Month: July 2012

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Moderate Drinking May Help Older Women’s Bones

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July 11, 2012 — Women who drink alcohol moderately may be doing their bones a favor, new research suggests.

“Moderate alcohol as a component of a healthy lifestyle that includes a balanced diet and physical activity may lower the risk of osteoporosis,” researcher Urszula Iwaniec, PhD, associate professor at Oregon State University, tells WebMD.

The study is small, with only 40 women, she cautions, and the research needs to be repeated in larger groups to see if the findings hold up.

The women in the study averaged 1.4 drinks a day. More than 90% were wine drinkers, Iwaniec tells WebMD.

The study is published in the journal Menopause: The Journal of the North American Menopause Society.

Drinking and Bone Health: Study Details

In the past, other research has found a link between moderate drinking and bone health, as measured by bone density, Iwaniec says. However, it has not been shown definitely that alcohol itself helps the bones or that the benefit is due to other factors.

Her team evaluated healthy women who were in early menopause, not on hormone therapy, and drank only moderately. Their average age was 56 and they had no history of fractures related to osteoporosis.

Bones are constantly remodeling, with old bone being removed and replaced. Estrogen helps keep this bone remodeling process in good balance.

As women go through menopause and estrogen declines, they are at risk of decreased bone density and getting osteoporosis.

The researchers took blood samples at the study start and computed the levels of indicators of bone turnover.

Next, the researchers asked the women to abstain from all alcohol for two weeks and took blood samples again.

After two weeks, the rate of bone removal and replacement increased. “That means that bone turnover is increased, and increased bone turnover is an independent risk factor for fractures [in older women],” Iwaniec says.

Read full article.

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Ubiquitous exposure to two common toxins may diminish IVF success

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New research conducted at the University of Albany indicate that daily, commonly-occurring exposure to two toxic metals – mercury and cadmium – diminish pregnancy rates for women who have undergone in vitro fertilization (IVF). Mercury and cadmium are a constant presence in our air, water and food, at levels considered safe by the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency).

The UAlbany study, led by Michael S. Bloom and Dr. Victor Fujimoto, asserts that even at currently acceptable levels, these two toxins appear to have devastating effects on a significant percentage of clinical and biochemical pregnancies resulting from IVF, a widely utilized form of reproductive technology. Clinical pregnancies are those in which a gestational sac is present; biochemical pregnancies are defined as very early pregnancies diagnosed through a blood test.
While mercury and cadmium are natural elements found within the earth’s environment, levels of both toxic metals have become increasingly elevated over several decades. Attributing to the increased rate of mercury in fish for example, is coal-generated electricity, smelting, and incineration of factory waste products that find their way into our atmosphere, oceans and food chain.

Cadmium is secreted by cigarette smoke, certain types of fertilizers and organ meats such as liver. Waste products discarded from steel and iron factories are also a contributing factor; factory workers may be particularly vulnerable to cadmium exposure.

Read full article.

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Sperm Sequencing Could Help Fight Infertility

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Not all sperm are created equal. The first genetic comparison of individual sperm cells has revealed just how diverse they can be. The technology used to study these tiny cells might also be used to study cancer and allow doctors to screen eggs for in vitro fertilisation.

To investigate how much variety there is in one man’s sperm, Stephen Quake, Jianbin Wang and their colleagues at Stanford University in California compared sperm cells from a single semen sample.

Analysing the genes of individual cells is notoriously tricky, though. “It’s hard to express how difficult single cell experiments are,” says Adam Auton at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. To perform genetic sequencing, you need to amplify, or make lots of copies of the genes within a cell to have enough to analyse. The compounds needed for amplification produce chemical by-products that can make the analysis more difficult.

Read full article.

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The Coming Culture War Over Fertility Technology

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Abortion is currently the most fevered issue in American life, sometimes even surpassing questions of national security and defense, the economy, international terrorism, health care, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, drug usage, and education.

While we know the shorthand linguistic terms employed in the never-ending public argument over abortion — pro-choice, pro-life, personhood, “war against women,” family values, Roe v. Wade, sanctity of life, “safe, legal and rare” — there is an emerging issue with a three-letter abbreviation that may soon dominate our religious, political and cultural debates: assisted reproductive technology, or ART.

Just as abortion has divided our nation, ART could do the same, especially as it becomes better known and more widely practiced in America.

ART offers women — heterosexual, lesbian, single, or married — a method to become pregnant through a complex procedure involving anonymous donor sperm. A recent Religion News Service story indicated that 30,000-60,000 donor-conceived children are born each year in the United States and as the technology improves, that number will grow.

Read full article.

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Three Birthdays One Day of Conception

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For Joyce Mallon, the births of her three children are “a miracle.” Conceived on October, 26, 2007, in a lab by in vitro fertilization, the embryos were implanted into her uterus at two-year intervals, giving her and her husband three children conceived on the same day but born years apart.

“They are my Tripblings!! Triplets via conception, siblings by actual birth,” she wrote in an e-mail sent to CNN. “I believe our story to be an exciting and intriguing one, that NO ONE in the U.S. (to my knowledge), has any claim to.”

Fertility experts say while the Mallon births are exciting, they’re not a first. With better freezing techniques, many babies have been born by doing what the Mallons did: creating a group of embryos, using some to start one pregnancy, and then freezing the rest for future pregnancies. Three babies born this way aren’t triplets, but rather three genetically unique siblings conceived on the same day and born years apart.

Read full article.

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Birth Defects Associated With Dad Jobs

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The occupation of future fathers may be associated to a higher risk of birth defects in their infants. A study published online in Occupational and Environmental Medicine has revealed that the risk of birth defects in their offspring is higher if the father has a certain type of job.

Even though earlier studies have associated certain occupations with a higher birth defect risk in infants, they did not link certain birth defects to certain occupations, they rather placed the defects and occupations under one umbrella in order to achieve a larger sample size, leaving the results somewhat obscure.

The new study results were based on data that included the occupation of around 1,000 fathers from the ongoing US National Birth Defects Prevention Study, which investigates various potential risk factors for major birth defects in a large population sample. 
 
All men became to father to a child between 1997 and 2004 that had one or more birth defects, including defects amongst stillborn, aborted and live born babies. The team also surveyed slightly more than 4,000 parents of children with no congenial abnormalities telephone interviews.

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Birth Control Mandate Survives States Lawsuit

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Seven U.S. states lost their federal court bid to block a government mandate requiring religious organizations to offer their employees insurance coverage for birth-control.

U.S. District Judge Warren K. Urbom in Lincoln, Nebraska, ruled yesterday that Catholic schools, organizations and individuals cited by the states lack standing to challenge the rule.

Even if they did, the judge said, the contraceptive requirements are “not being forced against non-exempted religious organizations, and the rule is currently undergoing a process of amendment to accommodate these organizations,” Urbom wrote. The states that sued “face no direct and immediate harm, and one can only speculate whether the plaintiffs will ever feel any effects from the rule,” he said.

Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning filed the complaint in February, claiming that the requirement violates free exercise of religion and freedom of speech rights. Florida, Michigan, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas joined the case.

Read full article.

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ASRM Exhibits Scientific Research at Capitol Hill Event Celebrating the NICHD

ASRM News and Research

At a Capitol Hill event last night celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, ASRM joined with a group of organizations to showcase cutting-edge biomedical, behavioral, and social science research made possible by NICHD funding. A special thanks to ASRM member Dr. Richard Legro for exhibiting and sharing with congressional staff and others in attendance his latest clinical trials in reproductive medicine aimed at improving outcomes for infertile couples.

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FDA Approves Drug to Reduce Risk of HIV

ASRM News and Research

Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Truvada (emtricitabine/tenofovir disoproxil fumarate), the first drug approved to reduce the risk of HIV infection in uninfected individuals who are at high risk of HIV infection and who may engage in sexual activity with HIV-infected partners. Truvada, taken daily, is to be used for pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) in combination with safer sex practices to reduce the risk of sexually-acquired HIV infection in adults at high risk.