Postpartum drug could be ‘game changer’ for women

image credit: theconversation.com

Brexanolone injection works differently than existing antidepressant medications, and if approved by the US Food and Drug Administration later this year, will be the first new class of antidepressants in decades, and the first drug specifically indicated for PPD.

“With current antidepressant SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) it could take four to six weeks to get a treatment response. In the brexanolone trials, we saw patients starting to feel better within days,” says Samantha Meltzer-Brody, director of the perinatal psychiatry program at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine and the trial’s academic principal investigator.

Time is essential

Time is especially crucial for new mothers experiencing postpartum depression because the weeks and months following birth are a critical period for mother-infant bonding, says coauthor David Rubinow, chair of the psychiatry department.

Common symptoms of PPD—a mood disorder in women that fluctuations in reproductive hormones can trigger—include low mood, feeling overwhelmed, anxious and ruminating thoughts, potential withdrawal from the baby and her family, and suicidal thoughts in the most severe cases.

Device to corral viable sperm may speed IVF process

image credit: edgylabs.com

For couples hoping for a baby via in vitro fertilization, chances have improved. A process that once took hours now takes minutes: Cornell University scientists have created a microfluidic device that quickly corrals strong and speedy sperm viable for fertilization.

Conventional methods to separate vigorous, motile sperm is tedious and may take up to several hours to perform. "Trying to find the highly motile sperm has been difficult to do, but this improves the chances of insemination," said chemist Alireza Abbaspourrad, Cornell's Yongkeun Joh Assistant Professor of Food Chemistry and Ingredient Technology.

Taking advantage of sperm's ability to go against the flow—a process called rheotaxis—Abbaspourrad, Soon Hon Cheong, Ph.D., assistant professor at Cornell's College of Veterinary Medicine, and Meisam Zaferani, a doctoral student in the field of chemistry, have devised a microfluidic channel through which the sperm swim. They added a microscopic corral—shaped like a "C—that features a retaining wall that attracts the strongest swimmers.

Does mediterranean diet help women receiving IVF to achieve successful pregnancies?

via deccanchronicle.com

"New research has found that women who follow a "Mediterranean" diet in the six months before assisted reproductive treatment have a significantly better chance of becoming pregnant and giving birth to a live baby than women who did not.

Researchers asked women about their diet before they underwent in vitro fertilisation (IVF) treatment and found that those who ate more fresh vegetables, fruit, whole grains, legumes, fish and olive oil, and less red meat, had a 65-68% greater likelihood of achieving a successful pregnancy and birth compared to women with the lowest adherence to the Mediterranean-style diet.

The study, which is published today (Tuesday) in Human Reproduction, focused on dietary patterns rather than individual nutrients, foods or food groups. It assessed the diet of 244 women via a food frequency questionnaire when they enrolled at an Assisted Conception Unity in Athens, Greece, for their first IVF treatment. The questionnaire asked them about how often they ate certain groups of food in the preceding six months; the results gave the women a MedDiet Score, which ranged from 0-55 with higher scores indicating greater adherence to the Mediterranean diet. The women were aged between 22-41 and were non-obese (body mass index of less than 30 kg/m2).

Researchers, led by Associate Professor Nikos Yiannakouris at the Department of Nutrition and Dietetics at Harokopio University of Athens, divided the women into three groups depending on their MedDiet Score: the first group had scores between 18 to 30, the second scored between 31-35 and the third group scored between 36 to 47.

They found that compared to the 86 women in the highest scoring group, the 79 women in the lowest scoring group had significantly lower rates of pregnancies (29% versus 50%) and live births (26.6% versus 48.8%). When the researchers looked at women younger than 35 years old, they found that every five-point improvement in the MedDiet Score was linked with an approximately 2.7 times higher likelihood of achieving a successful pregnancy and live birth..."

Learn more:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/01/180129223846.htm

Study disputes link between uterine fibroids and miscarriage risk

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"A 10-year study, led by Vanderbilt University Medical Center professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology Katherine Hartmann, M.D., Ph.D., disrupts conventional wisdom that uterine fibroids cause miscarriages.

The results of study appear June 7, 2017 in the American Journal of Epidemiology.

"We find women with fibroids are not at increased risk of miscarriage," said Hartmann. "Women with fibroids had identical risk of miscarriage as women without fibroids when taking into account other risks for pregnancy loss. We were stunned."

Fibroids are common benign uterine masses that can distort the external and internal contour of the uterus. Changes in uterine architecture and other local effects of fibroids have been implicated in prior research as a risk factor for miscarriage, said Hartmann.

"This is great news for women. Our results challenge the existing paradigm and have potential to reduce unnecessary surgical intervention," she said.

The study, "Prospective Cohort Study of Uterine Fibroids and Miscarriage Risk," included women from eight urban and suburban communities in three states to achieve a racially diverse cohort of women planning pregnancies or in the early weeks of pregnancy. Each woman in the Right from the Start study had a standardized ultrasound for fibroids to determine presence, number, size and location in the uterus..."

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https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/06/170607163025.htm

New method to grow womb lining and mimic menstrual cycle in the laboratory dish

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"Scientists at KU Leuven (University of Leuven), Belgium, have succeeded in growing three-dimensional cultures of the endometrium, the uterus' inner lining, in a dish. These so-called endometrial organoids promise to shed light onto the processes that occur during the monthly menstrual cycle and open up the possibility of studying diseases of the uterus, such as endometrial atrophy (thinning of the lining) or cancer, in a lab culture system.

Every month, the tissue that lines a woman's womb first thickens, then matures and finally -- unless the woman becomes pregnant -- degenerates in a cycle that is regulated by changing levels of the female hormones oestrogen and progesterone. This process is disrupted in diseases such as endometrial cancer, with serious consequences for the patient's fertility. However, we understand little about how these dynamic changes occur or about what goes wrong in disease, mainly because we lack good culture models for endometrial tissue. 

In a new study published in the journal Development, the KU Leuven researchers show that individual or small groups of cells from uterus biopsies can be made to grow into three-dimensional structures that show many of the features of the womb lining, including the ability to produce mucus. Importantly, these endometrial organoids respond to the female hormones in a way similar to the endometrium in the body, allowing scientists to mimic the menstrual cycle in a dish..."

Learn more: 

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/04/170425092328.htm

Obscure virus found in women with unexplained infertility

via wikipedia

Source: HHV-6 Foundation | Summary: The little-known member of the human herpesvirus family called HHV-6A infects the lining of the uterus in 43 percent of women with unexplained infertility but cannot be found in that of fertile women, researchers have discovered. The study also reported that the infection is exacerbated by hormone estradiol. Estradiol fluctuates with the menstrual cycle. High levels may trigger an active infection localized in the uterus.

"A new study has found that the little-known member of the human herpesvirus family called HHV-6A infects the lining of the uterus in 43% of women with unexplained infertility but cannot be found in uterine lining of fertile women. The study was conducted by investigators at the University of Ferrara, Italy.

The study also found that the response of the immune system to the virus may contribute to making the uterus less hospitable to a fertilized egg. The virus seems to activate immune cells called natural killer cells in the uterus, and lead those cells to produce chemicals called cytokines. Cytokines are tools the immune system uses to orchestrate an attack on a foreign invader, like a virus. However, the activated immune system cells and abnormal levels of certain cytokines may make it harder for a fertilized egg to lodge in the uterus, and grow into a baby.

Infertility affects approximately 6% of 15-44 year old women or 1.5 million women in the US, according to the CDC. Approximately 25% of female infertility cases are unexplained, leaving women with few options other than expensive fertility treatments. "This is a surprising and potentially important discovery," said Anthony Komaroff, a professor at Harvard Medical School who has studied HHV-6. "If confirmed, the finding may lead to treatments that improve the outcome for a large subset of infertile women."

Little is known about HHV-6A, which was discovered in 1986 and is one of nine human herpesviruses. Others include Epstein Barr virus, varicella-zoster virus, cytomegalovirus, and herpes simplex types 1 and 2. Since HHV-6A is typically not detectable in the blood or saliva, its true prevalence is unknown. A closely related virus, HHV6-B, is acquired by nearly 100% of the population in early childhood and is spread through exposure to saliva..."

Learn more:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/07/160707100736.htm

Three in four women starting fertility treatment will have a baby within five years

Source: European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology | Summary: Three in four women starting fertility treatment will have a baby within five years, whether as a result of the treatment or following natural conception. The figures emerged from a large cohort study analysing the birth records of almost 20,000 women having fertility treatment in Denmark between 2007 and 2010. The majority of these women (57%) had their baby as a result of the treatment, but a significant proportion (14%) conceived spontaneously without treatment. More than half (57%) gave birth within two years.

"Three in four women starting fertility treatment will have a baby within five years, whether as a result of the treatment or following natural conception. The figures emerged from a large cohort study analysing the birth records of almost 20,000 women having fertility treatment in Denmark between 2007 and 2010. The majority of these women (57%) had their baby as a result of the treatment, but a significant proportion (14%) conceived spontaneously without treatment. More than half (57%) gave birth within two years.

Denmark is one of the few countries in the world where such a study can be done, with full registry records linking all fertility treatments (including intrauterine insemination) with all live births, and thus providing results sufficiently robust for real-life prognosis. Study presenter in Helsinki, Dr Sara Malchau of Copenhagen University Hospital, Hvidovre, Denmark, said that "we are now able to provide couples with a reliable, comprehensible, age-stratified long-term prognosis at start of treatment."

A total of 19,884 women were tracked in this analysis, with follow-up checked for live births at two, three and five years. Results showed that after two years 57% of women had had a baby, 46% of whom conceived by IVF when IVF was the first fertility treatment. However, 34% of the total delivered after intrauterine insemination when IUI was the first fertility treatment. 

Although total birth rates did increase cumulatively over the five year study period -- from 65% after three years to 71% after five years -- these rates did not increase following IUI when treatment was extended beyond two years (when most patients had switched to IVF). Moreover, 16.6% of women starting treatments with IUI had had a baby after five years not after the treatment but after spontaneous conception..."

Learn more:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/07/160704082702.htm

Study unveils novel crosstalk mechanism between mitochondrial translation and cytoplasmic translation

Credit: Image by QIN Yan's Group

Source: Chinese Academy of Sciences Headquarters | Summary: By using a systemic mtEF4 gene knockout mouse model, researchers have found that mtEF4 knockout damages the oxidative phosphorylation function in germ cells of male mice, thus causing male sterility.

"Protein is the fundamental substance of life. The genetic code directing protein synthesis is stored in DNA. When a cell is instructed, the code information transfers from DNA to mRNA. Then, information on mRNA is further transferred to protein.

There are two sets of protein translation systems in mammalian cells -- the cytoplasmic translation system and the mitochondrial translation system -- both of which are composed of ribosome, tRNAs and translation factors. The translation system translates mRNA into biologically competent protein according to the information on mRNA. However, the coordination mechanism between the cytoplasmic translation system and the mitochondrial translation system has been a mystery.

A research article entitled "Mammalian Elongation Factor 4 Regulates Mitochondrial Translation Essential for Spermatogenesis" was published online in the journal Nature Structural & Molecular Biology on April 11, 2016. It describes the crosstalk mechanism between mitochondrial translation and cytoplasmic translation..."

Read more here:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/04/160414095410.htm