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March/April 2007 Issue
• New Ways To Preserve Fertility |
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New Ways To Preserve Fertility By Pierpaolo Basso An improved procedure to freeze a woman's unfertilized eggs for future conception has produced about 160 births in the past year, according to Pasquale Patrizio, M.D, professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences. The technique, called oocyte cryopreservation (OC), gives hope to women, including those newly diagnosed with cancer who want to preserve their fertility during chemotherapy or radiation. While OC had been attempted for about fifteen years, it had not met with much success, producing about two babies for every 100 frozen eggs - in part because of the damage done to eggs in the freezing process. The new OC process takes unfertilized eggs, bathes them in protective solutions, and then cools them slowly to sub-zero temperatures. The freezing stops all biological activity in the tissues, including reactions that would lead to cell death. When restored and re-implanted in patients, the success rate is eight to nine babies per 100, a big advance over the earlier methods. Because the eggs are not fertilized before freezing, the OC appeals to women who are diagnosed with cancer at a reproductive age, those who oppose embryo-freezing on ethical grounds and those who wish to postpone childbearing for personal economic reasons but wish to use a future partner's sperm. Freezing and re-implanting ovarian tissues, another possible option, have as yet met with limited success. The changes to OC were devised by Tecnobios Procreazione, a private fertility clinic in Bologna Italy, in response to a 2004 Italian law that bans the freezing of human embryos for IVF and allows only three eggs per patient to be fertilized by donor sperm. OC, since it involves only unfertilized eggs, is permitted. While the OC process works, much remains to understand why it does. Yale scientists are currently performing molecular analyses of frozen oocytes to understand the basic biology of OC. The procedure, considered experimental work by The American Society for Reproductive Medicine, has been certified by the Institutional Review Board (IRB), which is formally designated to review and monitor biomedical and behavioral research and ethical issues involving human subjects. The Center is also engaged in early experimental work involving men who have undergone chemotherapy. Statistics show that about 20 percent of men are at risk or sterility following the cancer, a statistic that researchers hope to remedy by using cryopreservation. For more see: www.Yale.edu |
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March/April 2007 
Health Briefs: Cholesterol By Ilene Raymond Rush Don't Stake Your Hopes on Garlic When it comes to lowering cholesterol levels, garlic stinks, according to a new study from the Stanford University School of Medicine. Despite decades of conflicting research on the pungent herb's ability to improve heart health, researchers say their study provides the most rigorous evidence to date that consuming garlic on a daily basis-in the form of either raw garlic or two of the most popular garlic supplements-does not lower LDL cholesterol levels among adults with moderately high cholesterol levels. "It just doesn't work," said senior author Christopher Gardner, PhD, assistant professor of medicine at the Stanford Prevention Research Center. "There's no shortcut. You achieve good health through eating healthy food. There isn't a pill or an herb you can take to counteract an unhealthy diet." Gardner said the study, published in the Feb. 26 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine, is the first independent, long-term, head-to-head assessment of raw garlic and garlic supplements. "If garlic was going to work, in one form or another, then it would have worked in our study," Gardner said. "The lack of effect was compelling and clear. We took cholesterol measurements every month for six months and the numbers just didn't move. There was no effect with any of the three products, even though fairly high doses were used." Source: Stanford University Press Release Growth Spurts Yield Lower Readings Tall toddlers and rapidly growing teens are likely to find themselves with lower cholesterol, particularly the "bad" type, in later life, suggests research in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. Conversely, piling on the pounds after the age of 15 boosted cholesterol levels, the study showed. The findings are based on just fewer than 3000 participants of a Medical Research Council long-term study, tracking a representative sample of 5362 people born in one week of March in 1946. Heights and weights were measured at the ages of 2, 4, 7, 15, 36 and 53. When participants reached the age of 53, blood samples were taken to measure cholesterol levels. When all the figures were analyzed, the results showed that the faster height was gained before the age of 2, and after the age of 15, the lower was the cholesterol level at the age of 53. Growth in leg length, rather than trunk length, was more strongly associated with lower cholesterol levels. Higher body fat levels at the ages of 36 and 53, and more rapid weight gain between the ages of 15 and 53, were associated with higher total cholesterol levels, including higher levels of the harmful low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol. The researchers found that the effects of the growth spurts in either height or girth could not be explained by weight at birth, which is a well-known factor in adult health, or lifetime socioeconomic status. Click here to view the paper in full: Combined Statins To the Rescue Research from the Methodist DeBakey Heart Center in Houston shows that a combination statin therapy lowers bad cholesterol by an unprecedented 70 percent, and has the added benefit of reducing life-threatening inflammation that can lead to heart disease and stroke. Results published in the American Journal of Cardiology, also show 46 percent reduction in C-reactive protein (CRP), a marker for inflammation, in patients treated with 40 mg of rosuvastatin and 10 mg ezetimibe. "A seventy percent drop is the largest reduction in bad cholesterol ever seen in a statin clinical trial. Cardiologists have long recognized the challenge in helping high-risk patients reach their target cholesterol levels, to ultimately prevent heart attack and stroke," said Dr. Christie Ballantyne, cardiologist at the Methodist DeBakey Heart Center and principal investigator for the study. "These results offer hope for these patients." In addition, inflammation can lead to serious complications such as heart attack and stroke, and high levels of CRP can predict these risks years before they actually occur, Ballantyne said. Physicians have long relied on blood cholesterol as a key indicator of cardiovascular risk, but recent research suggests that high-risk patients who achieved a low CRP level combined with a low LDL-c level had the fewest cardiovascular events. Source: www.NewsWise.com |
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© Copyright 2007, Sbarro Health Research Organization, All Rights Reserved |