Household chores can help IVF to succeed

Gardening, doing the housework or going for brisk walks can treble IVF success, according to researchers.

Women who led active lifestyles in the year leading up to their treatment were far more likely to conceive.

Scientists have been divided about whether exercise helps or hinders the chances of pregnancy, either naturally or with IVF.

Active: Gardening, doing the housework or going for brisk walks can treble IVF success, researchers say

 Research: Women who go for brisk walks are three times more likely to conceive than those who spend most of the day sitting down

While some studies have found that physical activity reduces fertility, others have found it improves it – or makes no difference.

Now scientists have found that women who do the housework, go for brisk walks or take other ‘moderate’ forms of exercise are three times more likely to conceive than those who spend most of the day sitting down.

The lifestyles of 87 women undergoing IVF were compared in the year leading up to their treatment.

The researchers gave the women a score depending on how much physical activity they did each day.

This did not necessarily have to be exercise but could include dusting, vacuuming, pushing the buggy or gardening.

The findings will be presented this week to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine’s annual conference in San Diego, California.

New IVF treatment boosts 42-year-olds’ odds of having baby to 60 pc

London, October 22 (ANI): US scientists have developed an IVF process that could give a woman in her early forties the same chance of becoming pregnant as a 32-year-old.

They claimed that the screening treatment could improve a 42-year-old’s odds of having a baby from 13 per cent to 60 per cent, the Daily Mail reported.

It works by picking only the embryos most likely to create a healthy foetus, slashing the odds of miscarriage.

Crucially, it also involves the embryos being frozen for at least a month after IVF to allow the woman’s reproductive organs to return to normal.

Scientists believe that the powerful fertility-boosting drugs given during IVF can harm the embryo if it is put into the womb too soon.
A woman aged 40 to 42 typically has a low chance of becoming pregnant with IVF and is unlikely to conceive naturally. But the researchers from Colorado said that their procedure could boost success rates to 60 per cent.

Patients will pay 2,000 pounds for the test, on top of a cycle of IVF costing 3,000 pounds to 4,000 pounds a course. The process has already been used on 1,200 women in the US.

Called comprehensive chromosome screening with vitrification, it involves taking a few cells from a blastocyst – an embryo just five or six days old.

An ideal blastocyst has 46 chromosomes – 23 each from the sperm and the egg. The wrong chromosome count reduces the odds of pregnancy – or ‘implantation’ – and raises the risk of miscarriage. Only if the cells have 46 chromosomes is the embryo frozen.

Some women will not have good enough embryos and will never become pregnant no matter how many times they have IVF. So, the scientists said the screening could spare them the heartache of further costly treatments.

” What we’ve been able to show is that a woman aged 38 to 42, if she has a blastocyst with a normal number of chromosomes, her chances of implantation are independent of her age. So she has the same chances of implantation – at 60 per cent – as a woman who is 32,” the paper quoted Dr Mandy Katz-Jaffe, from the Colorado Center for Reproductive Medicine, as saying.

Oxford academic Dr Dagan Wells, who helped develop the process, said freezing the embryo, known as cryopreservation, not only boosted the chances of pregnancy but also produced healthier babies.

He added: “The birth weight of the babies is essentially the same as babies conceived naturally, whereas embryos produced by IVF and transferred immediately, without cryopreservation, have a tendency to be of lower weight.”

The scientists will explain their new IVF treatment at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine conference in San Diego, California. (ANI)

EGGS RECREATED INVITRO TO TREAT INFERTILITY

Regenerative-medicine researchers have moved a promising step closer to helping infertile, premenopausal women produce enough eggs to become pregnant. Surgeons at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center's Institute for Regenerative Medicine in Winston-Salem, NC, reported that they were able to stimulate ovarian cell production using an in vitro rat model, and observed as the cells matured into very early-stage eggs that could possibly be fertilized. Results from this novel study were presented at the 2012 American College of Surgeons Annual Clinical Congress.

"While conventional hormone replacement therapy is able to maintain female sexual characteristics, it's unable to restore ovarian tissue function, which includes the production of eggs," the study's authors reported. Ovarian tissue function is critical for premenopausal women who desire to conceive.

Several fertility disorders can leave premenopausal women without an adequate amount of eggs. These disorders can also prevent a woman's ovaries from secreting enough of the hormones that stimulate egg production. Events such as ovarian operations, an injury, or radiation therapy for cancer can interfere with ovarian function, according to Anthony Atala, MD, FACS, director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine and chair of the department of urology at the Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center.

Although the causes may vary, about 10 percent of childbearing-age women struggle with infertility,* meaning that these women try for at least one year but are not able to conceive. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that the most common cause of infertility in premenopausal women is polycystic ovarian syndrome* - an imbalance of sex hormones. This disorder causes irregular ovulation and higher levels of male hormones in affected women.

According to Dr. Atala, the goal of this study was to spur the ovaries to produce the female sex hormones estrogen and progesterone as well as stimulate egg production. The surgeons extracted ovarian cells from three-week old female rats, which would be equiva- lent to about 25 years old in humans. The cells were isolated in a culture of nutrient-dense growth factors for one week. Next, the cells were placed under a collagen gel that allows them to grow three dimensionally instead of in a single layer. The researchers then assessed cell growth, hormone production, and gene expression in the specimens.

In their early observations, the surgeons found immature oocytes protruding from clusters of ovarian cells. To help the oocytes mature, the surgeons developed a microwell system to keep oocytes inside clusters of ovarian cells. In humans, primordial germ cells or oogonium are the first stage of development into ovums, or mature eggs. The researchers also found that the cells expressed germ cell markers consistent with those of early stage eggs. They observed that the oocytes began to develop zona pellucida, a membrane that forms around an ovum as it develops, and showed a capacity to produce steroids similar to those produced by early stage eggs or follicles.

"Now, the goal is creating more mature structures that could actually be used for fertilization," Dr. Atala explained.

Dr. Atala and his colleagues believe that the newly generated oocytes would be able to mature to a certain stage in humans. The oocytes would then be put back into the female patient to go through natural ovulation and conception, or the oocytes would be fertilized in vitro and then implanted in the uterus. Dr. Atala said because ovarian cell function is restored, a woman using this procedure may be able to produce the necessary hormones and would not need addi-tional hormone replacement therapy.

Although the surgeons were able to generate early stage eggs in vitro, Dr. Atala cautions that the procedure has a while to go before it can be applied to humans: "This study represents the elementary, first stages of the research process," he said. "But we're showing the principle signs that this approach is a potential strategy for infertile women who want to have children," he concluded.

SOURCE: medicalnewstoday

Center for Human Reproduction More Than Doubles IVF Pregnancy Rates in Women Over 44

A New York fertility center is seeing an enormous increase in IVF success rates in older women told by other clinics that they could only get pregnant with donor eggs.

Center for Human Reproduction (CHR), a New York fertility center with special expertise in treating women with “older-behaving” ovaries, reported significantly improved ongoing clinical pregnancy rates for 2011 at practically all age groups. The improvement was, however, most pronounced in women above age 44 years, where the rate doubled from the previous year.
Pregnancy rates are calculated by dividing the number of clinical
pregnancies by that of embryo transfers. While most age groups saw increases in IVF pregnancy rates, the most dramatic improvement in pregnancy rates were observed in women at ages 44-49, where pregnancy rates increased to 10.3%.
“This pregnancy rate for women 44-49 is almost unbelievable, considering that patients at these ages, at most other IVF centers in the world, are no longer even given the chance of pregnancy with use of their own eggs and are usually advised to use donor eggs, “ notes David
H. Barad, MD, Director of Clinical ART at CHR. “These results reflect our
center’s fight for every egg and every embryo in older women seeking fertility treatment, based on the accumulated results of very active, decade-long research in how to successfully treat ‘older’ ovaries.”
In concentrating most of the center’s research on “older-behaving” ovaries, CHR developed many major clinical breakthroughs, like DHEA (androgen) supplementation, which has since become standard treatment around the world. CHR investigators also recently confirmed the importance of androgens (male hormones) for follicle and egg maturation.
“What makes these pregnancy rates even more remarkable are the patients in whom we achieved them,” adds Norbert Gleicher, MD, Medical Director and Chief Scientist of CHR. As a result of premature ovarian
aging (POA), even younger patients of CHR, in most cases, have
ovaries that behave like those of much older women.” Dr. Gleicher continues:
“The majority of our patients have previously failed IVF cycles elsewhere, and have been turned away by other fertility centers as
‘hopeless’ unless willing to use donor eggs. CHR was their fertility center of last resort. Achieving pregnancies at these rates in these women is practically unprecedented.”
About Center for Human Reproduction
The Center for Human Reproduction (CHR, http://www.centerforhumanreprod.com),
is one of the world’s leading fertility centers, with, currently, over half of
the center’s patients coming from outside the larger New York tristate area, approximately a quarter from overseas and Canada. CHR has a worldwide reputation as the "fertility center of last resort," specializing in treatment of infertility in women with diminished ovarian reserve due to advanced age or, in younger women, due to premature ovarian aging (POA).
Dr. Gleicher and Dr. Barad are available for further comments.
Communications Manager
Center for Human Reproduction
212-994-4400 .4491
Email Information
SOURCE: YAHOONEWS

Are IVF clinics hiding the risks of PGD from parents?

American couples who have pre-implantation genetic diagnosis
(PGD) done on their embryos are almost never informed of the potential risks of the procedure, a Wellesley College biologist claims in the Journal
of Medical Ethics.
Without this vital information, says Michelle LaBonte, parents are not capable of giving informed consent.
PGD, or embryo screening, has become a standard service in IVF clinics. A technician removes a cell from an 8-cell embryo and tests it for
defects. If it passes, it is implanted in the womb.
In a potentially explosive article, Dr LaBonte asserts that “In efforts to eliminate risk through the use of PGD, we may in fact be creating a new set of risks perhaps even more concerning than those we are trying to
avoid.” She bases her claims on a survey of the websites of the 262 US clinics offering PGD. She found that “86.6% of PGD-performing centres state that PGD is safe and/or fail to disclose any risks on their websites despite the fact that the impact of the procedure on the long-term health of offspring is unproven”.
IVF clinics have adopted the PGD technology for a wide range of uses -- from eliminating defective embryos to testing for genetic defects to
sex selection -- without a thorough understanding of the risks involved. She cites an IVF specialist who admitted ruefully that “[T]he babies that have
resulted aren't of reproductive age yet, and we don't know what sort of effects this technique has on the adult human… And I think that I consider it still experimental taking a cell from an embryo.”
She points out that this has happened before. For years amniocentesis was touted as completely safe until studies showed that there was an increased risk of spontaneous abortion.

Dr LaBonte speculates about why the risks of PGD are being
ignored. She gives six reasons:
* Parents were so concerned about the genetic disease of a first
child that they overlooked the risks of PGD for a second child.
* Doctors allayed the misgivings of parents.
* Parental choice trumps the dangers to the embryo: “Unlike ‘passive smokers,’ potential biopsied embryos are not in a position to seek regulation of this procedure.”
* Debate over the ethics of using PGD to create “designer babies” has
distracted parents’ attention from its safety.
* There have been no widely-publicised catastrophic failures yet.
* “The financial rewards of PGD represent a conflict of interest for
providers.”
Dr LaBonte concludes IVF clinics must inform their clients that PGD is still an unproven technology.
“prospective parents of PGD babies should be made aware of all
safety information, including that of human and animal studies, and be informed that long-term, definitive safety studies have not yet been carried out.
Anything less should not be considered ‘informed’ consent.”
Source: bioedge.org

Babies with three parents possible within three years

The child would inherit their identity from
their mother and father but would take their
mitochondrial DNA from the donor

Babies with three biological parents could be a reality within three years using an IVF technique which eradicates hereditary disease by using the undamaged DNA of a third party.
Researchers have secured £6m in funding to develop the groundbreaking treatment which could prevent genetic conditions affecting the heart, muscle or brain being passed on to children and future generations.
But the method is controversial because it involves transferring the parents' DNA into a donor egg, meaning the resulting child would inherit a tiny fraction of their genetic coding from a third party.
Regulations currently forbid scientists from implanting such eggs into patients.
SOURCE: telegraph.co.uk