One of the most significant impairments of the quality of life after a chemotherapy is infertility. Researchers have now identified the mechanism of chemotherapy-induced infertility in females. Many chemotherapeutics act by damaging the DNA. Since cancer cells divide more often than most normal cells, they react more sensitive to DNA damaging agents. One exception are oocytes. To prevent birth defects they initiate a cellular death program if DNA damage is detected. This process, called apoptosis, is triggered in oocytes by the protein p63. Oocytes contain a high concentration of an oocyte-specific isoform of p63 which plays a key role as a quality control factor in causing infertility. In c
Many moms-to-be know that their health even before they become pregnant -- known as pre-conception health -- can affect the health of their babies. Now, research is continuing to show that the pre-conception health of fathers also can influence a pregnancy and the baby. Three papers published Monday in the journal The Lancet detail how the health of both women and men, before they even conceive a child, can have profound impacts on the health of their offspring -- such as birth weight and brain development. "This is a really important series, and it is important because it helps further re-establish the importance of pre-conception care as a legitimate direction for improving birth outcomes
Our emotional state in a given moment may influence what we see, according to findings published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. In two experiments, researchers found that participants saw a neutral face as smiling more when it was paired with an unseen positive image. The research shows that humans are active perceivers, say psychological scientist Erika Siegel of the University of California, San Francisco and her coauthors. "We do not passively detect information in the world and then react to it -- we construct perceptions of the world as the architects of our own experience. Our affective feelings are a critical determinant of the experi
A baby has been born in China to a surrogate mother four years after his parents died in a car crash, Chinese media reported. The couple, who died in 2013, had frozen several embryos hoping to have a child through IVF. After the accident, their parents fought a protracted legal battle to be allowed to use the embryos. The boy was born in December to a surrogate from Laos and The Beijing News first reported the case this week. The newspaper explained how the lack of precedent for a case of this kind had forced the deceased couple's parents through a legal minefield before the surrogacy could proceed. No precedent At the time of the accident, the embryos were stored safely in a Nanjing hospita
Working-age Americans in 21 states faced a higher probability of premature death from 1990 to 2016, according to the most extensive state-by-state US health study ever conducted. The likelihood of early death for men and women age 20 to 55 is highest in West Virginia, Mississippi, and Alabama. In contrast, same-age residents of Minnesota, California, New York, and several northeastern states have a lower probability of premature mortality. "We are seeing dangerous disparities among states," said Dr. Christopher Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington, whose organization coordinated the study. "Unless and until leaders of our
