from the eat-only-within-10-hour-window dept.
Do IVF And Other Infertility Tech Lead To Health Risks For The Baby? Maybe
According to research [DOI: 10.1016/j.jacc.2018.06.060] [DX] published this month in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, children conceived through certain infertility treatments may be at a higher risk for cardiovascular disease.
Parents shouldn't panic, the study's authors say: The findings are preliminary, and the study cohort was fairly small. Still, they say, it means that families who used infertility treatments should be particularly vigilant about screening for high blood pressure in their children and help them avoid other cardiovascular risk factors, such as smoking, obesity and a sedentary lifestyle.
[...] [Dr. Urs] Scherrer and his colleagues followed the health of children conceived through assisted reproductive technology for more than a decade. ART [(Assisted Reproductive Technology)] is an umbrella term that covers a number of different types of procedures, including in vitro fertilization, in which sperm and eggs are mixed in a lab dish, and intracytoplasmic sperm injection, in which sperm are inserted directly into eggs. Today, roughly 2 percent of all births in the U.S are conceived via ART.
In 2012, the same team of scientists published a major paper [open, DOI: 10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.111.071183] [DX] showing that 65 healthy kids born with the help of ART were more likely than their peers to have early signs of problematic blood vessels. The current study, comparing 54 of those original children with 43 age- and sex-matched peers, shows those early irregularities — signs of "premature vascular aging", the scientists say — persist into adolescence and young adulthood. Kids in the study who were conceived via ART are now 16 years old, on average, but have blood vessels resembling those of middle-aged adults, the scientists found.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 20 2018, @08:16PM (5 children)
... the progeny of couples who are having a hard time conceiving.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday September 20 2018, @09:05PM (4 children)
Indeed. I came to ask what the evidence of a causal relationship was. There's no such thing as a sexually monogamous species on the planet, even among species that engage in monogamous pair-bonding. So mutual infertility would seem to be a good way to reduce the amount of risk and resources wasted on unhealthy offspring.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Thursday September 20 2018, @09:37PM (3 children)
Aside from the extremely questionable reasoning attaching monogamy to overall individual reproductive success, it's a pretty psychopathic worldview that decides "would survive and reproduce sans technology" as solely deciding "value as a human being"
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Immerman on Thursday September 20 2018, @10:59PM (2 children)
Not value as a human being - but viability as a healthy organism. And that's a pretty important factor in determining reproductive potential of a gene-line, which is the *only* factor guiding evolution.
As for monogamy - I brought that up because even if a couple is mutually infertile, they're not necessarily *generally* infertile, and may both have offspring with other sexual partners even if they remain loyally pair-bonded to each other their entire lives. Raising a genetically unhealthy offspring just imposes additional costs on them that could be more effectively (from an evolutionary standpoint) be spent raising healthier offspring.
Humans and our morality are a recent addition to the world - our biology cares about it not one whit.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Friday September 21 2018, @03:50AM (1 child)
Turns out that yes, our biology cares a substantial amount about our morality. Which is why we had Stephen Hawking for 76 years instead of 26 years. That's the thing about a society, it turns ideas into effects.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 21 2018, @02:44PM
well, if you're going to bring facts into the conversation...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 20 2018, @08:18PM
So dont take the results seriously since they may be overturned but... we recommend you take this to mean you should go to the doctor more often.
Reminds me of that zmapp study, where unblinded lab techs euthanized treated monkeys later than controls according to their opinions of how ill they looked. Since that was the "best evidence available" the team got millions of dollars for it.
And holy crap, I looked to see what happened since and they got away with doing it in the clinical trial too:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5086427/?report=classic [nih.gov]
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday September 20 2018, @10:00PM
Have to lol over the dept. (nice link back to previous story)
from the eat-only-within-10-hour-window dept. .......but only if she's over 16?
(another link back to previous story)
https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=18/09/20/1536215 [soylentnews.org]
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---