Exercise can help expectant moms in mind as well as body. A new study suggests that women who stay active and are more positive about their changing shapes might protect themselves from depression both during and after pregnancy.
"Our study supports the psychological benefits of exercise to improve body image and lessen depressive symptoms," said lead study author Danielle Symons Downs, Ph.D., associate professor of kinesiology and obstetrics and gynecology at Penn State University.
Downs and colleagues surveyed 230 Pennsylvania women throughout pregnancy and the postpartum period about their symptoms of depression, exercise habits and feelings about weight, appearance and other aspects of body image. Their findings appear in the August issue of the journal Annals of Behavioral Medicine.
As expected and consistent with previous research, women who experienced depressive symptoms early in pregnancy tended to report later pregnancy and postpartum depression, the authors found.
What is new, though, are the findings about the role of body image and exercise behavior in relation to pregnancy and postpartum depressive symptoms. Women who experienced higher levels of depression symptoms also reported less satisfaction with their appearance throughout the trimesters of pregnancy.
"If someone is depressed and not very happy with how their body looks, especially with regard to the physical changes that occur during pregnancy, it can influence depression later on," Downs said.
Women who reported more depressive symptoms during the first trimester tended to engage in less exercise behavior in early pregnancy. In addition, women who exercised more prior to their pregnancy had greater body satisfaction during the second and third trimesters and less depressive symptoms in the second trimester, which suggests that avid pre-pregnancy exercise might protect women from negative depressive symptoms and body dissatisfaction during mid-to-late pregnancy, Downs said.
"There is no question that pregnant women, in consultation with their health care providers, should try to maintain a regular and moderate exercise regimen," said Michael O'Hara, Ph.D., professor of psychology at the University of Iowa.
However, O'Hara said that the study design especially the classification of exercise frequency and intensity and the arbitrary cut-offs used to classify women "did not give a strong endorsement for the protective effects of exercise during pregnancy, at least with regard to depression."
Beginners should take it easy when exercising, he advises: Women could keep up with what they were doing beforehand physically, but they should not go all-out during pregnancy if they were sedentary before.
"There is increasing evidence that anxiety and stress during pregnancy are bad for the mother and for the fetus. The take-home message is that pregnancy is a time when women need to be given permission to slow down their pace and focus on taking care of themselves with good nutrition, moderate exercise and plenty of rest and relaxation when possible," O'Hara said.
The American College of Sports Medicine recommends that healthy pregnant women without obstetric complications engage in 30 minutes of moderate exercise most, if not all, days of the week.
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Annals of Behavioral Medicine is the official peer-reviewed publication of The Society of Behavioral Medicine. For information about the journal, contact Alan J. Christensen, Ph.D., at (319) 335-3396. Visit the Society of Behavioral Medicine at springer/public+health/journal/12160.
Downs DS, DiNallo JM, Kirner TL. Determinants of pregnancy and postpartum depression: Prospective influences of depressive symptoms, body image satisfaction, and exercise behavior. Annals of Behavioral Medicine 36(1), 2008
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суббота, 26 ноября 2011 г.
суббота, 19 ноября 2011 г.
Senate Confirms Hamilton To Federal Appeals Court
The Senate on Thursday voted 59-39 to confirm U.S. District Court Judge David Hamilton to the Chicago-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, the New York Times reports. Hamilton's home-state senator, Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), was the only Republican to vote for his confirmation.
Hamilton was President Obama's first judicial nominee, announced March 19, but Republicans have opposed the nomination (Phillips, New York Times, 11/20). On Tuesday, the Senate voted 70-29 to invoke cloture and end debate on Hamilton's nomination, setting up a confirmation vote.
CQ Today reports that Hamilton's confirmation is significant because it shows that the Senate will be able to confirm Obama's judicial nominees if Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) elects to invoke cloture -- as long as the Democratic caucus remains united. The Republican caucus's inability to block Hamilton -- "the most controversial of the pending judicial nominees" -- shows that "it is unlikely that the GOP can hold up any others that Reid might bring to the floor," according to CQ Today (Vadala, CQ Today, 11/19).
Hamilton received strong support from Lugar as well as the backing of the conservative Federalist Society (Women's Health Policy Report, 11/17). However, Senate Republicans, led by Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), labeled Hamilton an activist, citing his rulings on abortion and Christian prayer, the AP/Houston Chronicle reports.
With the addition of Hamilton, the 7th Circuit will have seven Republican-nominated judges and four chosen by Democrats (Margasak, AP/Houston Chronicle, 11/19).
Reprinted with kind permission from nationalpartnership. You can view the entire Daily Women's Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery here. The Daily Women's Health Policy Report is a free service of the National Partnership for Women & Families, published by The Advisory Board Company.
© 2009 The Advisory Board Company. All rights reserved.
суббота, 12 ноября 2011 г.
An Assessment Of The Value Of Treatments To Increase Height
Dr. Leona Cuttler, a pediatric endocrinologist and growth hormone expert from University Hospitals Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital, is the co-author of an editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine commenting on a new study that found giving girls with Turner syndrome low doses of estrogen, as well as growth hormone, years before the onset of puberty, increases their height and offers other benefits.
With her co-author Dr. Robert L. Rosenfield, a pediatric endocrinologist with the University of Chicago Medical Center, Dr. Cuttler writes, "The use of growth hormone and estrogen has a long and often controversial history in the manipulation of growth."
About the new study, they write that the results confirm those of previous, less rigorous studies showing that treatment with growth hormone significantly increased adult height in patients with Turner's syndrome.
Drs. Cuttler and Rosenfield say the results suggest a modest but intriguing synergism between growth hormone and low-dose estrogen in promoting growth.
"The impact of these findings on practice and policy will depend not only on their statistical significance but also on whether the observed changes in height translate into clinically meaningful benefit. The ability to increase height should not be the sole yardstick for assessing benefit," the editorial states.
"Since growth hormone is well entrenched in the management of Turner's syndrome, the current findings support this aspect of practice but are not likely to change it. Yet the results underscore the need for a measured approach, which includes avoiding unrealistic expectations, when families embark on growth hormone therapy. The early use of low-dose estrogen in conjunction with growth hormone is an interesting possibility. An optimal estrogen-replacement regimen could potentially shorten the period of growth hormone treatment, reduce costs, and improve patient satisfaction. However, implementation would be hampered by the lack of a convenient means to deliver the very small estrogen doses that seem to be optimal for height augmentation."
The authors advise caution when considering supplementing growth hormone treatment with early, low-dose estrogen in Turner's syndrome. "The current results show trends that do not consistently reach significance and show only modest synergy between growth hormone and estrogen in achieving height augmentation, as compared with growth hormone alone. The suggested potential benefits of estrogen on cognition are based on earlier short-term data, and long-term data are needed. We must be concerned about unexpected risks posed by estrogen, being mindful of surprising adverse outcomes of estrogen use in other settings," they write.
According to the National Institutes of Health, Turner syndrome occurs in 1 out of 2,500 female births worldwide and develops when a female (X) sex chromosome is missing in cells or is abnormal. These girls are typically of short stature and have a loss of ovarian function.
Source:
George Stamatis
University Hospitals Case Medical Center
With her co-author Dr. Robert L. Rosenfield, a pediatric endocrinologist with the University of Chicago Medical Center, Dr. Cuttler writes, "The use of growth hormone and estrogen has a long and often controversial history in the manipulation of growth."
About the new study, they write that the results confirm those of previous, less rigorous studies showing that treatment with growth hormone significantly increased adult height in patients with Turner's syndrome.
Drs. Cuttler and Rosenfield say the results suggest a modest but intriguing synergism between growth hormone and low-dose estrogen in promoting growth.
"The impact of these findings on practice and policy will depend not only on their statistical significance but also on whether the observed changes in height translate into clinically meaningful benefit. The ability to increase height should not be the sole yardstick for assessing benefit," the editorial states.
"Since growth hormone is well entrenched in the management of Turner's syndrome, the current findings support this aspect of practice but are not likely to change it. Yet the results underscore the need for a measured approach, which includes avoiding unrealistic expectations, when families embark on growth hormone therapy. The early use of low-dose estrogen in conjunction with growth hormone is an interesting possibility. An optimal estrogen-replacement regimen could potentially shorten the period of growth hormone treatment, reduce costs, and improve patient satisfaction. However, implementation would be hampered by the lack of a convenient means to deliver the very small estrogen doses that seem to be optimal for height augmentation."
The authors advise caution when considering supplementing growth hormone treatment with early, low-dose estrogen in Turner's syndrome. "The current results show trends that do not consistently reach significance and show only modest synergy between growth hormone and estrogen in achieving height augmentation, as compared with growth hormone alone. The suggested potential benefits of estrogen on cognition are based on earlier short-term data, and long-term data are needed. We must be concerned about unexpected risks posed by estrogen, being mindful of surprising adverse outcomes of estrogen use in other settings," they write.
According to the National Institutes of Health, Turner syndrome occurs in 1 out of 2,500 female births worldwide and develops when a female (X) sex chromosome is missing in cells or is abnormal. These girls are typically of short stature and have a loss of ovarian function.
Source:
George Stamatis
University Hospitals Case Medical Center
суббота, 5 ноября 2011 г.
Fetal Cell "Transplant" Could Be A Hidden Link Between Childbirth And Reduced Risk Of Breast Cancer
Some benefits of motherhood are intangible, but one has been validated through biostatistical research: women who bear children have a reduced risk of developing breast cancer. In Seattle, Washington, researchers at the University of Washington and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center believe they have identified a source of this protective effect: fetal cells "transplanted" to the mother before birth.
Their findings are presented in the October 1 issue of Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.
The ability of cells from a growing fetus to take up long-term residence within its mother is a phenomenon called fetal microchimerism. According to the researchers, while fetal microchimerism has been implicated as a mechanism of autoimmune disease, it may also benefit mothers by putting the immune system on alert for malignant cells to destroy.
To test the idea, the researchers recruited 82 women, 35 of whom had been diagnosed with breast cancer. Approximately two-thirds of the women studied have had children, and more than half of the participants had given birth to at least one son. The researchers took blood samples from each participant and searched them for male DNA, as they reasoned it is a relatively definitive matter to detect the male Y chromosome amid the mother's native and obviously female cells within a blood sample.
Among the women with breast cancer, only five had male DNA in their bloodstream. Three of the five previously gave birth to sons, one had had an abortion and the other had never been knowingly pregnant. In total, about 14 percent of all women in the breast cancer group had male DNA in their bloodstream compared to 43 percent of women in the non-breast cancer group.
"Our research found that these persisting fetal cells may be giving a woman an edge against developing breast cancer," said lead author Vijayakrishna K. Gadi, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor at the University of Washington and research associate at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. "This experiment of nature is all the more fascinating because for years doctors treated a number of different cancers by transplanting cells from one person to another."
According to Dr. Gadi, these findings could provide a starting point for future research on the role of fetal microchimerism in the prevention of cancer. In addition, there are other reasons for male DNA to be in a woman's peripheral blood, such as miscarriage and abortion or possibly even blood transfusion or a male twin that was reabsorbed into the womb at an early stage of the pregnancy.
Funding for this study was provided by the National Institutes of Health and Amgen, Inc. Breast cancer patients were recruited through a breast cancer specialty clinic at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, which is affiliated with both the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the University of Washington School of Medicine.
The mission of the American Association for Cancer Research is to prevent and cure cancer. Founded in 1907, AACR is the world's oldest and largest professional organization dedicated to advancing cancer research. The membership includes nearly 26,000 basic, translational, and clinical researchers; health care professionals; and cancer survivors and advocates in the United States and more than 70 other countries. AACR marshals the full spectrum of expertise from the cancer community to accelerate progress in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer through high-quality scientific and educational programs. It funds innovative, meritorious research grants. The AACR Annual Meeting attracts more than 17,000 participants who share the latest discoveries and developments in the field. Special Conferences throughout the year present novel data across a wide variety of topics in cancer research, treatment, and patient care. AACR publishes five major peer-reviewed journals: Cancer Research; Clinical Cancer Research; Molecular Cancer Therapeutics; Molecular Cancer Research; and Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention. Its most recent publication, CR, is a magazine for cancer survivors, patient advocates, their families, physicians, and scientists. It provides a forum for sharing essential, evidence-based information and perspectives on progress in cancer research, survivorship, and advocacy.
American Association for Cancer Research (AACR)
615 Chestnut Street, 17th Floor
Philadelphia, PA 19106
United States
aacr
Their findings are presented in the October 1 issue of Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.
The ability of cells from a growing fetus to take up long-term residence within its mother is a phenomenon called fetal microchimerism. According to the researchers, while fetal microchimerism has been implicated as a mechanism of autoimmune disease, it may also benefit mothers by putting the immune system on alert for malignant cells to destroy.
To test the idea, the researchers recruited 82 women, 35 of whom had been diagnosed with breast cancer. Approximately two-thirds of the women studied have had children, and more than half of the participants had given birth to at least one son. The researchers took blood samples from each participant and searched them for male DNA, as they reasoned it is a relatively definitive matter to detect the male Y chromosome amid the mother's native and obviously female cells within a blood sample.
Among the women with breast cancer, only five had male DNA in their bloodstream. Three of the five previously gave birth to sons, one had had an abortion and the other had never been knowingly pregnant. In total, about 14 percent of all women in the breast cancer group had male DNA in their bloodstream compared to 43 percent of women in the non-breast cancer group.
"Our research found that these persisting fetal cells may be giving a woman an edge against developing breast cancer," said lead author Vijayakrishna K. Gadi, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor at the University of Washington and research associate at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. "This experiment of nature is all the more fascinating because for years doctors treated a number of different cancers by transplanting cells from one person to another."
According to Dr. Gadi, these findings could provide a starting point for future research on the role of fetal microchimerism in the prevention of cancer. In addition, there are other reasons for male DNA to be in a woman's peripheral blood, such as miscarriage and abortion or possibly even blood transfusion or a male twin that was reabsorbed into the womb at an early stage of the pregnancy.
Funding for this study was provided by the National Institutes of Health and Amgen, Inc. Breast cancer patients were recruited through a breast cancer specialty clinic at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, which is affiliated with both the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the University of Washington School of Medicine.
The mission of the American Association for Cancer Research is to prevent and cure cancer. Founded in 1907, AACR is the world's oldest and largest professional organization dedicated to advancing cancer research. The membership includes nearly 26,000 basic, translational, and clinical researchers; health care professionals; and cancer survivors and advocates in the United States and more than 70 other countries. AACR marshals the full spectrum of expertise from the cancer community to accelerate progress in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer through high-quality scientific and educational programs. It funds innovative, meritorious research grants. The AACR Annual Meeting attracts more than 17,000 participants who share the latest discoveries and developments in the field. Special Conferences throughout the year present novel data across a wide variety of topics in cancer research, treatment, and patient care. AACR publishes five major peer-reviewed journals: Cancer Research; Clinical Cancer Research; Molecular Cancer Therapeutics; Molecular Cancer Research; and Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention. Its most recent publication, CR, is a magazine for cancer survivors, patient advocates, their families, physicians, and scientists. It provides a forum for sharing essential, evidence-based information and perspectives on progress in cancer research, survivorship, and advocacy.
American Association for Cancer Research (AACR)
615 Chestnut Street, 17th Floor
Philadelphia, PA 19106
United States
aacr
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