MedicalResearch.com Interview with:Dr. Dong-Xin Wang, MD, PhD
Department of Anesthesiology and Surgical Intensive Care
Peking University First Hospital
Beijing 100034, China
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?Answer: We found that use of epidural analgesia during labor is associated with decreased risk of postpartum depression.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Donna Parker, Sc.D., FAHA
Director of Community Health and Research
Center for Primary Care and Prevention
Memorial Hospital of RI
Pawtucket, RI 02860
MedicalResearch: What are the main findings of the study?Answer: The main findings of the study are that women with a history of one or more miscarriages or one or more stillbirths appear to be at increased risk of cardiovascular disease. We found that the multivariable adjusted odds ratio for coronary heart disease for one or more stillbirths was 1.27 (95 percent CI, 1.07-1.51) compared with no stillbirth; for women with a history of one miscarriage, the odds ratio was 1.19 (95 percent CI, 1.08-1.32); and for women with a history of two or more miscarriages, the odds ratio was 1.18 (95 percent CI, 1.04-1.34) compared with no miscarriage. However, we did not find a significant association of ischemic stroke and pregnancy loss. The association between pregnancy loss and CHD appeared to be independent of hypertension, body mass index, waist-to-hip ratio and white blood cell count.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Jared Baeten, MD PhD
Professor, Departments of Global Health and Medicine
Adjunct Professor, Department of Epidemiology
University of Washington
Seattle, WA 98104
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Baeten: Among heterosexual African couples in which the male was HIV positive and the female was not, receipt of antiretroviral pre-exposure preventive (PrEP) therapy did not result in significant differences in pregnancy incidence, birth outcomes, and infant growth compared to females who received placebo.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with: David Olds, Ph.D.
Professor of Pediatrics and Director
Prevention Research Center for Family and Child Health
University of Colorado Department of Pediatrics
Aurora, Colorado 80045
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Olds: We’ve conducted a randomized controlled trial of a program of nurse home visiting for low-income women with no previous live firths during pregnancy and the first two years of the child’s life, with randomization of participants beginning in 1990. In our most recent follow-up of mothers and children in Memphis, those who received nurse-visitation were less likely to have died over a 2-decade period following the child’s birth than those in the control group. Death among mothers and children in these age ranges in the US is rare and extraordinarily important for what it tells us about the health of the population studied in this trial.
For children, the reduction in death was present for preventable causes, that is, sudden infant death syndrome, injuries, and homicide. All of the child deaths for preventable causes were in the control group, for whom the rate was 1.6%. None of the nurse-visited children died of preventable causes.
The reductions in maternal mortality were found for two nurse-visited groups combined for this report: one received prenatal and newborn visitation and a second received visitation during pregnancy and through child age two. Overall, mothers assigned to the control group were nearly 3 times more likely to die than those assigned to the two nurse-visited conditions. The relative reduction in maternal mortality was particularly pronounced for deaths linked to maternal behaviors -- suicide, drug overdose, injuries, and homicide; for these external causes of death, 1.7% of the mothers in the control group had died, compared to 0.2% of those visited by nurses.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr Anju Joham
PhD student, SPHPM
Endocrinologist, Monash Health
MedicalResearch: What is the background for your study?Dr. Joham: This research led by Professor Helena Teede and Dr Anju Joham, from the School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine at Monash University analysed a large-scale epidemiological study, called the Australian Longitudinal Study of Women’s Health (ALSWH).
Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) is a condition affecting nearly 20% of Australian women. Women with PCOS may experience irregular menstrual cycles, reduced fertility, increased risk of diabetes, high cholesterol and psychological features such as depression and reduced quality of life.
MedicalResearch: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Joham: Approximately 6000 women aged between 25-30 years were monitored for nine years, including nearly 500 women with diagnosed PCOS. Our research found that there is a clear link between PCOS and type 2 diabetes. The incidence and prevalence of type 2 diabetes was three to five times higher in women with PCOS. In analysing the key contributing factors to the increased diabetes risk, we found that having PCOS was in itself a key contributing factor.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:Dr. Ali Abbara
Imperial College London, United Kingdom
Dr. Abbara: What are the main findings of the study?
MedicalResearch: We found that a novel blood test for kisspeptin was able to identify asymptomatic pregnant women who were at increased risk of subsequent miscarriage. Blood kisspeptin performed better than the more commonly measured pregnancy hormone BHCG in identifying women at increased risk of miscarriage. (more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview Invitation Dr. Krista Huybrechts MD PhD
Brigham & Women’s Hospital
Department of Medicine
Division of Pharmacoepidemiology & Pharmacoeconomics
Boston, MA 02120
MedicalResearch: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Huybrechts: In this cohort study including 949,504 pregnant women enrolled in Medicaid, we examined whether the use of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and other antidepressants during the first trimester of pregnancy is associated with increased risks for congenital cardiac defects. In order to control for potential confounding by depression and associated factors, we restricted the cohort to women with a depression diagnosis and used propensity score adjustment to control for depression severity and other potential confounders. We found no substantial increased risk of cardiac malformations attributable to SSRIs. Relative risks for any cardiac defect were 1.25 (95%CI, 1.13-1.38) unadjusted, 1.12 (1.00-1.26) depression-restricted, and 1.06 (0.93-1.22) depression-restricted and fully-adjusted. We found no significant associations between the use of paroxetine and right ventricular outflow tract obstruction (1.07, 0.59-1.93), or the use of sertraline and ventricular septal defects (1.04, 0.76-1.41); two potential associations that had been of particular concern based on previous research findings.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Sergio R. Ojeda, D.V.M.
Division Head and Senior Scientist Division of Neuroscience
Division of Neuroscience, OR National Primate Research Center/Oregon Health and Science University,
Beaverton OR 97006
MedicalResearch: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Ojeda:The study shows that a receptor for two growth factors (brain-derived neurotrophic factor [BDNF] and neurotrophin 4/5 [NT4/5]) that are known to be important for development of the nervous system is also essential for maintaining oocyte integrity and survival in the mammalian ovary. Intriguingly, the full-length form of this receptor (known as NTRK2-FL) is not expressed in oocytes until the time of the first ovulation. At this time, the pre-ovulatory gonadotropin discharge stimulates granulosa cells of ovarian follicles to produce not only more BDNF, but also more of a peptide known as kisspeptin, to induce the formation of NTRK2-FL in oocytes. To date, kisspeptin was known to be only critical for the hypothalamic control of reproduction. To induce NTRK2-FL, BDNF binds to truncated NTRK2 receptors (NTRK2-T1), which are abundant in oocytes throughout prepubertal development. Kisspeptin, on the other hand, does so by activating its receptor KISS1R, also expressed in oocytes. Once present after the first ovulation, NTRK2-FL is able to activate a survival pathway in oocytes following gonadotropin stimulation, presumably at every cycle. In the absence of NTRK2-FL, oocytes die, follicular structure disintegrates and a condition of premature ovarian failure ensues.
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MedicalResearch.com: Interview withRachel Thompson PhD
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
The Dartmouth Center for Health Care Delivery Science
Dartmouth College
MedicalResearch: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Thompson: This study, which surveyed 417 women aged 15-45 years and 188 contraceptive care providers in 2013, found important differences in what matters most to these two groups when it comes to discussing and deciding on a contraceptive method. Women’s most important question when choosing a contraceptive was “Is it safe?” – this was in the top three questions for 42% of women but only 21% of providers. Alternatively, providers’ most important question was “How is it used?”. Information on side effects and how a method actually works to prevent pregnancy was also a higher priority for women than for providers.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Antonio E. Frias, MD
Associate Professor | Division of Maternal Fetal Medicine
Oregon Health & Science University
Director, Diabetes and Pregnancy Program
Assistant Scientist | Oregon National Primate Research Center
Portland, Oregon 97239
MedicalResearch: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Frias: Resveratrol supplementation in pregnant nonhuman primates fed a Western-style diet improved maternal metabolism, restored placental blood flow, reduced placental inflammation and improved lipid deposition in the fetal liver. However, there was an unexpected disruption of fetal pancreatic development that is very concerning.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with : Dr. Francesco Fiorentino
CEO and Lab Director
ROME - ITALY
MedicalResearch: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Fiorentino: This study describes findings from first and second of a three-phase strategy to validate the use of next-generation sequencing (NGS) for comprehensive aneuploidy screening, as a preclinical step toward its routine use in the diagnosis of chromosomal aneuploidy on embryos. The first phase involved a large preclinical validation study on single cells, and demonstrated that the NGS-based 24-aneuploidy screening protocol was accurate and reliable. The results provided 100% consistency for aneuploid embryo call with array-CGH, the highly validated method of aneuploidy screening.
The second phase of the study, instead, focused on the clinical application of the NGS-based protocol for the detection of all chromosomes in embryos. A prospective trial involving analysis of human embryos at the blastocyst stage of development was designed for this purpose, in order to establish similar levels of chromosome-specific NGS copy number assignment concordance compared with 24sure array as those observed in the first phase of the study. Consistency of NGS-based aneuploidy detection was assessed matching the results obtained with array-CGH–based diagnoses,
Embryos obtained from 55 consecutive clinical PGS cycles, blindly assessed in parallel with both NGS and array-CGH techniques, displayed 100% concordance for aneuploid embryo call. Consistency obtained during this investigation was similar to those obtained in the first phase of the study that used NGS to examine single cell samples, demonstrating the reliability of the NGS-based method in detection of chromosome aneuploidy also in embryos at blastocyst stage derived from clinical preimplantation genetic screening (PGS) cycles. The clinical outcomes obtained in this study from preimplantation genetic screening cycles performed with the NGS approach were very encouraging, resulting in a clinical pregnancy rate per embryo transfer of 63.8% (mean age 38.5+2.1 years) and an ongoing implantation rate of 64.0%, values that are comparable with recent results from other comprehensive chromosome screening approaches.
In conclusion, the results achieved in this study demonstrate the reliability of the NGS-based protocol for detection of whole chromosome aneuploidies, mosaicism occurrences and segmental changes in embryos.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Ai Kubo, MPH PhD
Kaiser Permanente Division of Research
2000 Broadway
Oakland, CA 94612
MedicalResearch: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Kubo:The main findings of the study are three folds:
1) The CDC guideline works for the majority of infants in preventing vertical transmission, if the immunizations are done according to the recommended schedule.
2) It takes an organized effort to case-manage each mother-infant pairs in order to achieve almost complete immunization rates and very low transmission rates.
3) Highest risk group was mothers with extremely high viral load and e-antigen positivity. This group of women may benefit from additional therapy to prevent the vertical transmission. However, for others, the risk of transmission is extremely low as long as the infants are immunized according to the guideline.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:Wei Bao MD, PhD
Postdoc fellow, Epidemiology Branch
Division of Intramural Population Health Research
NICHD/National Institutes of Health
Rockville, MD 20852
MedicalResearch: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Wei Bao: This study, to our knowledge, is the first attempt to examine the associations of physical activity and sedentary behaviors with risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) among women with a history of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM), which is a high-risk population of T2DM. The main findings are:
(1) Physical activity is inversely associated with risk of progression from GDM to T2DM. Each 5-metabolic equivalent hours per week increment of total physical activity, which is equivalent to 100 minutes per week of moderate-intensity physical activity or 50 minutes per week of vigorous physical activity, was related to a 9% lower risk of T2DM; this inverse association remained significant after additional adjustment for body mass index (BMI).
(2) An increase in physical activity is associated with a lower risk of progression from gestational diabetes mellitus to T2DM. Compared with women who maintained their total physical activity levels, women who increased their total physical activity levels by 7.5 MET-h/wk or more (equivalent to 150 minutes per week of moderate-intensity physical activityor 75 minutes per week of vigorous physical activity) had a 47% lower risk of T2DM; the association remained significant after additional adjustment for BMI.
(3) Prolonged time spent watching TV, as a common sedentary behavior, is associated with an increased risk of progression from gestational diabetes mellitus to T2DM. Compared with women who watched TV 0 to 5 hours per week, those watched TV 6 to 10, 11 to 20, and 20 or more hours per week had 28%, 41%, and 77%, respectively, higher risk of T2DM. The association was no longer significant after additional adjustment for BMI.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Nathalie E. Holz, MA
Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy
Central Institute of Mental Health, Medical Faculty Mannheim/Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany MedicalResearch: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Holz: Using data from a prospective community sample followed since birth, we investigated the impact of prenatal maternal smoking on lifetime Attention-Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) symptoms and on brain structure and inhibitory control assessed with Magnetic Resonance Imaging in the adult offspring. Those who were prenatally exposed to tobacco not only exhibited more ADHD symptoms, but also showed decreased activity in the inhibitory control network encompassing the inferior frontal gyrus as well as the anterior cingulate cortex. Activity in these regions was inversely related to lifetime ADHD symptoms and novelty seeking, respectively. In addition volume in the inferior frontal gyrus was decreased in these participants.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:Flor M. Munoz, MDDepartment of Pediatrics
Department of Molecular Virology and Microbiology
Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Munoz:
1. Tdap vaccine was safe and well tolerated during pregnancy
2. Women who are pregnant have adequate responses to the Tdap vaccine, similar to those of women who are not pregnant.
3. Antibodies to pertussis are efficiently transferred to the fetus through the placenta so that babies of mothers who were vaccinated during pregnancy had significantly higher concentrations of antibody at birth and up to 2 months of age, when compared to infants of mothers who were vaccinated post-partum.
4. Higher antibody concentrations in the first two months of life are likely to provide protection against pertussis during this period of high vulnerability
5. Infants of mothers who were vaccinated during pregnancy had adequate responses to their routine pertussis vaccines at 2, 4, and 6 months of age, and had expected and adequate responses to their 4th dose of vaccine at 1 year of age. The absolute concentration of antibodies to some of the pertussis antigens might be modestly lower after the primary series of vaccines in some infants of mothers who were vaccinated during pregnancy, but this difference does not persist after the 4th dose.
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Dr. Donald Redelmeier, MD Professor, Full SGS Member
Director, Clinical Epidemiology Unit
Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre
Toronto, ON
MedicalResearch: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Redelmeier: We identified every woman in Ontario, Canada, who gave birth to a newborn baby between 2006 and 2011 and then evaluated each driver for the months before, during, and after pregnancy. This amounted to about half a million women who accounted for almost 8000 serious crashes that sent the driver to hospital. We found that the second trimester of pregnancy led to a 42% increase in the risk of a serious motor vehicle crash. The increased risk included diverse populations, distinct obstetrical cases, different crash characteristics. The risk equated to about twice the population norm but was still below male drivers at this age.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:Jessica A. Grieger (BSc(hons), R Nutr, PhD)
Post-doctoral research fellow
Robinson Research Institute, University of Adelaide
MedicalResearch: What are the main findings of the study?
Dr. Grieger: The study aimed to identify associations between maternal dietary patterns in the 12 months before conception on fetal growth and preterm delivery. We report that a one standard deviation increase in the scores on the high-protein/fruit pattern was associated with decreased likelihood for preterm birth, whereas a one standard deviation increase on the high-fat/sugar/takeaway pattern was associated with increased likelihood for preterm birth as well as shorter gestation and birth length.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr Kate Bramham
Division of Women's Health
King's College London
Women's Health Academic Centre KHP
London, SE1 7ER
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Bramham:This meta-analysis of nearly 800,000 pregnancies from 55 studies has shown that women with chronic hypertension have a significantly increased incidence of pregnancy complications including superimposed pre-eclampsia, preterm delivery, low birth weight infants, perinatal loss and neonatal unit admission.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Professor Khalid Khan
MMEd, MRCOG, MSc, FCPS, MBBS
Women's Health Research Unit | Multi-disciplinary Evidence Synthesis Hub
The Blizard Institute | 58 Turner Street | London | E1 2AB
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?Prof. Khan:The risk of cesarean section was 12% lower among women undergoing induction of labor in comparison to the one that were managed expectantly. The subgroup comparison showed that the effect was significant in term and post-term however not in preterm gestations. Furthermore, induction of labor was associated with 50% and 14% reduction in risk of fetal death and admission to a neonatal intensive care unit, respectively.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:Sneha Sridhar, MPH
Kaiser Permanente, Division of Research
2000 Broadway, 3rd Floor
Oakland, CA 94612
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study? Answer:We found that women whose weight gain during pregnancy exceeded the current Institute of Medicine (IOM) recommendations were 46% more likely to have an overweight or obese child at ages 2-5, compared to women who met the recommendations. The association was stronger among women who were of normal weight before pregnancy. These normal weight women were more likely to have an overweight or obese child if they gained either below or above the IOM recommendations.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Nestor E. Vain M.D.
Professor of Pediatrics, School of Medicine, University of Buenos Aires
Vice-President, FUNDASAMIN (Foundation for Maternal Infant Health), Argentina
Director, Neonatology, Hospital Sanatorio de la Trinidad Palermo and San Isidro,
Buenos Aires
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background of this study?Prof. Vain: Delayed umbilical cord clamping (DCC) is currently recommended by many professional associations. The main reason is that it decreases the incidence of iron deficiency in infancy, a very serious public health problem in developing countries, but also prevalent in the USA and in western Europe. Besides it has other advantages in premature infants such as better adaptation of the cardiovascular system to extra-uterine life. How does Delayed umbilical cord clamping work?. Approximately 30% of the fetal blood volume is in the placenta at the time of delivery. Waiting for a couple of minutes before clamping the cord allows for a large part of that blood volume to return to the infant. (this process is known as placental transfusion)
Despite of these well known facts, and the absence of serious complications, the compliance with the recommendation of delayed umbilical cord clamping is low. Why is that? There may be a variety of reasons but we are certain that one very important one is that the majority of obstetricians and neonatologists believe that to achieve an efficient placental transfusion and to avoid a negative effect from gravity, it is necessary to hold the infant at or below the level of the vagina during those 2 minutes. In that way the procedure is cumbersome and it prolongs unwillingly a separation between the infant and the mother. The believe that the infant needs to be at that low level is based on small studies performed more than 35 years ago.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dagfinn AuneMS
Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics
School of Public Health
Imperial College London
St. Mary's Campus
Norfolk Place, Paddington, London W2 1PG, UK
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?Answer: We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of studies examining the association between maternal body mass index (BMI) and risk of fetal death, stillbirth, neonatal, perinatal and infant death. We found that the risk of all these outcomes increased with greater BMI in a dose-response fashion. For example even within the high end of what is considered the normal BMI range (BMI of 24-25) there was a 10-20% increase in the relative risk, but the strongest relations were seen for those who were obese and morbidly obese with 30-60% and 2-3 fold increases in the relative risk respectively (depending on the outcome examined).
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:Barbara A. Cohn, Ph.D.
Director, Child Health and Development Studies
A Project of the Public Health Institute
Berkeley, CA 94709
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?
Women with irregular menses had a statistically significant 2.4 fold increase in risk of death due to any form ovarian cancer, and a statistically significant 3-fold increase in risk of death due to late stage serous disease. Consistent with these findings, the incidence of late stage disease at diagnosis, and late stage serous cancer was increased about 2-fold in women with irregular menses.
Irregular menses was defined as irregular cycles (variation of 10 days or more) or infrequent cycles (>35 days) or history of annovulatory cycles identified during an in-person interview with women at an average age of 26 years or mentioned in their medical records.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:Enrique F. Schisterman, Ph.D.
Chief and Senior Investigator
Epidemiology Branch, DIPHR
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Rockville, MD 20854
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Schisterman: Our results indicate that aspirin is not effective for reducing the chances of pregnancy loss in most cases. For the total number of women in the study, 13 percent of women who took aspirin and became pregnant subsequently experienced another loss, compared with 12 percent who took the placebo. Ultimately, 58 percent of women taking aspirin and 53 percent of the placebo group got pregnant and later gave birth.
However, additional research is needed to investigate the finding that women who had experienced a single, recent pregnancy loss (before 4 1/2 months of pregnancy and within the past year) had an increased rate of pregnancy and live birth while on aspirin therapy. Among this group, 78 percent of those who took aspirin became pregnant, compared with 66 percent of those who took the placebo. For this subset of women, 62 percent of the aspirin group and 53 percent of the placebo group gave birth.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Hong-Mei Xiao M.D.,Ph.D.
Cognition Section
Professor of Gynecology，Reproductive Medicine
The Institute of Reproduction and Stem Cell Engineering
Xiangya School of Medicine, Central South University
Vice director, Reproduction and Genetics Hospital of CITIC-Xiangya
China, Changsha
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Xiao:The study presents the first cases of human primary infertility due to mutation in a zona pellucida gene. We have identified a homozygous frameshift mutation in ZP1 ( GenBank accession number, KJ489454) resulting in the aberrant ZP1, which affects the formation of zona pellucida. We detected an autosomal-recessive pattern of inherited infertility.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:Dr. Kristy Ward
Department of Reproductive Medicine
UCSD School of Medicine
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of this study?Dr. Ward: As the second leading cause of preventable death, obesity is one of the nation’s most serious public health problems. Over two-thirds of the US population is currently overweight or obese and the prevalence continues to increase. A number of studies have linked obesity with an overall elevated risk of cancer and with many individual cancer types. Among obesity related cancers in women, endometrial cancer is most strongly associated with increasing body mass, with 39% of cases in the US attributable to obesity.
In patients with clinically severe obesity (BMI ≥ 40 kg/m2), bariatric surgery results in rapid weight loss and has greater long-term success when compared to non-surgical weight loss methods. Surgical weight loss procedures have been found to reduce obesity-related comorbidites and improve outcomes in clinically severe obese populations. In addition to improved cardiovascular risk factors and mitigation of physical symptoms, there is increasing evidence that cancer risk is reduced after bariatric surgery.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview withMichael Kimlin
Professor of Cancer Prevention Research
Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation
Queensland University of Technology
Australia
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?Answer: The main findings of this study were that women who where classified as having the highest level of sun exposure in our sample had a significantly larger drop in blood folate levels compared to women with lower sun exposures. This was quite a powerful finding, as all women were supplemented with folate and tested so that so that we knew that each sun exposure group had similar average levels of blood folate at the start of the study. We then measured their sun exposure over a week and took a sample of blood at the end of this week to see how the degree of sun exposure affected folate levels.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:Shamez Ladhani, MRCPCH PhD
Health Protection Services, Immunisation, Hepatitis, and Blood Safety Department, Public Health England, London
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Ladhani: Pregnancy was associated with an increased of serious infection by a bacterium called Haemophilus influenzae which is usually associated with respiratory tract infections. Nearly all the H. influenzae were unencapsulated; that is, they did not have an outer sugar capsule which is often required to make the bacterium more virulent. The encapsulated H. influenzae type b (Hib), for example, was the most common cause of bacterial meningitis in your children prior to routine immunisation. We also found that infection with unencapsulated H. influenzae was associated with poor pregnancy outcomes, including miscarriages, stillbirth and premature birth.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Erica P. Gunderson, PhD, MS, MPH
Senior Research Scientist, Cardiovascular and Metabolic Section
Division of Research, Kaiser Permanente Northern California
Oakland, CA 94612-2304
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Gunderson: The study found that:
- Gestational diabetes is a pregnancy complication that reveals a woman’s greater risk of future heart disease.
- Women who experience gestational diabetes face an increased risk of subclinical atherosclerosis (early heart disease) even if they do not develop type 2 diabetes or the metabolic syndrome years after pregnancy.
- Study participants with a history of gestational diabetes who did not develop diabetes or metabolic syndrome showed a greater carotid artery wall thickness (marker of early atherosclerosis) compared to those who never experienced gestational diabetes. The vessel narrowing also could not be attributed to obesity or other risk factors for heart disease that were measured before pregnancy.
- Weight gain and blood pressure elevations in women with gestational diabetes were responsible for these differences in the artery wall thickness.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:Dr Josefin Vikström
Division of Obstetrics and Gynecology
Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine
Faculty of Health Sciences
Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Vikström: Our study showed that women with a female infertility factor were more than two times more likely to have been born with a low birth weight (less than 2500g) or small for gestational age compared to women where the cause of infertility was unknown and/or male.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr. Dong-Xin Wang, MD, PhD
Department of Anesthesiology and Surgical Intensive Care
Peking University First Hospital
Beijing 100034, China
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?
Answer: We found that use of epidural analgesia during labor is associated with decreased risk of postpartum depression.
(more…)
