You may not feel different at 45 than you did at 30--but that doesn't mean your body hasn't changed. In fact, although many women may not realize it, their disease risks and health concerns shift considerably every 10 years or so. "When women of all ages think about their health, they tend to focus on breast cancer, and increasingly, heart disease," says Gigi El-Bayoumi, M.D., associate professor of medicine at the George Washington University Medical Center. "While those are valid and important concerns, you don't want to overlook the bigger picture or forgo crucial screenings that can detect problems early, when they're easiest to treat."
Here is a decade-by-decade guide to staying as healthy as possible.
In Depth: The World's Diet Secrets
In Depth: America's Most Medicated States
In Depth: The 10 Top Online Dating Sites
In Pictures: Sustainable Farming
Your 20s The biggest health concern for women in their 20s is sexually transmitted diseases, says El-Bayoumi. In fact, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control, more than half of the approximately 19 million new cases of STDs that occur each year are in 19- to 24-year-olds. "Younger women tend to have more sexual partners, increasing their odds of transmission," explains El-Bayoumi.
"Women in their 20s are also at a heightened risk for eating disorders," she points out. "Not just anorexia and bulimia, but binge eating and disordered eating such as orthorexia," an unhealthy obsession with "healthy" food.
Screenings you need: An annual Pap smear to check for the human papillomavirus (HPV), the most common sexually transmitted disease; ask your doctor to check for chlamydia and gonorrhea at the same time. If you think you may have an eating disorder, talk to your doctor and visit the National Eating Disorders Association to find out more about treatment and finding a specialist who can help you.
Your 30s Fertility tends to top the list of women's health concerns in their 30s, says Ren�e Scola, M.D., who practices internal medicine at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago. "Educated professional women tend to put off childbearing longer, but fertility begins to decline slightly in your early 30s, and more significantly with each passing year," she notes.
It's also the time in which women who battle their weight may develop pre-diabetes--a dangerous condition of above-normal blood glucose levels that puts them on the cusp of developing diabetes.
Screenings you need: If you're overweight or have other diabetes risk factors, including a family history of diabetes, get a glucose test to find out if you have pre-diabetes or diabetes. The American Thyroid Association recommends having your thyroid-stimulating hormone levels checked (a TSH screening) beginning at age 35 and again every five years, although "you should be checked again sooner if you've gained or lost weight, or feel sluggish," says Scola. In addition, if you've been unsuccessfully trying to get pregnant for over a year, your doctor may recommend fertility testing.
