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Medicineworld.org: Archives of obgyn news blog
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Archives Of Obgyn News Blog From Medicineworld.Org
A switch between life and death
The breakthrough came as Barry Thompson from Stephen Cohen's group at EMBL looked at a recently discovered signaling pathway called Hippo. "Hippo acts as a switch between cell division and death," says Barry Thompson, "if the pathway is too active, tissues overgrow because too a number of cells divide and too few die. But until now, we hadn't found a correlation between the signals and the cellular machinery that drives growth." Using sophisticated genetic techniques, Thompson and Cohen established that a small molecule, a microRNA called bantam, makes this link. Without bantam, tissues grow too slowly and remain smaller than normal. The amount of bantam produced by the cell directly depends on the amount of traffic on the Hippo signaling pathway, and higher levels of bantam prompt more cell division......... Posted by: Emily Permalink Source High Levels Of Prenatal Alcohol Exposure
Results are reported in the recent issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research. "Both human and animal studies have shown that heavy and binge drinking are the most highly linked to FAS damage," said Philip A. May, professor of sociology, and family and community medicine, at The University of New Mexico. "A common perception is that daily drinking with meals is less damaging to the fetus, and that this drinking pattern is the norm in Western Europe. While we have not yet untangled or answered this relationship, our study results do show that there are individuals in Italy who drink heavily enough to produce a rate of FAS which needs our attention." May, also an epidemiologist, is the study's corresponding author. "Previous to this study," said Robert J. Sokol, distinguished professor of obstetrics and gynecology and Director of the C.S. Mott Center for Human Growth and Development at Wayne State University, "I don't believe there was a good number for prevalence of FAS in Italy. This says Italy looks like the rest of the world in terms of drinking patterns, and that related birth outcomes are similar amongst the relatively heavily exposed kids."........ Posted by: Emily Permalink Source NSAIDs and congenital anomalies
A number of pregnant women get prescriptions for NSAIDs during their first trimester, and even more--up to 15 percent--take over-the-counter versions of these drugs. Prior studies have shown that taking NSAIDs toward the end of a pregnancy can cause certain circulatory problems--premature closure of the ductus arteriosus and patent ductus arteriosus, but the risks correlation to early-pregnancy ingestion are less well defined. To better understand the relationship between first trimester use of NSAIDs and congenital birth defects, scientists led by Anick Berard, Ph.D. of St. Justine Hospital in Montreal, conducted a population-based case-control study. They gathered information from three administrative databases in Quebec and included 36,387 pregnant women in their study. They determined which women had filled prescriptions for NSAIDs during their first trimester and which had babies diagnosed with a congenital abnormality in the first year of life. Based on information from prior studies, the primary outcome of interest was cardiac septal closure and related abnormalities......... Posted by: Emily Permalink Source Nutrition's Role In Genes And Birth Defects
Scientists used transparent fish embryos to develop a way to discover how genes and diet interact to cause birth defects. "By the time most women know they are pregnant, the development of the fetus' organs is essentially complete," said Bryce Mendelsohn, co-author and an M.D./Ph.D. student in the Medical Scientist Training Program at Washington University School of Medicine. "Since we currently do not understand the interaction between genetics and nutrition, the goal of this research was to understand how the lack of a specific nutrient, in this case copper, interacts with an embryo's genetics during early development." Mendelsohn is doing the research in the laboratory of Jonathan D. Gitlin, M.D., the Helene B. Roberson Professor of Pediatrics at Washington University School of Medicine, director of genetics and genomic medicine at St. Louis Children's Hospital and scientific director of the Children's Discovery Institute. Mendelsohn and collaborators Stephen L. Johnson, Ph.D., associate professor of genetics at the School of Medicine, and graduate student Chunyue Yin, working with Lila Solnica-Krezel, associate professor of biology at Vanderbilt University, studied the impact of copper metabolism on the development of zebrafish, a vertebrate that develops similarly to humans. Zebrafish have become staples of genetic research because the transparent embryos grow outside of the mother's body, which allows development to be easily observed......... Posted by: Emily Permalink Source Miscarriage Associated With Age
"There has been a tremendous amount of research on women, and how their characteristics affect pregnancy outcomes. Of course, women's importance and centrality to pregnancy cannot be overstated. However, researchers seem to have forgotten that men are equal partners in reproduction, and their influence should be studied to the same degree. Our group has focused on men's influence on the health of their offspring, and we have made some fascinating discoveries," said Karine Kleinhaus, MD, MPH currently in Columbia's Department of Psychiatry and first author of the study. "This study shows how a man's age affects the likelihood of miscarriage." ......... Posted by: Emily Permalink Source Steroid Osteoporosis Connection
Through studies of mice, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have now identified osteoclasts, cells that dismantle old bone, as the essential link between osteoporosis and cortisone. As scientists flesh out the molecular-level details of this connection, they may be able to identify targets for therapy to prevent cortisone's damaging side effects on bone. "High-dose cortisone is the second most common cause of osteoporosis, and we currently have no real treatment for this serious side effect," says senior author Steven L. Teitelbaum, M.D., Messing Professor of Pathology and Immunology. "Given how frequently these drugs are used to treat many different conditions, that's a major clinical problem". Teitelbaum and colleagues including lead author Hyun-Ju Kim, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow, publish their results in the recent issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation. Cortisone is a steroid produced naturally by the adrenal gland and synthesized by a number of pharmaceutical companies for clinical use. The drug is also used to treat lupus, multiple sclerosis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and it is prescribed to transplant patients to prevent rejection of transplanted organs......... Posted by: Scott Permalink Source Regular Multivitamin Use Near Time Of Conception
Overall, women who used multivitamins regularly showed a 45 percent reduction in preeclampsia risk, as per the study. However, results were even more remarkable for women who were not overweight previous to pregnancy. "Our data show that women who are not overweight before pregnancy and who used multivitamins at least once a week before conception and in the first three months of pregnancy reduced their risk of preeclampsia by a striking 72 percent in comparison to those who didn't take a multivitamin during this time period," said Lisa Bodnar, Ph.D., M.P.H., R.D., assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health (GSPH). "At this time, multivitamin use makes little apparent difference in preeclampsia rates for women who are overweight before pregnancy. Even so, the results suggest that regular multivitamin use in the pre-pregnancy period may help to prevent preeclampsia"......... Posted by: Emily Permalink Source Screen New mothers for postpartum depression
"If you only screen early or if you only screen once, you will miss some," said Linda Chaudron, M.D., an assistant professor of psychiatry, pediatrics and obstetrics and gynecology at the Medical Center who is leading a series of studies focusing on postpartum depression. In a recent analysis of records from a pediatric clinic that uses a common postpartum questionnaire to screen mothers, Chaudron and the research group observed that of women who scored high on a depression screening scale sometime in the postpartum year, 26 percent did not develop high symptom levels of postpartum depression until after three months and that 33 percent had high levels throughout the year. The results of the study are reported in the July/recent issue of the journal Ambulatory Pediatrics. "I was surprised at the high percentage of women who continued to be depressed throughout the year," Chaudron said. Earlier this year, New Jersey Governor Jon S. Corzine signed legislation requiring health care professionals providing postnatal care to screen new mothers for postpartum depression, and requiring health care professionals to educate women and their families about the disorder. Health care providers in several other states have adopted similar screening programs......... Posted by: Emily Permalink Source Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS)
In women with PCOS, the ovary doesn't make all of the hormones it needs for any of the eggs to fully mature. They may start to grow and accumulate fluid. But no one egg becomes large enough. Instead, some may remain as cysts. Since no egg matures or is released, ovulation does not occur and the hormone progesterone is not made. Without progesterone, a woman’s menstrual cycle is irregular or absent. Also, the cysts produce male hormones, which continue to prevent ovulation. ........ Posted by: Emily Permalink Physical activity does not protect from ovarian cancer
A new research has found that exercise programs do not protect women from developing ovarian cancer. This is as per reports published in International Journal of Cancer. "However, despite not protecting for ovarian cancer, physical activity has so many other positive health effects that women should be encouraged to exercise daily, if possible," study chief Dr. Elisabete Weiderpass from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm emphasized in comments to Reuters Health. She and her colleagues assessed associations between physical activity during different periods of life and ovarian cancer incidence in roughly 96,000 women from Norway and Sweden who were followed for more than a decade. "We asked the women how much they exercised at ages 14, 30 and between ages 30 and 50 year," Weiderpass said. A total of 264 women developed ovarian cancer during the time they were followed......... Posted by: Emily Permalink Source Older Blog Entries 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Did you know?
The addition of testosterone to hormone therapy in women after menopause enhances their sexual function. However, it may also reduce HDL cholesterol (the "good" cholesterol) in women, according to a systematic review of current evidence."If the reduction in HDL had been associated with an increase in triglycerides [fatty acids] or LDL cholesterol it would be of great concern," said Dr. Susan Davis, professor of medicine at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia, and study co-author "However, as an isolated finding the significance is difficult to interpret." She added, "Testosterone has not been found to alter other coronary heart disease risk factors.".
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