Day: December 1, 2010

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Pregnancy Risks for Older Women 45 and Above

Pregnancy Risks for Older Women 45 and Above. After age 45, women who get pregnant may face higher pregnancy risks and complications. Their newborn babies also face greater health risks compared to babies born of younger moms, a study at Tel Aviv University suggests.

The study, recently published in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology, found that women who get pregnant after age 45 are three times more likely to experience diabetes and high blood pressure than younger women. They also have higher rates of preterm births and placenta previa, the study concludes.

Researchers behind this study arrived at their findings after looking at how nearly 80,000 women of varying ages fared while giving birth between 2000 and 2008. Among the 80,000 women, only 177 of them were 45 years old or older.

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Omega 3 Health Benefits: Healthy Gums and Teeth?

Omega 3 Health Benefits: Healthy Gums and Teeth? If you are eating foods that are rich in omega-3 such as salmon, mackerel and albacore tuna, you may have a lower risk of developing gum disease, a study suggests.

The study, published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, found that those who consumed intermediate high amounts of DHA, a main fish-derived omega-3 fatty acid, were less likely to develop the disease. The researchers studied more than 9,000 adult participants in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey between 1999 and 2004, where eight percent of them had gum disease.

They found that the top third of patients in terms of DHA intake had a 22 percent reduction in their chance of developing gum disease, compared to those in the lowest third. Says senior researcher Dr. Kenneth J. Mukamal of Harvard Medical School on their research, “[A]nti-inflammatory treatment with omega-3’s seems to help experimental periodontitis in rabbits. Our hope was to extend that to humans.”

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Stem Cell Treatment for Muscle Injuries?

Stem Cell Treatment for Muscle Injuries? Can stem cell therapy cure muscle injuries? A recent experiment involving mice suggests that it can. However, whether the same positive results seen in experimental mice can be replicated among human patients remains a question.

When stem cells were injected into mice with muscle injuries, the muscles were not only restored but also grew twice as large. This finding, by researchers from the University of Colorado, may help the medical community find new treatments to muscle diseases such as muscular dystrophy. It might also pave a way for people to resist muscle erosion due to aging.

The study, reported in the journal Science Translational Medicine, found that the injured muscles of young mice which were injected with stem cells from young donor mice increased in size by 170 percent. Additionally, the new muscles lasted during the mice’s lifetime – about two years.

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