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Kristen V. Brown

@kristenvbrown.bsky.social
17K followers 43 following 161 posts

Health + science journalist. Writing a book about the science and history of fertility | fan of sparkles | say hi: kristen@kristenvbrown.com

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Kristen V. Brown @kristenvbrown.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
This. www.statnews.com/2026/10/06/g...
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Kristen V. Brown @kristenvbrown.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
It’s really weird that this story on PGT-P presents Simone Collins as just your average mother www.womenshealthmag.com/health/a7386...
womenshealthmag.com
Would You Pay $50,000 for a Few More IQ Points? Meet The People Willing to Do So
Parenthood has always been a gamble. New technologies offer more control than ever—if you can afford it.
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Kristen V. Brown @kristenvbrown.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
The postmenopausal ovary is often dismissed as a “shriveled husk.” A new Science perspective challenges that idea: the ovary keeps changing after reproduction ends. What it does in those decades deserves much more attention. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
science.org
Does the postmenopausal ovary still matter?
Ovaries may influence health long after their reproductive function ends
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Reposted by Kristen V. Brown
STAT @statnews.com · 01/10/2026
"Vaccine hesitancy, in a lot of ways, is a logical outcome to the cultural pressures we've put before families," says sociologist Jennifer Reich.
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Kashmir Hill @kashhill.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Company creates an AirTag silencer so that a bike thief doesn't realize a bike is being tracked. But of course, that means a person wouldn't know they were being tracked either: sixcolors.com/post/2026/10... via @glennf.com
sixcolors.com
Silencing AirTags enables stalkers and domestic violence
ElevationLab has released an AirTag product I find appalling, and I strongly urge they immediately withdraw it from sale and recall all inventory. The AirTag Silencer is a simple device: remove the…
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Kristen V. Brown @kristenvbrown.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Biotech founder Cathy Tie calls editing human embryos a "moral imperative." Scientists say the work is nowhere near ready, and that even a perfect tool can't guarantee safety. That raises a bigger question: What would safe enough actually look like? My story @wired.com www.wired.com/story/biotec...
wired.com
A Biotech Founder Makes the Moral Case for Gene-Editing Human Embryos
The practice of editing the genes of embryos remains highly controversial and risky, but Origin Genomics founder Cathy Tie argues its a “moral imperative” to address hereditary diseases.
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Hank Greely @hankgreely.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
New blog post from @stanfordclb.bsky.social from fellow Claire McGovern on an interesting paternal age limitation on publicly funded IVF in Denmark. Good discussion of pluses and minuses. law.stanford.edu/2026/09/23/d...
law.stanford.edu
Does Paternal Age Matter in Fertility Treatment? | Stanford Law School
Earlier this month, Denmark announced that it will introduce an upper age limit for men seeking access to publicly funded fertility treatment. From Ja
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STAT @statnews.com · 23/09/2026
“The maternal mental health needs of women like me have been badly underprioritized in American society,” writes Meg LeDuc. www.statnews.com/2026/09/23/l...
statnews.com
Mentally ill women deserve more support to have children
“The maternal mental health needs of women like me have been badly underprioritized in American society,” writes Meg LeDuc.
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Kristen V. Brown @kristenvbrown.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
The ovaries don't just shut down after menopause. They keep changing—and may take on new roles as they age. But are those changes protective, harmful, or both? Scientists are only beginning to find out. My latest for @wired.com www.wired.com/story/ovary-...
wired.com
The Ovary Is Surprisingly Active After Menopause. Scientists Are Trying to Figure Out Why
A growing body of research is putting the ovary in a new light, not as an egg factory with an expiration date, but as an organ that shapes women’s health long after the fertile years have passed.
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Kristen V. Brown @kristenvbrown.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
It was probably only a matter of time until this happened
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Kristen V. Brown @kristenvbrown.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Was just talking with a fertility doctor today about how she wishes more women got this kind of info about their own bodies earlier!
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Kristen V. Brown @kristenvbrown.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
AMH isn’t predictive of fertility, but it’s also not totally useless information so not sure I view this as a dangerous trend? www.eurekalert.org/news-release...
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David Grimm @david-grimm.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
For years, scientists have argued that human births are difficult because of the way evolution shaped our pelvises for upright walking. But a new study argues that fetal sex may also play a role. Interesting story by @bridgetalex.bsky.social for @science.org
science.org
Why are human births so difficult? Male babies—not just upright walking—may be to blame
Analysis of 140 species suggests the risks of sons are offset by evolutionary advantages
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Elizabeth Bennett @elizabethbennettjd.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
I moved states 4 years ago and have a whole new slate of doctors for whom I’ve filled out a zillion medical histories. Now that you mention it, not a single one asked about my menopausal status.
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Kristen V. Brown @kristenvbrown.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Not every 50 year old woman has gone through menopause. (My own mother hadn’t until close to 60). Knowing what stage of life your patient is in seems absolutely relevant to their care. Age at menopause is also relevant to many health risks. It’s also difficult to study without this data.
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Kristen V. Brown @kristenvbrown.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
I’m guessing many of those patients were not over 60.
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Kristen V. Brown @kristenvbrown.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Only 14% of women with menopause actually had it documented in their electronic health record. That seems like a pretty big ommission! www.eurekalert.org/news-release...
eurekalert.org
Menopause is missing from most electronic health records, study finds
Menopause is frequently missing from women’s electronic health records, according to a University of Colorado Anschutz study of nearly 396,000 women participating in the National Institutes of H...
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Kristen V. Brown @kristenvbrown.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Ghosts in your genome www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Tracing ‘ghost’ ancestry in modern humans - Nature Genetics
Nature Genetics - Tracing ‘ghost’ ancestry in modern humans
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Kristen V. Brown @kristenvbrown.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
The Tl;DR from this dueling package: No one knows how AI will change health care, other than to say it will definitely change it www.statnews.com/2026/09/09/a... www.statnews.com/2026/09/09/a...
statnews.com
AMA CEO: AI won’t replace doctors — it will work alongside them
“The goal should not be to reproduce today’s health care system with fewer humans,” writes American Medical Association CEO John Whyte.
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Kristen V. Brown @kristenvbrown.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Whether or not humans can get pregnant in space, my question is what woman would WANT to be pregnant while also dealing with space travel www.nationalgeographic.com/science/arti...
nationalgeographic.com
Can Humans Get Pregnant in Space?
From microgravity to intense radiation risks, the quirks of space travel raises some big questions about how they might affect a developing fetus.
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Kristen V. Brown @kristenvbrown.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
I am pro anything that involves more bats www.eurekalert.org/news-release...
eurekalert.org
Bats as a form of biological pest control
Labour-intensive harvesting, complex processing: the macadamia is one of the most expensive nuts in the world. This makes it all the more important to protect the trees from pests. An international re...
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Kristen V. Brown @kristenvbrown.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Really glad we’ve moved past this particular strategy
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Christopher D. Brown @cdbrow1.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
This is all I know about the subject.
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Kristen V. Brown @kristenvbrown.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
I learned while reporting this story that different animals’ sperm looks different. Mouse sperm is INSANE
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Kristen V. Brown @kristenvbrown.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
For decades, old ideas about masculinity and femininity kept science from understanding how sperm actually works. I dug into why male fertility science stalled — and what's finally changing. For GQ: www.gq.com/story/male-i...
gq.com
No Sperm Left Behind: Modern Medicine’s Race to Solve Male Infertility
For decades our understanding of sperm could be summed up as: The strongest swimmer gets the girl. New research reveals that men’s fertility is not so simple.
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Kristen V. Brown @kristenvbrown.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
Interesting because it runs contrary to previous research. "MHT appears to exert a modest but meaningful and statistically significant protective effect on the risk of developing Alzheimer’s pathology,” one of the researchers said in a release.
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Kristen V. Brown @kristenvbrown.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
Social media may lead you to believe that hormone therapy protects against a whole lot of things, but much of those claims haven't actually been proven. An interesting new study suggests women on estrogen-only hormone therapy have a reduced risk of Alzheimer's www.eurekalert.org/news-release...
eurekalert.org
Study ties estrogen-based menopausal hormone therapy to lower Alzheimer’s risk
Some studies have reported that menopausal hormone therapy raises dementia risk. A new study that analyzed Alzheimer’s-disease hallmarks in autopsied brains indicates the opposite.
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Kristen V. Brown @kristenvbrown.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
The AI slop PR pitches are outta control. Twice already this am I have written back to publicists saying I actually have no idea what they are pitching me
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Kristen V. Brown @kristenvbrown.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Have you started bypassing your doctor, instead using consumer blood tests, wearables, AI, or telehealth? If so, I want to hear from you! DM me or email kristenvbrown@gmail.com
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Kristen V. Brown @kristenvbrown.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Dear editors: sorry my next story may be filed a bit late.
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Kristen V. Brown @kristenvbrown.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Have you started bypassing your doctor, instead using consumer blood tests, wearables, AI, or telehealth? If so, I want to hear from you! DM me or email kristenvbrown@gmail.com
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Kristen V. Brown @kristenvbrown.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
Honestly love the Hallmark Channel. Sometimes you just need a formulaic romcom www.nytimes.com/2026/08/10/s...
nytimes.com
What the Hallmark Channel Knows About Love
For 25 years, it’s helped big-city gals find love with hometown hunks — and distracted the rest of us when we need it most.
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Kristen V. Brown @kristenvbrown.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
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Kristen V. Brown @kristenvbrown.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
In my reporting for my forthcoming book I’ve heard from some women today that their doctors are still doling out this sort of advice. Ping me if you have ever had a doctor tell you get pregnant to treat a health concern.
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Kristen V. Brown @kristenvbrown.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
My aunt was going through some old boxes of things and found this clipping she saved about endometriosis from my hometown paper, The OC Register, in 1982. It refers to endometriosis as “the career women’s disease.” And the cure? Pregnancy!
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Kristen V. Brown @kristenvbrown.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
You have to remember that those women who stopped or never got hormone therapy they’re not all in the Alzheimer ward or dead from heart disease." New piece out today JAMA digs into the meno-hype. jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...
jamanetwork.com
Navigating the New Booming Marketplace for Menopause Care
This Medical News article discusses how a surge in demand for menopause care has fueled a rapidly expanding marketplace of treatments and examines where the evidence supports these emerging approaches...
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Kristen V. Brown @kristenvbrown.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
If you have ever felt like suddenly everything is perimenopause, this story is for you www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...
bloomberg.com
The Menopause Gold Rush Is Failing Women
While startups and supplements are making billions, the healthcare mainstream hasn’t kept pace with women’s midlife needs.
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Kristen V. Brown @kristenvbrown.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
As for me, the answer to my night sweats didn’t turn out to require HRT. They were the result of one too many blankets piled on the bed. More noise has not meant better treatment. Full story: www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...
bloomberg.com
The Menopause Gold Rush Is Failing Women
While startups and supplements are making billions, the healthcare mainstream hasn’t kept pace with women’s midlife needs.
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Kristen V. Brown @kristenvbrown.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
A 2023 survey found roughly 70% of responding OB-GYN residency programs had no menopause curriculum at all. Only 1.7% of US women 40 and up were on systemic hormone therapy in 2023.
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Kristen V. Brown @kristenvbrown.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
Take Yasmin Harris: She spent years chasing symptoms. She tried black cohosh, ashwagandha, Steel-Libido and a compounded hormone therapy cream. Only after more than a decade did she find the right doctor — what worked was a low-dose estrogen patch which virtually erased her symptoms.
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Kristen V. Brown @kristenvbrown.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
The menopause conversation has never been louder — the market is crowded with books, podcasts, celebrity supplement lines and doctors-turned-influencers trying to sell you a weighted vest. False choices are now extremely available. But for a lot of women, the right care often remains out of reach.
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Kristen V. Brown @kristenvbrown.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
To be a middle-aged woman is to live in diagnostic suspense, perpetually one symptom away from wrestling with “the transition.”
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Kristen V. Brown @kristenvbrown.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
Six months before my 40th birthday, the menopause content arrived in my feed. It was very convincing. So I got my hormones tested at a Chinatown lab and booked appointments with a bunch of telehealth startups. "It seems that you are perimenopausal,” a doctor at one of the companies concluded.
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Kristen V. Brown @kristenvbrown.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
Women were once told to suffer through menopause in silence. Now they’re navigating a cacophony of supplements, hormone subscriptions, influencers and dubious promises. My new story on the menopause boom—and why women still aren’t getting enough trustworthy care: www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...
bloomberg.com
The Menopause Gold Rush Is Failing Women
While startups and supplements are making billions, the healthcare mainstream hasn’t kept pace with women’s midlife needs.
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Kristen V. Brown @kristenvbrown.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
It's never made sense to me that donor eggs could fix every issue of aging and fertility — the uterus, after all, ages, too. Now a new study shows age-related changes in the womb impact pregnancy success even with donor eggs after 49. www.bbc.com/news/article...
bbc.com
Women hit fertility tipping point at 49 even with young donor eggs
Age-related changes in the womb lining may be the cause and could be treatable in the future, say experts.
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Kristen V. Brown @kristenvbrown.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
If you ever wondered how space travel might impact your fertility, well, here you go: www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1...
pnas.org
Female reproductive dysfunction and transgenerational consequences following prolonged spaceflight exposure | PNAS
Spaceflight presents unique gravitational, radiation, and isolation hazards for human exploration of the Moon, Mars, and beyond, yet its impact on ...
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Kristen V. Brown @kristenvbrown.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
This is the smartest thing I’ve read on the genome in a long time. The metaphor of DNA as ”code” I sometimes think has been more hurtful than helpful www.quantamagazine.org/why-the-huma...
quantamagazine.org
Why the Human Genome’s Tangled Physicality May Confound AI | Quanta Magazine
Our genetic heritage is not a blueprint or an algorithm, as many biologists have imagined, but something else entirely.
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Kristen V. Brown @kristenvbrown.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
Study finds hormonal birth control could have a protective effect on the brain later in life. One thing this highlights that is definitely understudied is the long-term effects of taking BC news.ku.edu/news/article...
news.ku.edu
Study finds estrogen-based hormone therapies could protect brain health in older women
Click for more on research in NeuroImage
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Kristen V. Brown @kristenvbrown.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
PS. I do think tracking devices for pets are generally overkill ( I wrote about it a few years ago!) but this dude has a heart condition so he wears a monitor. Still might be overkill, though.
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Kristen V. Brown @kristenvbrown.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
I have never once gotten a perfect sleep score. My cat on the other hand:
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