Author: brigitte

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Inheritance of Mitochondrial Disease Determined When Mother is an Embryo

brigitte

(Medical Xpress)—The risk of a child to inherit mitochondrial diseases – i. e. malfunction in what is usually referred to as the power plants of the cell – is largely decided when the future mother herself is still an embryo. This according to a novel study by scientists at Karolinska Institutet and the Max Planck Institute in Germany, which is published in the journal Nature Genetics.

Mitochondria are small structures within almost every cell in the body, responsible mainly for energy production and fat metabolism. Their function is very important, and they contain their own genome, called mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). The mitochondrial genome is inherited via the mother, where hundreds of thousands of mtDNA copies are packed in the female germ cell. Read full article.

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US Scientists Aim to Make Sperm from Stem Cells

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US researchers say they will redouble their efforts to create human sperm from stem cells following the success of a Japanese study involving mice. A Kyoto University team used mice stem cells to create eggs, which were fertilised to produce baby mice.

Dr Renee Pera, of Stanford University in California, aims to create human sperm to use for reproduction within two years, and eggs within five years. Read full article.

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Healthy Diet Makes Better Sperm

brigitte
Tuesday Oct 9, 2012 (foodconsumer.org) — Eating a healthy diet improves the mobility of sperm in young men, according to a study recently released in Human Reproduction.

A.J. Gaskins at Department of Nutrition, Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, MA and colleagues conducted the study and found men in the highest quartile of intake of a Prudent diet had 11.3 percent higher percentage of progressively motile sperm, compared with men in the lowest quartile. Read full article.
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Hormone Therapy Safe in Early Menopause

brigitte

Researchers in Denmark have become the first to offer statistical proof that hormone therapy is not only safe for menopausal women who begin it early — it actually reduces their risk of mortality, heart attack and heart failure.

The 16-year randomized study of about a thousand women offers new proof that the “timing hypothesis,” which suggests that hormone therapy protects women from heart disease if they start it soon after their last menstrual period, is correct. Researchers also saw no difference in breast cancer risk between those who were assigned the hormone therapy and those who were not. Read full article. 

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Researchers Re-Create Eggs to Treat Infertility

brigitte

Researchers working with laboratory rats have developed a technique that could someday help infertile women who lack usable eggs because of a hormone imbalance to conceive with new eggs created from their own ovaries.

Many women are unable to conceive because of a condition known as polycystic ovary syndrome, in which the ovaries fail to secrete enough hormones to stimulate egg production.  Injury to the ovaries caused by radiation or surgery also can interfere with a woman’s ability to produce enough viable eggs, or oocytes, to achieve pregnancy. Read full article.

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Reducing Sperm’s Swimming Ability Could be Key to Male Contraceptive Pill

brigitte

Sydney: Australian researchers may have come closer to developing a male contraceptive pill.

They have discovered a way to cut off the fuel supply to the “motor” that drives human sperm, greatly reducing their swimming ability and opening a new avenue to developing a male pill.

The finding also throws new light on the little-understood reasons for infertility in men, the Sydney Morning Herald reported. Read full article.

 

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Nobel Prize For Medicine Awarded to Gurdon, Yamanaka for Stem Cell Discoveries

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British scientist John Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka of Japan shared the 2012 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine Monday for experiments separated by almost 50 years that provide deep insight into how animals develop and offer hope for a new era of personalized medicine.

“Their findings have revolutionized our understanding of how cells and organisms develop,” the Nobel committee said in the prize announcement. Read full article.

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Orange City Mother Beats Infertility With Weight Loss

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ORANGE CITY— When it came to having a baby, Holly Hancock wasn’t having the same success as her family and friends.

Hancock, 33, had struggled with weight her entire life, and by her early 30s she reached 257 pounds. After several failed attempts to conceive, Hancock learned that she had polycystic ovary syndrome, a condition that affects a woman’s fertility and hormones. Many women who have weight issues struggle with PCOS, which causes a hormone imbalance that can make it difficult to lose weight. Read full article.

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Hysterectomy with Ovary Removal Tied to Weight Gain

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Women who have their ovaries and uterus removed – to treat fibroids, for example – tend to gain more weight in the years afterward than those who only have their uterus taken out or don’t have surgery at all, a new study hints.

The findings suggest that surgery to remove the uterus, called a hysterectomy, doesn’t have much effect on weight on its own – contrary to what many women may believe, according to Patricia Moorman, a women’s health researcher at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina. Read full article.

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Hormone Therapy in Early Menopause May Benefit Some Women: Study

brigitte

WEDNESDAY, Oct. 3 (HealthDay News) — New research suggests that hormone replacement therapy, used to relieve hot flashes and other symptoms of menopause, might be safe for younger menopausal women when taken in smaller doses for short periods of time.

Women have shied away from this type of therapy since the landmark Women’s Health Initiative study found elevated risks of breast cancer, heart disease and other health problems among women taking estrogen plus progestin, a synthetic form of progesterone. That study was halted early because of the results, published in 2002. Read full article.