Offspring in Medical News

Researchers estimate risk of transmission of Huntington's disease to offspring among male carriers

(Boston) Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have quantified the probability of a male who carries a "high normal" variant of the Huntington's Disease (HD) gene having a child who develops the disease. Although thought to be a very rare event, the probability has never be...

Mothers and Offspring Can Share Cells Throughout Life

SEATTLE, May 2 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Cutting the umbilical cord doesn't necessarily sever the physical link between mother and child. Many cells pass back and forth between the mother and fetus during pregnancy and can be detected in the tissues and organs of both even decades later. This...

Fetal Alcohol Exposure May Prime Offspring for Alcoholism

Rat studies suggest the senses learn to like drinking early on THURSDAY, Dec. 13 (HealthDay News) -- Rats exposed to alcohol while still in the womb learn to like the substance and are more drawn to it as young rats, a new study shows. The observation may help explain why teens with...

Adult offspring of parents with PTSD have lower cortisol levels

A small study suggests that adults whose parents are Holocaust survivors with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) appear to have lower average levels of the stress hormone cortisol than the adult offspring of parents without PTSD, according to a report in the September issue of Archives of Gener...

What Moms Learned May Be Passed to Offspring

Mouse study concludes rich environmental memories can affect learning in children THURSDAY, Feb. 5 (HealthDay News) -- The things mothers did as children may affect their children's memory and the severity of learning disorders, according to U.S. researchers who studied the brain funct...

Epilepsy Drug May Raise Autism Risk in Offspring

Yet another reason pregnant women should avoid this medication, experts say WEDNESDAY, Dec. 3 (HealthDay News) -- Women taking the epilepsy drug valproate while pregnant are at increased risk of delivering a child who develops autism. The British findings, appearing in the Dec. 2 is...

Canola Oil Consumed During Pregnancy Lowers Breast Cancer Risk for Offspring

Mouse study found it was better than corn oil during gestation and lactation TUESDAY, Nov. 18 (HealthDay News) -- Women whose mothers consumed canola oil during pregnancy and breast-feeding may be less likely to develop breast cancer than those whose mothers consumed corn oil, a new s...

Insomnia in parents can result in sleep problems, suicidal behavior among their offspring

WESTCHESTER, Ill. A history of chronic insomnia in parents is not only associated with elevated risk for insomnia but also with elevated risks for use of hypnotics, psychopathology and suicidal behavior in adolescent offspring, according to a research abstract that will be presented on Thursday a...

Prenatal exposure to maternal antibodies linked to autistic behaviors in offspring

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) New research from the UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute shows that an interaction between fetal brain cells and maternal antibodies could be linked with the repetitive behavior also called stereotypies that is characteristic of autism. While additional studies are needed to confi...

Parents' PTSD May Boost Stress in Offspring

Adult children of affected Holocaust survivors showed hormonal changes, study found WEDNESDAY, Sept. 5 (HealthDay News) -- Adults whose mother or father suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) often experience the biological signs of PTSD themselves, such as below-average levels of t...

Eating junk food whilst pregnant and breastfeeding may lead to obese offspring

Mothers who eat junk food during pregnancy and breastfeeding may be putting their children at risk of overeating and developing obesity, according to a study funded by the Wellcome Trust and carried out at the Royal Veterinary College, London. The research suggests that pregnant and breastfeeding ...

Male Fish Cannibalize Its Own Offspring Than Female

A study of fish by researchers from the February issue of the American Naturalist is the first to demonstrate that male fish are more likely// to eat their offspring when they have been cuckolded during the act of spawning. "The most drastic decision a father can make is to cannibalize his own ...

Risk Of Breast Cancer Lowered In Offspring Of Mothers Who Eat Whole Wheat

Women who eat lots of whole wheat during pregnancy may lower the risk of breast cancer in their baby girls, according to a study published //in the Nov 15, 2006 issue of International Journal of Cancer. Lead researcher Dr. Leena Hilanivi-Clarke from Georgetown University in Washington DC a...

Cigarette Smoke Alters DNA in Sperm, Genetic Damage Could Pass to Offspring

PHILDALPHIA -- The science has long been clear that smoking causes cancer, but new research shows that children could inherit genetic damage from a father who smokes . Canadian researchers have demonstrated in mice that smoking can cause changes in the DNA sequence of sperm cells, alteratio...

Fish Intake Linked to Higher IQ in Offspring

Eating more than 340 grams of omega-3-rich seafood per week during pregnancy was associated with higher verbal intelligence quotient (IQ) scores// in the children, says a new study. The research is significant since it goes against recommendations of seafood consumption during pregnancy, whic...

Wartime Raises Stress, BP Rates in Military Offspring

Children with parents in the military have higher blood pressure, heart rates and general stress levels than their peers during wartime, researchers say// . Researchers looked at 121 adolescents – including 48 with civilian parents, 20 with a parent deployed to Iraq and 53 with a parent in th...

Whole Wheat, Wholesome for Pregnant Women and Their Offspring

A new study has established the wholesomeness of whole wheat as a diet for pregnant women, capable of reducing breast cancer risk in the offspring.// Dr Leena Hilakivi-Clarke of Georgetown University in Washington DC and her colleagues examined the benefits of dietary changes on pregnant rode...

Where Mother's Skin Turns Into Food For Offspring

Scientists have discovered a worm that feasts on its mother's skin - a practice they have never before seen in animals.// Mark Wilkinson, a zoologist at the Natural History Museum in London and his team uncovered the bizarre form of parental care in Kenya, reported the online edition of the ...

Breathing Cancer Causing Compounds During Pregnancy Found To Affect Offspring

Based on findings of a recent study researchers have linked breathing cancer-causing compounds during pregnancy // to an increased risk of childhood cancer among offspring. They also believe that nearly all childhood cancers can probably be traced back to a mother’s inhalation of noxious substances...

Unlocking the key to human fertility

...not match, however similar their DNA is, no viable offspring can be born. Occasionally, for example, with horses and donkeys, offspring are produced - but because the sperm and egg signa..., their development as embryos is abnormal and any offspring are almost always infertile. The research team...

Prioritize Pregnant Women to Get Swine Flu Shot, Experts Say

...tudy published recently in the New England Journal of Medicine found just such a transfer of protection among a group of Bangladeshi women and their offspring who received the seasonal flu vaccine. Dr. Marc Siegel, an associate professor of medicine at New York University Langone Medical Center in New Yor...

Agent Orange Linked to Parkinson's, Heart Disease

...erbicides with many other cancers, including esophageal, stomach, colorectal and pancreatic; with miscarriages, stillbirths or low birth weight in the offspring of exposed veterans or with neurodegenerative diseases other than Parkinson's. However, the committee found "limited or suggestive evidence of no asso...

Study provides documentation that tumor 'stem-like cells' exist in benign tumors

...ed no hormones. Both types of stem-like cells were found to be self-renewable and multipotent, meaning they expressed proteins that could enable their offspring to differentiate into several types of cells. Studies also showed that both hormone-producing and non-producing tumor stem cells can be differenti...

Cell division find prompts overhaul of immune response modeling

..., for the first time in science, followed hundreds of lymphocytes and their offspring through all their cell divisions until their deaths. They also recorded how...eedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA. "We found that all the offspring of a single cell died at the same cell division; their lifespan is programm...

Tiny levels of carbon monoxide damage fetal brain

...ar disease. We know that it exacerbates disease." "We believe that the minute levels of carbon monoxide in the mother rats' environment made their offspring more vulnerable to illness," added Edmond. "Our findings highlight the need for policy makers to re-examine the regulation of carbon monoxide." To...

Pre-Diabetes Costs Nation $25 Billion Annually in Extra Medical Care, New Data Show

... Among infants, gestational diabetes results in an increased risk of death, jaundice, hypoglycemia and respiratory distress syndrome. Further, adult offspring of mothers with gestational diabetes have a significantly increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes as well as cardiovascular disease. "The ef...

Slightly Underactive Thyroid May Be a Plus

...select population suggest the opposite. Higher TSH could actually benefit you." Surks and his colleagues also found that the centenarians and their offspring were more likely to have a particular variant of a TSH receptor. Those with that variant -- nearly 60 percent of the centenarians -- tended to have h...

Postpartum Anxiety May Delay Puberty in Kids

...l anxiety after giving birth and that their female offspring had delayed onset of puberty. Prolactin, which ... groups, mothers with low prolactin raising female offspring of mice with normal prolactin levels, and mothers with normal prolactin levels raising the female offspring of mice with low levels of prolactin. Puberty w...

Morning Sickness Drug Gets Green Light in Study

... trimester of their pregnancies. The study found no significantly increased health risks for babies of women exposed to the drug compared with the offspring of women who hadn't taken it. The risk of birth defects, for instance, was 5.3 percent in the metoclopramide group and 4.9 percent in the group not e...

Studies Report More Harmful Effects From BPA

...m transplant patients to try to replicate the findings. In another study, researchers report on the mechanism by which BPA affects fertility in the offspring of rodents. "The genes that are necessary for normal pregnancy are altered," explained study author Dr. Hugh Taylor, director of the division of r...

Pregnancy and the flu: A link to schizophrenia

...za B as opposed to influenza A. This research was conducted as part of the Collaborative Perinatal Project, which followed pregnant women and their offspring in the 1950's and 60's, collecting blood throughout pregnancies for later analyses. A series of cognitive assessments were conducted with the children...

Study Finds Multitude of Bacteria on Human Skin

...to help healthy bacteria keep pathogens in check." But there is also the sheer scientific beauty of what is called the Human Microbiome Project, an offspring of the Human Genome Project, which mapped all the genes in the body. The same techniques used to go through the human genetic sequence now can be appl...

Overweight Moms More Likely to Have Asthmatic Kids

... Health and Environment in the Netherlands. In fact, Smith and his fellow researchers found that the risk of asthma is 65 percent higher among the offspring of overweight mothers if one or both of the child's parents have a history of the disease. Smit was to present the findings Tuesday at the American...

Kids More Apt to Smoke If Mom Did While Pregnant

...school years. In addition, the children of mothers who smoked during pregnancy and their early years were less likely to quit smoking than were the offspring of mothers who never smoked or who started smoking when their children were school-age. The impact of early maternal smoking was not affected by w...

Discovery in amber reveals ancient biology of termites

...ways pretty. Somewhere on the evolutionary scale the termites began producing a liquid that contained protozoa that they would excrete. The termite offspring in turn consume the feces and thereby gain the protozoa in their digestive systems. It took time for all of this to get worked out, the study indic...

Trauma experienced by a mother even before pregnancy will influence her offspring's behavior

...the third, control group, were not given any form of stress. When the rats' offspring reached maturity (at 60 days), the researchers examined their emotional beh...out doubt different from that of the rats from the control group. All the offspring of stressed mothers showed reduced social contact compared with that of the...

ADA releases position paper on obesity, reproduction and pregnancy outcomes

... to obese mothers have "a higher prevalence of congenital anomalies than do offspring of normal-weight women, suggesting that maternal (obesity) alters developme...common among children of obese women. "Other birth defects more frequent in offspring of obese women include oral clefts, heart anomalies, hydrocephaly and abdom...

Scientists From 25 Countries Sequence Cow Genome

...ays to improve and increase the world's food supply. Whereas, in the past, the "genetic merit" of the milk-production capability of a bull's female offspring took five years to assess, things will now move much more quickly, said Jeremy Taylor, co-author of one of the reports and Wurdack Chair in Animal Gen...

My Mother/Myself: Migraine Headaches are Hereditary

...the chance for a child to be predisposed climbs to 75 percent. Even if a distant relative has migraine headaches, a 20 percent chance exists that any offspring will be prone. When mom describes one-sided, throbbing and pulsating head pain, accompanied by nausea, vomiting and sensitivity to light and no...

Outgoing Nature Could Get You to 100

...s, Perls and his colleagues decided to look at 246 offspring of those who lived to 100 to see if their children...ished norms for each trait. They found that the offspring of centenarians were more extraverted than the pub...nt sources of help when needed, Perls said. The offspring of centenarians scored lower than the norms on neu...