief biography and selected publications)

 

 

 

      

 

Dr. Grazyna Jasienska is a native of Poland.  She is an assistant professor at Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland, and conducts her research both as a fellow of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University, and the Department of Epidemiology and Population Studies, Institute of Public Health, Jagiellonian University Collegium Medicum.   She is a physical anthropologist by training, and has focused her efforts in recent years on study of health condition in women and men from rural Poland, through the unique field study she created, the Mogielica Human Ecology Study Site that includes five villages in southern Poland characterized by traditional, agricultural lifestyle, where she and her students investigate the effects of hard physical work on women´s reproductive physiology.  During her time at the Radcliffe Institute and into the future, Jasienska will attempt to combine evolutionary thinking with recent developments in the area of female physiology.  She will argue that while the knowledge about our evolutionary lifestyle provides a sensible point of departure, designing a perfectly healthy lifestyle may not be possible since women face unique challenges to their health.  She will attempt to show that an evolutionary approach to understanding trade-offs in human physiology may lead to better health for women.  Jasienska holds an MA and a PhD in biological anthropology from Harvard University and a MSc in biology from Jagiellonian University.  She was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University and had a research fellowship from the Research Council of Norway.  She has received research grants from the National Science Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the Polish Committee for Scientific Research.

 
Selected publications
 

- M. Kapiszewska, M. Miskiewicz, P.T. Ellison, I. Thune, G. Jasienska 2006 “High tea consumption diminishes salivary 17β-estradiol concentration in Polish women (in press British Journal of Nutrition)

- G. Jasienska, A. Ziomkiewicz, I. Thune, S.F. Lipson, P.T. Ellison 2006 “Habitual physical activity and estradiol levels in women of reproductive age”  (in press European Journal of Cancer Prevention)

- G. Jasienska, A. Ziomkiewicz, P.T. Ellison, I. Thune, S. F. Lipson 2006 “High ponderal index at birth predicts high estradiol levels in adult women” American Journal of Human Biology 18: 133-140

- G. Jasienska, A. Ziomkiewicz, M. Górkiewicz, A. Pajak 2005 ”Body mass, depressive symptoms and menopausal status: an examination of the "Jolly Fat" hypothesis” Women’s Health Issues 15: 145-151

- A.S. Furberg, G. Jasienska, N. Bjurstam, P.A. Torjesen, A. Emaus, S.F. Lipson, P.T. Ellison, I. Thune 2005 “Metabolic and hormonal profiles: HDL cholesterol as a plausible biomarker of breast cancer risk. The Norwegian EBBA study" Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention 14: 33-40

- G. Jasienska, P. T. Ellison 2004 “Energetic factors and seasonal changes in ovarian function in women from rural Poland” American Journal of Human Biology 16: 563-580

- G. Jasienska, I. Thune 2001 "Lifestyle, progesterone and breast cancer” British Medical Journal 323: 1002

- G. Jasienska, I. Thune 2001 "Lifestyle, hormones, and risk of breast cancer” British Medical Journal 322: 586-587

- G. Jasienska, I. Thune, P.T. Ellison 2000 "Energetic factors, ovarian steroids and the risk of breast cancer" European Journal of Cancer Prevention  9: 231-239

- G. Jasienska, P. T. Ellison 1998 "Physical work causes suppression of ovarian function in women" Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 265: 1847-1851

Popular science

- G. Jasienska 1999 "Dealing with menopause” Gazeta Wyborcza (Wysokie Obcasy) 14: 28-29 (in Polish)

- G. Jasienska 1999 "Conquer your hormones” Gazeta Wyborcza (Wysokie Obcasy) 7: 18-21 (in Polish)