Month: October 2012

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Freezing Eggs To Make Babies Later Moves Toward Mainstream

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Doctors who specialize in treating infertility are making a big change in their position on a controversial practice. The American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) has concluded that freezing women’s eggs to treat infertility should no longer be considered “experimental.”

The group plans to officially announce the change on Monday.

More and more women are using frozen eggs to try to have babies. Some older women use frozen eggs donated by younger women. Some younger women freeze their own eggs while they finish school, focus on their jobs or keep looking for the right guy.

That’s why Jennifer Anderson did it last year.

“I really wanted to have the traditional experience of falling in love and getting married, and then having children. But I know every person’s life path is different, and it hadn’t worked out for me yet to fall in love and get married,” says Anderson, 40, a consultant who lives in Arlington, Va.

So Anderson went to the Shady Grove Fertility clinic in Rockville, Md., to freeze some of her eggs. Read full article.

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Are Doctors Too Wary of Drug Companies?

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Not long ago, I asked a colleague for advice on a patient. He offered up a couple of treatment options, then stopped to show me a new medical app on his electronic tablet. With a few swipes of his finger, he summoned a compilation of research articles, synopses and even entire textbooks that, printed and bound, would have filled shelves in a library.

“But do you know what the best part is?” he asked with a twinkle in his eye. I thought of the exhaustive reference material and the seemingly endless scroll of diagnoses that were all so easy to access on the small screen balanced on his knees.

“The best part is that none of this is sponsored by Pharma!” he said with a broad smile. “There’s no bias.” Read full article.

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Infertility: How Can the Ovulation Function Be Restored?

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One of the most frequent is the existence of tumours that induce an over-secretion of this hormone. These women present with chronic infertility due to anovulation. Thanks to the work of the Inserm researchers from unit 693 “Steroid receptors: endocrinian and metabolic physiopathology”, the intimate mechanism of the hyperprolactinaemia alterations affecting reproduction in mice has been discovered.

This work has been published in the journal JCI.

Hyperprolactinaemia is a major cause of anovulation and is responsible for menstruation disorders and infertility. However, not much was know in detail of the mechanisms that cause this pathology. All that was known was that an increase in prolactin in women disturbed one of the most important hormones affecting reproduction and fertility: GnRH .

Up until now, we had been unable to understand this inhibition of prolactin in the GnRH neurons, because most of these neurons did not express the prolactin receptor.

So the researchers put forward another hypothesis: what if it was due to the indirect action of other molecules? Read full article.

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New Contraceptive Methods Change Birth Control Patterns

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12:11AM EDT October 18. 2012 – The birth control pill and sterilization are still the most common forms of contraception, but new federal data released Thursday show that long-acting methods are gaining ground while condom use for birth control is declining.

The report from the National Center for Health Statistics is based on data from a national sample of 12,279 women ages 15-44 in 2006–2010 compared with a sample of 10,847 women those ages in 1995. Findings show that sterilization and the pill were used by either 27% or 28% of women in both sets of data, (28% in 1995 and 27% in 2006-10 for sterilization and 27% in 1995 and 28% in 2006-10 for the pill), but condoms as the most effective method of birth control declined from 20% to 16%. That decline was offset by a 75% increase in the use of other hormonal methods such as the patch or ring (from 4% to 7%) and a sevenfold increase (0.8% to 5.6%) in the intrauterine device (IUD). Such methods are among those deemed “long-acting” since they do not require daily or weekly attention. Read full article.

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Lawsuit: Malfunctioning Tanks Destroyed Sperm

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A man is suing Northwestern Memorial Hospitaland Northwestern Medical Faculty after he claims the hospital’s cryopreservation tanks malfunctioned, thawing and irreversibly damaging sperm he had stored at the facility.

According to the lawsuit, which was filed Monday in Cook County Circuit Court, the loss of his frozen semen now means the man can no longer conceive a biological child.

The man, who remains anonymous in the lawsuit under the ficticious name “John Anonymous,” supplied semen in “good condition” to Northwestern Memorial for safekeeping in 2008 and paid regular storage fees. Read full article.

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Women With Learning Disabilities Left Out of Contraception Decisions – UK

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Women with learning disabilities are frequently left out of decisions concerning contraception, and often use contraceptives despite not being sexually active, show the results of a UK survey.

Just over a third of women included in the survey had been assessed under the UK Mental Capacity Act 2005 regarding contraception decisions, indicating that the Act’s strictures are not being implemented in full, say the researchers.

The findings also reveal that the most common form of contraception used in this population is the contraceptive implant, which must be reviewed regularly among women who may not be able to communicate their symptoms easily in the case of possible side effects, suggests the team. Read full article.

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Menopause Does Not Result in Weight Gain; It Increases Belly Fat

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Menopause does not result in weight gain among women, however, hormonal adjustments are linked to a difference in fat distribution, which increases belly fat, according to a recent study that has been released by the International Menopause Society in light of the upcoming World Menopause Day on October 18th.

The new trial, published in Climacteric, is a comprehensive, scientifically based report on weight gain when a woman reaches menopause. Read full article.

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Contraceptive Economics

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Americans passionately disagree about both the biology and the morality of contraception. Even many who skillfully practice what Thomas Robert Malthus termed the “improper arts” consider it a personal and, ideally, completely private choice.

But private choices are constrained by public policies. Both behavioral economics and recent empirical research help explain why access to long-acting, reliable, safe and reversible methods of contraception should be considered a public health priority. Read full article.

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Georgia Woman Angie Stockton Gives Birth to her own Grandson

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Athens – A Georgia woman Angie Stockton, 45, has given birth to her own grandson after she agreed to act as a “gestational carrier” for her daughter Krista Saxon, who was unable to carry her baby through pregnancy.

The baby, Tucker Landry Saxon, was born on Saturday weighing seven pounds, 12 ounces. He became the fourth baby to be born to his grandmother in the U.S. and the first in the state of Georgia. According to Online Athens, Stockton gave birth to Tucker Landry Saxon at Athens Regional Medical Center. Read full article.