14 October, 2015

Were you born in the summer? Then you must read this!

A new study has revealed that girls born in summer are more likely to have higher birth weight and late puberty. According to researchers at University of Cambridge, more sunlight, which is higher vitamin D exposure, in the second trimester of pregnancy could explain the effect. They found that children who were born in the summer were slightly heavier at birth, taller as adults and went through puberty slightly later than those born in winter months.

In the study, lead author John Perry and the team compared the growth and development of around 450,000 men and women from the United Kingdom and found that babies born in June, July, and August were heavier at birth and taller as adults. The study also revealed that girls born in the summer started puberty later which was an indication of better health in adult life.

Perry said that this was the first time puberty timing had been robustly linked to seasonality, adding that their results showed that birth month had a measurable effect on development and health. According to the researchers, the differences between babies born in the summer and the winter months could be down to how much sunlight the mother gets during pregnancy, since that in part determines her vitamin D exposure. Perry concluded that vitamin D exposure was important and their findings would hopefully encourage other research on the long-term effects of early life vitamin D on puberty timing and health. The study is published in the Journal Heliyon. 

Source: www.thehealthsite.com

14.10.2015

Control your blood sugar levels to protect your child from heart disease

A new study has revealed that pregnant women with elevated blood sugar levels are more likely to have babies with congenital cardiovascular defects, even if their blood sugar is below the cut off for diabetes. Lead author James Priest of the Stanford University Medical Center said that this new research showed that women who have elevated glucose values during pregnancy that don’t meet our diagnostic criteria for diabetes also face an increased risk. In the study, the researchers examined blood samples taken from 277 California women during the second trimester of pregnancy. The control group comprised 180 women carrying infants withoutcongenital heart disease. The others had infants affected by one of two serious heart defects.  

Fifty-five infants had Tetralogy of Fallot, in which a baby is getting too little oxygen and the remaining 42 infants had dextrotransposition of the great arteries, in which the positions of the two main arteries leading from the heart are swapped, preventing oxygenated blood from the lungs from circulating to the body. The blood samples were collected at different times of the day, and the women were not asked to fast before sample collection. They found higher glucose levels were correlated with the odds of having a baby with tetralogy of Fallot, but not with dextrotransposition of the great arteries.

Priest said that glucose has to act via some mechanism, adding that cell’s machinery for handling glucose overlaps with important developmental signaling mechanisms, such as the insulin-like growth factor receptors. Priest concluded that most of the time doctors don’t have any idea what causes a baby’s heart defect and said that he aims to change that. The study is published in the Journal JAMA Pediatrics.  

Source: www.thehealthsite.com

14.10.2015

Knowing is not enough, we must apply. Willing is not enough, we must do

Wolfgang