A Hormone that can mimic a good workout

No sweat required. A hormone that surges during exercise may confer some of the benefits of a workout, when levels are artificially boosted.

The hormone is identical in mice and humans and promotes the development of a type of energy-burning fat - a discovery that could be key to treating obesity and diabetes.

A protein known as PGC1-alpha mediates many of the benefits of exercise, such as resistance to metabolic diseases.

To find out more, a team from the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, analysed factors secreted by muscle and regulated by PGC1-alpha.

One of these factors turned out to be a new hormone which had gone unnoticed because it is hidden within a complex molecule.

Further study showed that levels of that hormone jumped in mice and humans after bouts of exercise.

When the hormone was added to mouse subcutaneous white fat cells at an early stage of development, it made the cells more likely to become "beige" fat cells. These, like brown fat, are equipped to burn body fuel to generate heat.

"The hormone carries a message from muscle to fat tissue," says lead author Pontus Bostrom. Bruce Spiegelman, director of the lab, named the hormone irisin after the Greek messenger goddess Iris.

Mice eating a high-fat diet that were given the gene for irisin burned more energy and had lower body weight than mice receiving a placebo (Nature, DOI: 10.1038/nature10777).

AND if that doesn't work, here's a workout video for you!


See more at www.women-workout-routines.com/

Adiponectin: Hormone affects Dementia in Woman

Women with an abnormal number of a certain hormone are more likely to develop dementia, as suggested by latest study conducted in cooperation with the Framingham Heart Study (FHS).

Participants from the Boston University cardiovascular research initiatives provided frozen blood samples that allowed scientists to isolate a hormone known as adiponectin, which the new research findings said appear to be connected with dementia.

According to a report by U.S. network ABC, the study drew its conclusion on the analysis of 840 participants, which were monitored for 13 years, with 159 of them suffering brain degeneration with one common denominator - high presence of adiponectin.

The results, according to Dr Ernst Schaefer of Tufts University, were somewhat perplexing as the pursued links between dementia and diabetes were further complicated by what the researchers have so far appreciated from the decade-old study.

While science generally regards adiponectin as an important agent in preventing the onset of diabetes, its purportedly dementia-inducing function, at least in the context of the FHS experiment, had caught the researchers by surprise.

Major breakthrough in preventing premature birth

A groundbreaking clinical study of a new method for preventing premature birth in millions of women each year, published in the medical journal Ultrasound in Obstetrics & Gynecology, shows that the rate of early pre-term delivery in women (<33 weeks) can be reduced by 45%, simply by treating pregnant women at risk with a low-cost gel of natural progesterone during the mid-trimester of pregnancy until term.

The peer-reviewed findings were led by the Perinatology Research Branch of the National Institutes of Health, housed by the Wayne State University School of Medicine at Hutzel Hospital in Detroit. The findings are certain to have substantial impact on the practice of medicine, according to the principal investigator of the three-year clinical trial.

The study is entitled Vaginal progesterone reduces the rate of pre-term birth in women with a sonographic short cervix: a multicenter, randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. “The study published today offers hope to women, families and children,” said Dr. Roberto Romero, Chief of the Perinatology Research Branch of the NIH.

“Worldwide, more than 12 million premature babies (500,000 of them in the US) are born each year, and the results are often tragic. Our clinical study clearly shows that it is possible to identify women at risk and reduce the rate of pre-term delivery by nearly half, simply by treating women who have a short cervix with a natural hormone – progesterone.” Dr. Romero, principal investigator of the study, and Sonia S. Hassan, M.D., the lead author of the study.

Sonia S. Hassan is an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology in the WSU School of Medicine. He also pointed out that numerous studies (many by the PRB) over the past decade have shown that ultrasound of the uterine cervix can identify pregnant women who are at high risk for pre-term delivery.

The ultrasound examination is simple to perform, painless, and can be performed between the 19th and 24th weeks of pregnancy. Pregnant women with a short cervix (one that is < 20mm) are at very high risk for preterm delivery.

Dr. Romero added that, once a high-risk mother for pre-term delivery has been identified, she can be offered treatment with progesterone. Of major interest is that progesterone reduced the risk of preterm delivery not only at <33 weeks, but also at <28 weeks (one of the secondary endpoints of the study).

It also reduced the rate of infant respiratory distress syndrome, the most common complication of premature babies. “We believe that the data in our study speaks for itself – and we predict that it will have major implications for obstetrics.”
 
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What do we know about BPA: Bisphenol A

THREE letters lie at the heart of our modern world: BPA. Short for bisphenol A, a synthetic oestrogen, a staggering 3 billion kilograms of the stuff is produced annually, with an estimated value of $500,000 per hour to the global economy.

BPA is used in the production of a hard and transparent form of polycarbonate plastic used to create food and drink containers and other consumer goods. It is also used in the epoxy resins that line metal food cans, and as an ingredient in dental sealants.

In fact, we are so consistently exposed to BPA that over 90 per cent of us excrete BPA metabolites in our urine at any given time.

How exactly BPA enters the human body is not yet clear, although eating food kept in BPA-containing packaging, breathing household dust and handling plastics that contain BPA may all contribute to our daily exposure.

Currently, BPA is not listed on food or drink labels so millions of people have no way of knowing their daily exposure.

BPA was first reported in the scientific literature in the 1930s as a synthetic oestrogen, and it is this property that has led to most of the subsequent controversy.

Laboratory studies show that, at the right dose, BPA can act as a hormone mimic, binding not only to oestrogen receptors but to other related receptors, too. However, this "active" dose has been furiously contested in what has become an intense scientific dispute.

More.....

Sex and Hormonal contraceptives: higher risk of female sexual dysfunction

Hormonal contraceptives associated with higher risk of female sexual dysfunction ScienceBlog.com

Women taking non-oral and oral hormonal contraceptives were at highest risk of Female Sexual Dysfunction (FSD), according to a study of female German medical students published today in The Journal of Sexual Medicine. Interestingly, women taking non-hormonal contraceptives were at lowest risk for FSD, more than women not using any contraceptive.

"Sexual problems can have a negative impact on both quality of life and emotional well-being, regardless of age," said researcher Dr. Lisa-Maria Wallwiener of the University of Heidelberg, Germany. "FSD is a very common disorder, with an estimated prevalence of about two in five women having at least one sexual dysfunction, and the most common complaint appearing to be low desire."

"The causes of FSD are multifunctional and in recent years the possible role of hormonal contraception has been discussed," said fellow researchers Drs. Christian and Markus Wallwiener, University of Tuebingen, Germany. "Women tend to be aware that sexual dysfunction is often influenced by various factors such as stress and relationships, but our study has shown it might also be influenced by exogenous hormone application."

1,086 women were included in the study (roughly 2.5% of the overall female medical student population in Germany), who completed questionnaires designed to identify problems with sexual function, as well as other lifestyle factors including desire for children, pregnancy and whether they were smokers. 87.4% had used contraceptives in the last 6 months, and 97.3% had been sexually active within the last four weeks.

To analyse the effect of contraception on sexual function, women using multiple forms of contraception or who had not been sexually active within the last four weeks were excluded, leaving 1046 participants. Of this figure, 32.4% were considered at risk for FSD: 5.8% at high risk for hypoactive sexual desire disorder, 1% for arousal disorder, 1.2% for decreased lubrication, 8.7% for orgasm disorder, 2.6% for satisfaction problems, and 1.1% for pain.

The participants were then divided into four subgroups of oral (hormonal) contraception (OC), non-oral hormonal contraception (NOHC), nonhormonal contraception (NHC), and no contraception (NC). The group at lowest risk for FSD (highest sexual function score) was NHC (31.0), followed by NC (29.5) and OC (28.3), with NOHC (27.4) at highest risk. For desire and arousal, both OC and NOHC groups were at highest risk.

The method of contraception and smoking status were significant factors for total sexual function scores, with smokers scoring higher than non-smokers. Other factors including age, prior pregnancy, desire for children, and partnership status were not significant. Women not in stable relationships (regardless of contraception use) had higher desire but lower orgasm scores.

"In future research it would be interesting to see if there is a difference between the dosage of estrogen and the various synthetic progestins used in hormonal contraceptives in terms of an impact on female sexual function," added study researcher Dr. Harald Seeger, also of University of Tuebingen, Germany. "We would also urge some caution in interpretation of our present results and would like to highlight that this type of study cannot demonstrate causality but rather association and there might exist a multitude of factors that have an impact on female sexual function."

"This is a very important research investigation", stated Dr. Irwin Goldstein, Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Sexual Medicine. "There are hundreds of millions of women, in particular young women at the beginning of their sexual lives, who regularly use hormonal contraception for many years. The irony is that these women are provided a medication that enables freedom from reproductive worries but these same women are not provided information that there are significant adverse sexual effects that may ensue.

"Agents that interfere with the hormonal milieu of women may adversely affect their sexual lives"

Link: http://www.wiley.com/wiley-blackwell

Born to Cuddle - Hormone Oxytocin

The cuddle chemical has a dark side. Oxytocin – a hormone thought to play a role in maternal bonding, trust and even attraction – amplifies feelings of envy and gloating, research suggests.

Volunteers who played a game involving monetary gains and losses felt more envy after an imaginary opponent's wins if they had received a dose of oxytocin, compared with a placebo.

Similarly, oxytocin boosted feelings of schadenfreude – pleasure at another's misfortune – after volunteers won more money than their opponent.

"The bottom line is that [oxytocin] doesn't only work on pro-social, positive emotions, it has a general effect on social emotions and it depends on the context," says Simone Shamay-Tsoory, a cognitive scientist at the University of Haifa, Israel, who led the study.

Attraction to aggression

Previous work on animals has hinted at oxytocin's double life. Female hamsters that received an infusion of oxytocin into a brain area where the hormone is known to have an effect responded more aggressively to intruders than hamsters that got no oxytocin.

Newborn female voles that received an injection of oxytocin later responded more aggressively to males than other females.

Studies with humans, on the other hand, have suggested that oxytocin makes us more likely to trust others, find them attractive, and remember their faces. We even receive a flood of the stuff when we play with our pooches. "No one actually examined if it can be involved in negative social emotions," says Shamay-Tsoory.

However, she admits her team expected to find that feelings of envy and gloating were tempered by the hormone.