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The shoulder joint is known as a ball and socket, where the ball is part of the arm bone called the humerus, while the socket is part of a bone known as the scapula. Edward McFarland, head of shoulder surgery at Johns Hopkins, says the tendons surrounding the joint are of paramount importance, forming a structure called the rotator cuff.

McFarland: Pretty much all of your rotator cuff tendons they’re about as thick as your little finger, maybe as wide as two fingers, and there's one in the front of the ball, there's one on the top of the ball and there's two in the back, so they form a cuff of tendons around the ball. The rotator cuff helps to stabilize the shoulder by pulling it into the socket. When your arms are in real close the ball doesn't really need to be held into the socket real tightly but if your arm is away from your body and you're picking something up the ball actually has to become compressed into the socket. You need the rotator cuff primarily for strength of the arm and the ability to lift things do things far away from your body and over shoulder height.  :33

McFarland says most adults will have shoulder issues at some point simply because of the large range of motion possible for the joint. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.

Tendons connect muscles to bones. When an injury to the Achilles tendon in the lower leg occurs, it’s most often a tear between muscle and tendon, but in the shoulder it’s the separation between tendon and bone. That’s according to shoulder expert Edward McFarland at Johns Hopkins.

McFarland: The shoulder’s tendons sort of tear off the bone as opposed to tearing where the muscle meets the tendon. As you get more mature these tendons start to slowly degenerate. This causes them to hurt with too much stress. We're not sure why that happens but we know that if tendons have too much stress over short period of time a lot of times it's not really inflammation as we know it it's really considered something that's more of an osis. So we call it painful tendinosis, which is doesn't really matter very much but it does in terms of what sort of things you use to try to make it get better.  :30

McFarland says oral medicines, steroid injections and physical therapy can all be helpful, as are icing and rest. Much less often surgery may be an option. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.

Pain in the shoulder will be experienced by almost every adult at some point, especially as they age. Shoulder pain factors right up there with back and neck pain in terms of how common it is. Edward McFarland, head of shoulder surgery at Johns Hopkins, says most often the tendons around the shoulder play a big part.

McFarland: Oddly enough we're not really sure why tendons around your body degenerate but they probably have something to do with the fact that the cells in the tissues and things all mature and they just don't take the amount of stress that they took before and they also just don't heal as fast as they did before. Thirty to 40 is about when things start to unravel a little bit and it's very common, not only big athletes but in those of us who try to stay in shape there are a lot of non athletic people who seem to get shoulder problems even though they haven't really done very much.              :30

McFarland says if pain doesn’t resolve over several days with over the counter medicines and rest, seeing a shoulder expert and perhaps a physical therapist may be appropriate. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.

Let’s say you begin a new sport, and the next day you wake up a bit sore. Edward McFarland, director of shoulder surgery at Johns Hopkins, says that’s most likely good pain.

McFarland: Good pain is the burn you get in your muscles when you do an activity and you feel invigorated, you really got something accomplished. The bad pain though is pain that you have at rest after exercise, so if it hurts for two days that's kind of a problem. Pain that starts waking you up at night also probably not a good thing, pain that gets worse despite rest. So say you run and or lift weights with your arms and you have some soreness. That should go away within a day or so but if it lasts for months or obviously there's probably something going on.    :28

McFarland says our ability to recover after exercise, especially a sport we’re new at, will vary with lots of factors, including overall fitness, age, sleep and even diet. He says even very fit people will experience soreness and pain when they attempt a new activity, since different muscles are being utilized, and notes that if pain persists for several days and isn’t relieved with over the counter medicines it may be time to seek an expert. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.

There’s no question that exercise is a beneficial habit we should all practice, yet for the majority of us it’s hard to fit in to a busy life. Edward McFarland, head of shoulder surgery at Johns Hopkins, says whether you’re starting a new sport or returning to one you’ve played before, slow and steady is the way to go.

McFarland:   The body does not really take to large increases in stress over a short period of time, so if you go do something that you haven't done in 20 years and you do twice as much as you should have done you can almost bet that something's going to get sore and you're probably going to hurt for days. And even if you are in shape doing one exercise a new one will challenge other body parts, so even though you're maybe using some of the same muscles it's not at the same angle, at the same degree and it can really be challenging. People would try to work through things and it would only get worse and worse sometimes you just have to know when to cut back.            :30

McFarland notes that age also plays a part as our ability to bounce back from even minor injuries is more prolonged. All of that said, he encourages everyone to find an exercise or two they enjoy to reap the many health benefits. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.

Women who used talc-containing products genitally may be at increased risk for ovarian cancer, but not for breast cancer, a new study finds. Kimmel Cancer Center director William Nelson at Johns Hopkins says this study attempted to eliminate certain biases from women’s recall in order to more clearly identify an association. 

Nelson: In this study there was an association of talc use with ovarian cancer and it was substantial. Ovarian cancer of course is not a cancer that arises in the ovary, it arises in the fallopian tube. We now know, that was not known when all this was happening before. If there's anything in the fallopian tube that causes irritation or chronic inflammation leads to cancer rarely but is at the root of almost all cancers of epithelial cells, so that's what's going on I suspect that would be the mechanism.   :29

Nelson notes that Johnson and Johnson has just agreed to a settlement with some women with ovarian cancer, and about 9000 lawsuits remain, all linking cancer to genital use of baby powder. He says it may not be the talc itself but another contaminant but recommends against using it. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.