May 8, 2008, 9:13 PM CT

How slow growth as a fetus can cause diabetes as an adult

Intrauterine growth retardation (IUGR), which results in a baby having a low weight at birth, has been associated with the development of type 2 diabetes in adulthood. It has been suggested that this is because the expression of key genes is altered during fetal development and that this affects disease susceptibility during the later part of life. Evidence to support this hypothesis and indicating that the changes in gene expression might be permanent has now been provided by Rebecca Simmons and his colleagues, at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, using a rat model of IUGR.

Pervious studies using the rat model of IUGR have shown decreased fetal expression of the gene Pdx1, which is critical for the development and function of the cells that become defective in type 2 diabetes (pancreatic beta-cells), and adult onset of diabetes. In this study, expression of Pdx1 was found to be reduced in pancreatic beta-cells throughout life following IUGR. The molecular mechanisms (known as epigenetic mechanisms because they affect gene expression without altering the information in the gene) that reduced Pdx1 expression in pancreatic beta-cells were found to change during development. One mechanism was observed in the fetus, one following birth, and one after the onset of diabetes in adulthood. Of interest, the mechanisms reducing Pdx1 gene expression in the fetus and following birth could be reversed, whereas those reducing Pdx1 gene expression in the adult were irreversible. These data provide new insight into the mechanisms by which diabetes develops in adulthood following IUGR......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

May 5, 2008, 8:28 PM CT

Breastfeeding may improve children's intelligence scores

Long-term, exclusive breastfeeding appears to improve childrens cognitive development, as per a report in the recent issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Prior studies have reported that children and adults who were breastfed as infants have higher scores on IQ tests and other measures of cognitive (thinking, learning and memory) development than those who were fed formula, as per background information in the article. However, the evidence has been based on findings based on observation, in which children whose mothers chose to breastfeed were compared with those whose mothers chose not to breastfeed. The results of these studies may be complicated by subtle differences in the way breastfeeding mothers interact with their infants, the authors note.

Michael S. Kramer, M.D., of McGill University and the Montreal Childrens Hospital, Montreal, Quebec, and his colleagues conducted a randomized trial of a breastfeeding promotion program involving patients at 31 maternity hospitals and affiliated clinics in Belarus. Between June 1996 and December 1997, clinics were randomly assigned either to adopt a program supporting and promoting breastfeeding or to continue their current practices and policies. A total of 7,108 infants and mothers who visited facilities promoting breastfeeding and 6,781 infants and mothers who visited control facilities received follow-up interviews and examinations between 2002 and 2005, when the children were an average of 6.5 years old......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

May 3, 2008, 7:33 PM CT

Treatment advances for fibroids

Women with fibroids and endometriosis facing the possibility of hysterectomy may now choose less invasive therapy options to preserve fertility, as per Yale professor Aydin Arici, M.D., who will direct a scientific session exploring these alternatives at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) Annual Clinical Meeting May 3-7 in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Arici will chair the two-day postgraduate ACOG course Current Topics in Reproductive Endocrinology for the Clinician. He joins colleagues in the Yale Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences as they lead other ACOG courses on menopause, managing post-term pregnancy, and managing patients with bleeding disorders during pregnancy.

In his course, Arici will present therapy options for endometriosis and share novel conservative approaches for treating fibroids, the most common non-malignant tumor seen in reproductive-age women and the leading cause of hysterectomy in the United States.

Our goal is to educate general obstetricians on ways to tailor new therapy techniques to the needs of individual patients, said Arici. For women in their 30s and 40s, preserving reproductive potential while treating fibroids is often desired. In the past, ovarian function was suppressed by inducing sudden menopause to shrink fibroids. Novel medications that were unavailable a few years back are now able to do so without unpleasant side effects......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

April 30, 2008, 5:16 PM CT

Childbirth training change improves safety

Relatively inexpensive interventions were effective in helping health care providers in Latin America improve the way they treat mothers during labor and delivery, reducing bleeding and sometimes saving lives of women during childbirth, as per a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Public Health study released recently in the New England Journal (NEJM).

Using teaching techniques that employed behavioral change strategies aimed at modifying practices, scientists were able to reduce the number and severity of episiotomies, a surgical procedure in which a doctor or midwife makes an incision in the tissue between the mothers vagina and rectum during childbirth.

They were also able to increase the use of the hormone oxytocin which is given to mothers to make their uterus shrink and bleed less to manage the third stage of labor, when the placenta detaches and passes from the uterus and hemorrhaging may occur.

At the start of the study, public hospitals in Argentina and Uruguay had very high rates of routine episiotomy and low rates of actively managing the third stage of labor. In the randomized trial of 20 hospitals, 10 received the intervention and the rest received clinical practice guidelines via seminars.

The intervention included identifying and training small teams of respected medical opinion leaders at several hospitals. These teams then trained their peers, and provided their colleagues with ongoing reminders and feedback regarding progress......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

April 24, 2008, 5:06 AM CT

Pregnancy is possible after cancer treatment

It has been reported for the first time in Gera number of that healthy ovarian tissue has been taken from a non-pregnant woman with cancer and then re-implanted after cancer treatment. The patient is now 32 years old and could become pregnant as a result. This case is described by Ralf Dittrich and colleagues from Erlangen University Hospital in the current issue of Deutsches rzteblatt International (Dtsch Arztebl Int 2008; 105[15]: 274-8).

Anal carcinoma was diagnosed in this young patient in 2004 and chemotherapy followed by radiotherapy was recommended. As the ovaries lie near to the tumor, they are often damaged by treatment of this sort and the women become infertile. The Erlangen physicians succeeded in removing healthy ovarian tissue from the woman before therapy and to freeze it. The patient was then given the recommended cancer therapy. She tolerated this well and has not suffered any relapse. Conversely, her menstrual periods had stopped, in spite of hormone therapy, for two years. For this reason, the patient's conserved ovarian material was inserted endoscopically into her pelvis. She subsequently reported her first menstruation. After this operation, it may be possible for her to become pregnant, eventhough this has not happened yet.

The authors consider that the affected patients should be provided with more information, so that they are aware of this possibility of retaining fertility......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

April 9, 2008, 10:10 PM CT

Omega-3 intake during last months of pregnancy

A study supervised by Universit Laval scientists Gina Muckle and ric Dewailly reveals that omega-3 intake during the last months of pregnancy boosts an infants sensory, cognitive, and motor development. The details of this finding are published in a recent edition of the Journal of Pediatrics.

To come to this conclusion, scientists first measured docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) concentrationa type of omega-3 fatty acid involved in the development of neurons and retinasin the umbilical cord blood of 109 infants. DHA concentration in the umbilical cord is a good indicator of intra-uterine exposure to omega-3s during the last trimester of pregnancy, a crucial period for the development of retinal photoreceptors and neurons, explains Dr. Dewailly.

Tests conducted on these infants at 6 and 11 months revealed that their visual acuity as well as their cognitive and motor development were closely associated with DHA concentration in the umbilical cord blood at the time of their birth. However, there was very little relation between test results and DHA concentration in a mothers milk among infants who were breast-fed. These results highlight the crucial importance of prenatal exposure to omega-3s in a childs development, points out Dr. Muckle.

Scientists found that DHA concentration in the umbilical cord blood was in direct relation with the concentration found in a mothers blood, a reminder of the importance of a mothers diet in providing omega-3 fatty acids for the fetus. They also noted that DHA concentration was higher in the fetuss blood than in the mothers. While developing its nervous system, a fetus needs great quantities of DHA. It can even transform other types of omega-3s into DHA in order to develop its brain, explains Dr. Dewailly......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

April 7, 2008, 10:35 PM CT

Your baby's brain on drugs

Eventhough behavioral studies clearly indicate that exposure to drugs, alcohol and tobacco in utero is bad for a baby's developing brain, specific anatomic brain effects have been hard to tease out in humans. Often users don't limit themselves to one substance, and demographic factors like poverty can also influence brain development.

Now, an NIH-funded study using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) brain scans, led by Children's Hospital Boston neurologist Michael Rivkin, MD, suggests that prenatal exposure to cocaine, alcohol, marijuana or tobacco (alone or in combination) may have effects on brain structure that persist into early adolescence. The findings, reported in the recent issue of Pediatrics, are of public health significance, the scientists say, since it's estimated that more than 1 million babies born annually in the United States have been exposed to at least one of these agents in utero.

Scientists at Children's and Boston Medical Center employed volumetric MRI imaging to study the brain structure of 35 young adolescents prenatally exposed to cocaine, marijuana, alcohol or tobacco. The children, who averaged 12 years old at the time of imaging, were part of part of an historic cohort of children assembled by Deborah Frank, MD at Boston Medical Center and followed there since birth. Prenatal exposures were confirmed by a combination of maternal history, urine testing of the mother or urine or meconium (stool) testing of the infants at birth......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

April 3, 2008, 8:18 PM CT

Continuous oral contraceptives better at easing pain, bleeding

Continuous oral contraceptives may be more effective than the standard 28-day birth control pills in suppressing the ovary, as per researchers. They say that the continuous pill also causes a significant improvement in pain and behavioral changes.

"We have provided a biological proof of concept that both the ovary and the lining of the uterus are suppressed better and quicker with the continuous pill than with the cyclic pill. And there is no harmful effect on the lining of the uterus either," said Richard Legro, M.D., professor of obstetrics and gynecology, Penn State College of Medicine and lead author of the study.

Standard 28-day birth control pills mimic a woman's natural menstrual cycle, while preventing pregnancy. A standard dose includes 21 hormone pills to suppress growth in the endometrium, the lining of the uterus, and seven placeholder placebo pills.

Continuous oral contraceptives may be more effective in treating several medical conditions, where continuous ovarian suppression is desired, such as acne, hirsutism, premenstrual syndrome, endometriosis and polycystic ovary syndrome. But there have been few detailed studies of ovarian function on the pill to demonstrate this effect.

Legro and colleagues compared the effectiveness of continuous oral contraceptives with that of the cyclical pills. The scientists monitored 62 healthy women, randomly assigned to receive either cyclical or continuous birth control pills, for six months with both scientists and participants blinded to the study group......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

March 27, 2008, 9:42 PM CT

Being born bottom first is inherited

A baby is twice as likely to be born bottom first if either or both the parents were themselves breech deliveries, as per a research studypublished ahead of print on bmj.com. The results suggest genes are a contributing factor.

The vast majority of babies are delivered head first. Fewer than one in twenty are delivered the other way round what is known as a breech delivery. Such deliveries carry significantly greater risks for the baby: they are more likely to die or suffer from health problems.

Factors such as premature delivery and low birth weight are also known risk factors linked to a breech delivery but these only account for up to one in seven of all such breech births. Until now knowledge of whether genes could also be a factor has been lacking.

The scientists from the University of Bergen in Norway looked at data covering all the births in Norway between 1967 and 2004. They studied the information available on men and women and their first born children - a total of 387,555 parent and child units.

They observed that men and women who had been delivered full-term in breech had more than twice the risk of breech delivery in their own first pregnancies. Furthermore, babies delivered naturally, not by caesarean, were at the biggest risk of a breech delivery......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

March 24, 2008, 7:55 PM CT

The surprising power of the pill

Women who have tried to conceive using in vitro fertilization (IVF) methods are painfully aware that timing is of the essence. There are cancelled vacations, too a number of sick days taken from work, and the necessity to plan everything around the therapy.

But thanks to a Tel Aviv University study, trying for a baby has just been made easier. In a surprising finding, scientists have discovered that the same pill used to prevent pregnancy can actually help a woman conceive.

Dr. Haim Pinkas MD, a senior doctor at the Rabin Medical Center and an academic staff member of Tel Aviv Universitys Sackler School of Medicine, and colleagues at the infertility center where he practices, have observed that a two-week intervention therapy using a standard low-dose birth control pill can help time egg harvesting, making the IVF process more convenient for both doctor and patient.

The study was done on 1,800 women at the Infertility and IVF Unit, Helen Schneider Hospital for Women, Rabin Medical Center, Petach Tikva and appeared in the Journal of Assisted Reproduction & Genetics in January of this year.

All in the Timing

As per the American Fertility Association, more than 15% of American couples have difficulty conceiving a child. There are currently two types of treatment natural methods and assisted reproductive techniques such as IVF. In a number of cases, IVF offers the last hope to conceive a child......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

March 11, 2008, 10:10 PM CT

Revise guidelines for weight gain during pregnancy

Current recommendations for weight gain during pregnancy developed by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) in 1990 should be revised, as per an internationally recognized obesity expert and chairman of the department of obstetrics, gynecology and womens health at Saint Louis University.

The editorial by Raul Artal, M.D., who has conducted extensive research on obesity during pregnancy, appears in the recent issue of Expert Review of Obstetrics and Gynecology, an international medical journal.

Recommendations by the IOM, which are followed worldwide by obstetricians, encourage obese women to gain at least 15 pounds during pregnancy and specify no upper limit for weight gain. The IOM is a panel of national experts who provide advice on medical and health issues.

Overweight or obese women dont need to gain that much weight and should exercise and watch their calorie consumption during pregnancy, Artal said.

Pregnancy has become over the years a state of indulgence and confinement, he wrote. Pregnancy is an ideal time for behavior modification that includes physical activity and with proper medical supervision it can be safely prescribed.

The IOM guidelines were not grounded in scientific evidence, Artal said, and focused primarily on preventing low birth-weight deliveries, which generally occur when women who are underweight and of normal weight dont gain enough weight during pregnancy......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

March 4, 2008, 4:16 PM CT

After cessation of postmenopausal hormone therapy

The Womens Health Initiative (WHI) scientists have produced another article [1], which probably marks the opening of another set of publications, in which the consequences of a further 2.4-year follow-up (after cessation of the study medication) on the estrogen + progestogen (E + P) cohort are reported. They concluded that, by the end of the post-intervention period, the global index, a newly formed and unvalidated tool used in the WHI trial, was still higher in women randomly assigned to receive E + P compared with placebo.

After such long and painful debates over the results of the WHI study and the perception that age is a very important determinant of the benefitrisk evaluation, it is really a pity that once again the current information on the extended follow-up period is presented in an unsatisfactory way, says Professor Amos Pines, the President of the International Menopause Society. It seems that the following mistakes were repeated:

1. There is no mention of the results by age groups and yet, for the age group 5059 years, the data recorded for the active phase of the WHI E + P arm showed no significant increase in risk of coronary events, strokes and breast cancer in the early postmenopause period. Also, there is no breakdown of the data by years of follow-up. It would be extremely important to know whether the results for the first year post cessation of therapy are similar to those for year 2 and year 3 of follow-up.
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Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

February 25, 2008, 9:01 PM CT

Mother's antibody production may affect fetal brain

The mothers of some autistic children may have made antibodies against their fetuses brain tissue during pregnancy that crossed the placenta and caused changes that led to autism, suggests research led by Johns Hopkins Childrens Center researchers and reported in the recent issue of the Journal of Neuroimmunology.

The causes of autism, a disorder manifesting itself with a range of brain problems and marked by impaired social interactions, communication disorders and repetitive behaviors, remain unknown for an estimated 90 percent of children diagnosed with it. Genetic, metabolic and environmental factors have been implicated in various studies of autism, a disorder affecting 1 in 150 U.S. children, as per estimates by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Now our research suggests that the mothers immune system may be yet another factor or a trigger in those already predisposed, says lead investigator Harvey Singer, M.D., director of.

pediatric neurology at Hopkins Childrens.

Scientists caution that the findings neednt be cause for alarm, but should be viewed instead as a step forward in untangling the complex nature of autism.

Mostly anecdotal past evidence of immune system involvement has emerged from unusual antibody levels in some autistic children and from postmortem brain tissue studies showing immune abnormalities in areas of the brain. Antibodies are proteins the body makes in response to viruses and bacteria or sometimes mistakenly against its own tissues. Yet, the majority of children with autism have no clinical evidence of autoimmune diseases, which prompted scientists to wonder whether the antibodies transferred from mother to child during pregnancy could interfere with the fetal brain directly......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

February 4, 2008, 9:39 PM CT

Women prefer contraceptive ring over patch

In the first study to directly compare a contraceptive vaginal ring and skin patch, more women indicated overall satisfaction with the vaginal ring, scientists report in the current issue of Obstetrics and Gynecology, a publication of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Using the same combination of hormones included in prescription birth control pills, these products became available in 2002 as an alternative to taking a pill every day. Ring and patch are left in place for three weeks at a time.

The study reviewed the experiences of 500 women who were randomly assigned to use the ring or patch for four consecutive menstrual cycles in 2005 and 2006. Of these, 249 used the ring and 251 used the patch. In addition to regular study visits for physical evaluation, participants completed a questionnaire and talked to researchers by phone following the study period.

What we found is that more women are happier with the ring than the patch, said Mitchell Creinin, M.D., professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and the studys first author. On the whole, they report fewer complications, and a significant majority preferred the ring to their pill. The University of Pittsburgh served as sponsoring institution for the trial, which was conducted at 10 centers nationwide......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

January 31, 2008, 8:56 PM CT

African-Americans less likely to choose epidurals

Minority and low-income patients are less likely than those who are white or more well off to agree to post-surgery epidural pain relief, as per new research from physicians at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. The study, published recently in the journal Anesthesia and Analgesia, examined how race, economic and educational status may influence health care choices when access to care isnt a factor. In the overall analysis, education and income were not as important as race in determining epidural acceptance, but the scientists say the costs of improper pain therapy after surgery are large for any patient group.

Epidurals are more effective for relieving postoperative pain, and higher levels of pain have been associated with the development of chronic pain, says E. Andrew Ochroch, MD, an associate professor and director of clinical research in the Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care. Consequently, if African Americans are either denied or denying themselves epidural for pain relief, then they may be at greater risk for postoperative complications.

Patients who receive perioperative epidural analgesia during major upper abdominal or chest surgery, for instance, have improved lung function, which reduces their risk of pneumonia. And since theyre able to get out of bed to move around sooner, theyre primed to go home sooner than those who have severe pain. Research also shows that patients who have high levels of perioperative pain are more apt to suffer from chronic pain later on......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

January 21, 2008, 8:48 PM CT

Caffeine's link to miscarriage

High doses of daily caffeine during pregnancy whether from coffee, tea, caffeinated soda or hot chocolate -- cause an increased risk of miscarriage, according a new study by the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research. The study controlled, for the first time, pregnancy-related symptoms of nausea, vomiting and caffeine aversion that tended to interfere with the determination of caffeines true effect on miscarriage risk. The research appears in the current online issue of American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

While prior research showed a link between caffeine consumption and miscarriage, this is the first study to thoroughly control for morning sickness, which typically causes a number of women to avoid caffeine, explained De-Kun Li, MD, Ph.D., an investigator with the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research and lead investigator of the study. This study strengthens the association between caffeine and miscarriage risk because it removes speculation that the association was due to reduced caffeine intake by healthy pregnant women, Li said.

To address that speculation, the study, which looked at 1,063 pregnant Kaiser Permanente members in San Francisco from October 1996 through October 1998, examined the caffeine effect among women who never changed their pattern of caffeine consumption during their pregnancy. Kaiser Permanente is the nations largest health plan with 8.7 million members, 416 medical offices and 32 hospitals in nine states and the District of Columbia......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

January 21, 2008, 8:37 PM CT

Pharmaceutical market fails pregnant women

The existing research and development and business model of the pharmaceutical industry is failing pregnant women, according a policy paper published this week in PLoS Medicine. In their analysis of an industry database that tracks drugs under development since 1981, Imperial College Londons Nick Fisk (Professor of Fetal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine) and Rifat, Atun (Professor of International Health Management, Tanaka Business School) show that pregnancy has become a virtual pharma-free zone with only seventeen drugs under active development for maternal health indications and only one new class of drug licensed in the last 20 years.

For their analysis, the authors searched the Pharmaprojects database, which lists all drugs identified as being under development from pharmaceutical company web sites, conferences, PubMed (a searchable database of the abstracts of published medical journal articles) and registered clinical trials. Over 37,000 drugs under development have been listed since 1981. They searched for drugs for obstetric applications and, in order to compare industry activity in maternal health relative to other areas of medicine, they also examined the database for drugs for cardiovascular indications and for a rare condition called amyotrophic lateral sclerosis - a neurodegenerative disease sometimes called Lou Gehrigs disease......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

January 7, 2008, 10:56 PM CT

Infants with Birthmarks Received Less Oxygen

A hemangioma is a non-malignant tumor of cells that line blood vessels, appearing during the first few weeks of life as a large birthmark or lesion. A study published in Pediatric Dermatology reveals that a disturbance of oxygen depletion was found in placentas of babies who developed infantile hemangioma (IH).

Scientists evaluated placental samples from 26 pregnancies with babies who weighed less than 3.5 pounds, 13 consisting of newborns who developed IH after birth and 13 healthy preterm infants who did not have IH.

Only one of the infants without IH showed an abnormal placenta. The higher ratio of placental anomalies in babies with IH suggests that reduced oxygen to the placenta contributed to fetal stress, and that stress led to infantile hemangioma development.

"Our results suggest that disturbed placental circulation is a factor underlying the development of hemangiomas in very low weight newborns and indicates that placental examination is essential for clarifying the physiologic changes leading to IH in babies with normal birth weight," the authors conclude......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

January 3, 2008, 10:03 PM CT

Exercise Reduces Menopausal Anxiety

With more menopausal women seeking natural therapies to ease symptoms, a new study has observed that simply adding a brisk walking routine can reduce a variety of psychological symptoms such as anxiety, stress and depression. The research is reported in the recent issue of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.

"With the aging population, physical activity represents one way for women to stay mentally healthy. Physical activity can help throughout the menopausal transition and afterwards," said Temple University public health researcher Deborah Nelson, Ph.D, the study's lead author.

From 1996 to 1997, 380 women living in Philadelphia were recruited and they have been followed for more than eight years. The women reported their physical activity level and menopausal symptoms including stress, anxiety, depression and hot flashes.

The average age at the beginning of the study was 42 -years -old; 49 percent were African American, 58 percent reported more than a high school education, and 38 percent smoked cigarettes.

"We recruited African-American and Caucasian women living in Philadelphia for this study to better represent the large population of urban women. These results can be generalizable to both urban Caucasian and African-American women, groups of women that have been under-represented in prior studies," Nelson said......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

January 3, 2008, 9:03 PM CT

Mom's obesity during conception

The number of overweight and obese Americans continues to grow rapidly. Today, 50 percent of adults are overweight and up to 20 percent are obese. While the number of overweight/obese children is at an all time high, the steady increase of overweight infants -- individuals under 11 months old -- is alarming.

Research studies have observed that pregnant women who are overweight/obese are more likely to give birth to heavier babies, and the risk of overweight children becoming obese adults is nearly nine times greater than for children who are not overweight. Studies also show that greater body-weight at birth and weight gain early in life increases the risk of becoming overweight or obese as an adult. Inheritance studies show that a child's body mass index (BMI) correlates more closely with the mother's BMI than with it's father's, suggesting that an interaction of both genetic and intrauterine influences, may contribute to later-life obesity risk in the offspring.

Armed with these and other data, a team of scientists from the USDA-Arkansas Children's Nutrition Center has examined whether the subtle effects of fetal exposure to the mother's obesity can have a latent effect on the offspring. In a new report, researchers studied whether fetal exposure to gestational obesity leads to a self-reinforcing viscious cycle of excessive weight gain and body fat which passes from mother to child. The results of the new study suggest they do......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

December 20, 2007, 5:32 AM CT

Premenstrual symptoms getting on your nerves?

For some women premenstrual syndrome (PMS) is a minor monthly annoyance, but for others, more severe symptoms seriously disrupt their lives. However despite the number of women affected, science has yet to offer a full explanation or universal therapy. Now intriguing new findings reported in the online open access journal BioPsychoSocial Medicine suggest not only that PMS is tied to decreased nerve activity each month, but also that those with extreme symptoms may have a permanently depressed nervous system.

A team of Japanese scientists led by Tamaki Matsumoto from the International Buddhist University in Osaka investigated whether the activity of the autonomic nervous system, which plays a vital role in equilibrium within the human body, changed during the menstrual cycle. The team measured heart rate variability and hormone levels and used questionnaires to evaluate physical, emotional and behavioural symptoms accompanying 62 womens menstrual cycles.

For the parameters Matsumotos team was testing, the control group with little or no menstrual symptoms did not vary during the month. However women suffering from PMS saw results reflecting autonomic and parasympathetic nerve activity decrease significantly in the late luteal phase, which precedes menstruation. Those with the most marked symptoms (known as premenstrual dysphoric disorder) had lower rates of nerve activity than the other groups during the entire menstrual cycle......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

December 18, 2007, 9:58 PM CT

More Accurate Radiation Therapy for Expecting Mothers

Developing fetuses are extremely sensitive to radiation, which poses an impossible dilemma for expecting mothers in need of screening or therapy for cancer. Now scientists from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have developed a new set of modeling tools that could enable safer, more accurate, and more effective radiation treatment and nuclear medicine imaging procedures for pregnant women.

Radiation is a doubled-edged sword: It holds the power to cure cancer, but if used improperly it can also cause serious damage to the human body. The situation is even more critical with pregnant females, as any errant radiation could severely harm and impede the growth of the fetus.

"The human body is a particular challenge to model because of its wide variety of organs, each with a complex and unique shape," said X. George Xu, professor of nuclear and biomedical engineering at Rensselaer, who is leading the project. "Pregnant females are even more difficult to model using current methods, so we took an completely new approach".

Physicians use advanced computer simulations to determine the correct dose of radiation to administer to patients. These computer simulations are based on sophisticated virtual models of the human body. About 30 of these models, sometimes called "phantoms," have been developed worldwide......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

December 13, 2007, 8:58 PM CT

Adapting to pregnancy in human evolution

The human spine evolved differently in males and females in order to alleviate back pressure from the weight of carrying a baby, as per research spearheaded at The University of Texas at Austin.

The lumbar differences are documented for the first time in the Dec. 13 issue of Nature.

The scientists believe the adaptation first appeared at least two million years ago, in the early human ancestor Australopithecus. The male-female difference does not appear in chimpanzees, meaning the evolution to walking upright led to the adaptation.

"Natural selection favored this adaptation because it reduces extra stress on a pregnant female's spine," said University of Texas at Austin anthropologist Liza Shapiro, who conducted the research with graduate student Katherine K. Whitcome, now a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard University. "Without the adaptation, pregnancy would have placed a heavier burden on back muscles, causing considerable pain and fatigue and possibly limiting foraging capacity and the ability to escape from predators."

Harvard anthropologist Daniel Lieberman also contributed to the study, which shows the key differences between males and females appear in the lower back, or lumbar portion of the spine.

Human spines have a unique forward curve in the lumbar region, but the curve extends across more vertebrae in females. That helps offset harmful forces that might occur on the spine when pregnant women lean back or hyperextend their spines to balance the weight of the fetus, Shapiro said. The joints between the vertebrae also are larger in females and angled differently than in males to better support the extra weight......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

December 12, 2007, 9:52 PM CT

Link between women's hormones and mood disorders

Countless movies and TV shows make light of womens so-called moodiness, often jokingly attributing it to their menstrual cycle or, on the other hand, to menopause. In fact, mood disorders are a serious and pervasive health problem, and large-scale population studies have observed women are 1.5 to 3 times more likely to suffer from major depressive disorder than are men.

In a newly published study, womens health experts from the University of Alberta argue there is an urgent need for carefully designed, gender-specific research to better understand the relationship of female sex hormones to mood states and disorders.

The reasons for the gender disparity in rates of depression are not completely understood, says Kathy Hegadoren, the Canada Research Chair in Stress Disorders in Women at the University of Alberta.

But there is growing evidence that estrogens have powerful effects beyond their role in reproductionthat they play a critical role in mood disorders in womenand this opens new avenues for research into the underlying biological mechanisms and therapy of depression.

Estrogen can be used to treat various mood disturbances in womensuch according toimenopausal, postmenopausal and postpartum depressionbut the results of these therapys can be difficult to interpret because scientists are only beginning to recognize the complex interactions among estrogens, serotonin and mood......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

December 11, 2007, 10:38 PM CT

Obesity reduces chances of spontaneous pregnancy

A new study of obesity and the probability of pregnancy has shown that a womans chances of a spontaneous pregnancy steadily decrease the fatter she is.

In the first prospective cohort study to examine the relationship between body mass index (BMI) and pregnancy chances in women who have no obvious reasons for infertility but who have spent a year or more trying unsuccessfully to conceive, the study observed that for every BMI unit above 29 kg/m2, the probability of pregnancy was reduced by four per cent in comparison to women with a BMI between 21-29 kg/m2. Very obese women (BMI 35-40) had a probability of pregnancy that was between 26 and 43 per cent lower than women with a BMI between 21-29.

Dr Jan Willem van der Steeg, the lead author of the study [1], which is published in Europes leading reproductive medicine journal, Human Reproduction, today (Wednesday 12 December) said: This reduction in fertility is comparable to the increment of one year in female age. This study tells us that not only obese women with anovulation have lower chances of conception, but also obese women with a regular cycle. Given the increased prevalence of obesity, this is a worrying finding. The occurence rate of obesity is reckoned to be 12 per cent in women of child-bearing age in Western Europe and 25 per cent in North America......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

December 6, 2007, 2:55 PM CT

Miscarriage Myths Persist

More than a third of women surveyed about their beliefs surrounding miscarriage and birth defects said they thought that a pregnant woman's foul mood could negatively affect her baby.

One in four of these women thought a pregnant woman's exposure to upsetting situations could hurt her unborn child, and one in five believed excessive exercise could cause a woman to miscarry.

Despite those beliefs, relatively few of the women surveyed blamed mothers for a poor pregnancy outcome. Ten percent suggested pregnant women are responsible for their miscarriages, and 3 percent said mothers should be blamed for their babies' birth defects. Women with less formal education were more likely to hold mothers responsible for bad pregnancy outcomes.

The recent Ohio State University study points to the persistence of folklore surrounding pregnancy despite advances in medical interventions and evidence that most miscarriages and defects result from circumstances beyond a woman's control, said study author Jonathan Schaffir, a clinical assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Ohio State.

"The survey shows that a sizable proportion of the population believes maternal thoughts and actions contribute to adverse fetal outcomes - but despite these feelings, few assign responsibility to the mother," Schaffir said. "I think it's kind of amazing that people out there still believe that a pregnant woman seeing something frightening could cause her baby to have a birthmark. That was an 18th-century belief and it's still circulating, even today......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source