By removing the body’s worn-out cells, called senescent cells, several times during the lifetime of aging-accelerated mice, researchers were able to spare the mice of cataracts, aging skin and muscle loss.

“We started treating animals when they were really young, before they started to establish these senescent cells,” study researcher Darren Baker, of the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine in Minnesota, told LiveScience. “As a cell became senescent we would remove it; we saw a really profound effect.”

Senescent cells

These cells were once important contributors to their cellular community. Eventually cells get old and start showing signs of wear and tear that could lead to cancer, so the body essentially “turns them off.” When cells get turned off in mammals (including humans and mice), they can take one of two paths, either dying off or sticking around in a senescent state.

For some reason, the ones that stick around start pumping out odd proteins. These chemical signals have a strange impact on the cells around them, and researchers have speculated that these chemicals can lead to age-related diseases.

The number of senescent cells increases as tissues age; at most they will make up 15 percent of cells in mammalian tissues, the researchers said.

Still, “that small percent is enough to cause major consequences,” Baker said. “They start to turn on a variety of genes that are not good and are thought to be detrimental to the overall function of the tissue.”

Out with the old

In the new study, the team bred mice to age quickly, getting cataracts, weakened muscles and loss of fat deposits by the time they are 10 months old, when they die of heart disease.

At the mice’s 3-week birthdays, the researchers treated them with a drug that would cause their senescent cells to commit suicide, and they repeated this treatment every three days. Compared with the untreated mice that kept all their senescent cells, these drug-treated mice had stronger muscles, fewer cataracts and less wrinkled skin (because their fat deposits in their skin were in better shape).

The researchers also let some of these mice grow up, and didn’t start treating them until they were 5 months old. At this point the mice had already developed aging diseases, including cataracts, and were suffering from muscle and fat loss. The scientists weren’t able to “undo” the aging that had already occurred, but after repeated treatment to remove the senescent cells, deterioration of the mouse muscles and fat cells stopped. [7 Ways the Mind and Body Change With Age]

Healthy aging

The mice still had other age-related signs and didn’t have an extended lifetime; basically, the drug extended the proportion of “healthy time” in their lives. The researchers said they believe death (and these other aging diseases) is caused through different pathways that aren’t affected by these senescent cells.

They are repeating their study on normal mice, without the accelerated aging mutation, but these studies will take years to complete, because normal mice live so much longer (to about 3 years).

Since the study was performed using mice, the researchers still have a long way to go before they reach a human therapy. The senescent cell-clearing technique couldn’t be used on humans, since it would require inserting a special gene into human embryos, as was done with mice embryos.

However, Baker said the researchers could use the information they gather from these mouse studies to develop therapies for humans. Gene therapies could be used to target senescent cells, or scientists could use a vaccine to train the human immune system to attack these cells. Such therapies are far in the future, though, and still require lots of basic science to back them up. By Jennifer Welsh, Yahoo Daily News

According to a report, patients with severe obesity face premature death, disease and disability which could be prevented or eliminated by surgery.

Research by the National Bariatric Surgery Registry (NBSR) found obesity surgery treats a range of life-threatening diseases, including achieving an 86% reduction in the number of patients with type 2 diabetes.

Surgeons suggest the figures demonstrate the cost-effectiveness of early weight-loss treatment.

Data from more than 8,700 operations carried out in the NHS and private sector showed around two thirds of severely obese patients have three or more associated diseases by the time they reach surgery.

Meanwhile a third have high blood pressure, over a quarter have diabetes and nearly a fifth have high cholesterol.

Following surgery, patients who had a 12-month follow-up examination lost some 58% of excess weight. And there was improvement on all associated diseases.

After two years, 86% of those affected by diabetes prior to surgery showed no indication of the disease.

The NBSR said the cost of bariatric surgery – which includes gastric bypasses and gastric bands – is recouped within three years as obesity-associated costs are eliminated.

Bariatric surgeon Alberic Fiennes, chairman of the NBSR data committee, said: “This data shows that not only is UK bariatric surgery safe, but it successfully treats a whole range of diseases – including the rapid resolution of diabetes – yet commissioners continue to ignore the facts.

“An approach that limits treatment to a fraction of those who would benefit is one which the NHS will rue in years to come as these patients become an unsustainable burden on the health service.

“Prevention strategy alone has proved ineffective. There are at least two generations of morbidly obese patients who are now presenting with diabetes, stroke, heart disease and cancer for whom preventative measures are utterly irrelevant.

“The numbers are increasing – these people need to be treated.”

David Stout, NHS Confederation Primary Care Trust (PCT) Network director, said: “It is right that surgeons should get together to start measuring the efficacy of the work they do and set the standards for services to be improved in future.

“While surgery will always be an important part of dealing with increasing obesity, the most cost effective solution is to make sure that people do not get to the stage of needing surgery in the first place.

“The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) provides PCTs, and the GP consortia that will replace them, with guidance on which patients should be considered for weight-loss surgery as part of a wider strategy to address obesity.

“They also have to have public health strategies in place which encourage a healthier diet and lifestyle.

“PCTs need to balance their priorities across a wide range of services, taking into account Nice guidance in the context of local needs. But it is important that all commissioners are transparent in their decision-making.”

A Department of Health spokesman said: “England has some of the highest rates of obesity in Europe – concerted effort is needed to tackle this.”

Government was encouraging people to make simple changes, such as eating more fruit and vegetables, cutting down on fatty foods and being more active, the spokesman said.

“Bariatric surgery should only be considered as a last resort once weight loss schemes and exercise programmes have been tried.”  By Neil Lancefield, The Independent

Those who drink a small amount are 14-25% less likely to develop the condition than non-drinkers, the research led by Professor William Ghali from the University of Calgary in Canada found.

A paper led by Dr Susan Brien, also from the University of Calgary, found that moderate consumption of alcohol (up to one drink or 15g alcohol per day for women and up to two drinks or 30g alcohol per day for men) is good for health.

The researchers say that moderate amounts of alcohol significantly increase the levels of ‘good’ cholesterol circulating in the body and this has a protective effect against heart disease.

Brien’s research concludes that it is the alcohol content that provides the health benefits, not the type of alcoholic beverage (wine, beer or spirits) that is drunk.

Professor Ghali concluded that the debate between the impact of alcohol on heart disease should now centre “on how to integrate this evidence into clinical practice and public health messages”.

He added: “With respect to public health messages there may now be an impetus to better communicate to the public that alcohol, in moderation, may have overall health benefits that outweigh the risks in selected subsets of patients. Any such strategy would need to be accompanied by rigorous study and oversight of impacts.” The Guardian

It was 2001 when the World Health Organisation announced that exclusive breastfeeding for six months was best for babies. In 2003 the then Labour minister Hazel Blears adopted the recommendation for the UK.

But today, in the British Medical Journal, doctors from several leading child health institutes say the evidence for the WHO guidance was never there – and that failing to start weaning babies on to solids before six months could be harmful.

Mary Fewtrell, from the childhood nutrition research centre at the University College London Institute of Child Health, said probably no babies had been harmed, as few mothers in the UK manage to stick to six

Fewtrell and colleagues from Edinburgh and Birmingham universities say that is partly because mothers often find by that stage that their babies want more. Their trawl of the existing evidence shows, they say, that babies also need more.

According to the paper, failing to start weaning on to solid food (they are not talking about formula milk) before six months appears to raise risks for the baby. Evidence that was unavailable when the WHO made its recommendation suggests they have a greater chance of iron deficiency anaemia, “known to be linked to irreversible adverse mental, motor or psychosocial outcomes.” Unlike the US, the UK does not have a screening programme for iron deficiencies in children, so it is impossible to say if there have been problems.

Other evidence, they say, suggests that babies not introduced to certain foods earlier than six months may have a higher incidence of food allergies. “Countries where peanuts are used as weaning foods have low incidences of peanut allergy (Israel, for example),” they write.

The third potential issue is coeliac disease. The numbers of children developing coeliac disease rose in Sweden following advice to mothers to delay the introduction of gluten into their child’s diet until after six months, and it fell when the recommendation reverted to four months.

Fewtrell said she supported the WHO recommendation, but argued that it needed to be interpreted differently in different countries. Exclusive breastfeeding protects against infections, which is critical in developing countries, but less important in the UK where hygiene and sanitation are better. “There’s only one piece of evidence relevant to babies in the UK – a slightly decreased risk of gastroenteritis,” she said.

She said she hoped the government’s scientific advisory committee on nutrition, which is looking at infant feeding, would take on board their findings.

Advocates of breastfeeding point out that the recommendation not to wean until six months has substantially cut the numbers of women who introduced solids before four months – from 85% in 2000 to 51% in 2005. But Fewtrell said that was no argument for misleading women.

“I really want to emphasise we are not in any way anti-breastfeeding, particularly in the long term,” she said. “We’re extremely pro-breastfeeding. We would go along with recommendations to breastfeed exclusively for four months.”

Pro-breastfeeding groups were dismayed, however. Unicef pointed out that it did not contain any new experimental data and said the UK policy had been a success as greater numbers of mothers now delayed the introduction of solids until after four months. It added that most early foods “are not nutrient dense and do not provide quantities of iron and zinc”.

Patti Rundall, of the campaigning group Baby Milk Action, said moving to weaning at four months would be “a regrettable and backward step that is out of step with current scientific thinking”.

She accused the paper’s authors of taking funds from the babyfood industry. The paper acknowledges that three of the four authors “have performed consultancy work and/or received research funding from companies manufacturing infant formulas and baby foods within the past three years”.

Fewtrell was unapologetic. Ideally, mothers would give their babies fresh food, including meat, for iron. “This is not an attempt to promote commercial weaning foods,” she said. “We are a university and Medical Research Council-funded group.” They had advised babyfood manufacturers because they were specialists in child nutrition, she said.

“Some organisations are all too happy to quote our data when it supports breastfeeding,” she said. “They are choosy in what they will allow.”

Justine Roberts of Mumsnet said women needed clarity after at least three changes of policy in her own child-rearing years. “A lot of mums work quite hard, and it is quite hard work trying to exclusively breasfeed for six months without introducing solids. If that turns out not to be correct advice, we’d like to know as soon as possible.”

The Department of Health said it would review the research, adding: “Breast milk provides all the nutrients a baby needs up to six months of age and we recommend exclusive breastfeeding for this time.” “Mothers who wish to introduce solids before six months should always talk to health professionals first.” By Sarah Boseley, The Guardian

About a third of all U.S. adults have prehypertension, a borderline zone with its own risk of stroke, heart disease and likelihood of worsening into full hypertension. Laura Landro has details and offers five ways to lower your blood pressure.

Mr. Cote, a participant in a study at Massachusetts General Hospital through his employer, EMC Corp., monitors his blood pressure at home and uploads the readings to a website, where a “virtual coach” gives him personalized tips, reminders and feedback to help him stay on track. His new lifestyle, which he adopted after his doctor gave him the prehypertension diagnosis in 2008, is a big change from his old sedentary habits.

About a third of U.S. adults have hypertension, which leads to one in six deaths in the U.S. But at least the same number, and possibly as many as 37%, are prehypertensive. Because prehypertension was only formally identified as a concern in 2003, doctors haven’t reached consensus on treatment, and there is mounting debate about the best approach.

Some doctors are sticking by federal guidelines that recommend lifestyle changes such as Mr. Cote’s. Others, especially when treating patients at the high end of the prehypertension range, are turning to drugs usually prescribed for high blood pressure, based on new evidence that they can prevent or delay progression to full-blown hypertension.

Lifestyle changes can make a big difference. Though the exact causes of rising blood pressure aren’t clear, studies show a strong association with overweight, high salt intake, a sedentary lifestyle, smoking, caffeine and alcohol use. Stress and lack of sleep also appear to play a role. Men with prehypertension are 3.5 times more likely to suffer heart attacks than those with normal blood pressure; postmenopausal women with prehypertension have a 58% higher risk of cardiovascular death than those with normal blood pressure, one study has found.

High obesity rates are making prehypertension a concern for ever-younger patients. A study published in June found that in adolescents, elevated blood pressure that is still within the normal range can represent higher risk that the patient will develop hypertension in their 20s or 30s. Other studies indicate teens with prehypertension can progress to hypertension in as little as two years.

Because high blood pressure has no symptoms, “you can’t feel blood pressure the way you would a headache or a sore knee,” says Lawrence Fine, chief of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute’s clinical applications and prevention branch. That makes it all the more important for patients to track their own status and consult with their doctors about factors that might put them at higher risk, such as tobacco use and family history. Dr. Fine recommends that patients ask to have their blood pressure taken whenever they come into contact with the health system, be it at a doctor’s office, a dentist appointment or a workplace health fair.

Blood pressure, the force of blood against artery walls, is measured with two numbers (both expressed in millimeters of mercury, or mmHg)—at each heart beat, when pressure is highest, called systolic pressure, and between beats, when the heart is at rest, called diastolic pressure. Normal blood pressure is below 120/80. Readings from 120 to 139 systolic or 80 to 89 diastolic are considered prehypertensive. Those at 140/90 or above indicate hypertension. Doctors may prescribe as many as three drugs to control high blood pressure.

In 2003, a federal panel, the Joint National Committee on Prevention, Detection, Evaluation and Treatment of High Blood Pressure, recommended only lifestyle modifications for most prehypertensive patients. But in 2006, a study conducted by researchers at the University of Michigan, known as Trophy (for Treatment of Prehypertension) and published in the New England Journal of Medicine, showed clear benefits to using medication to control blood pressure in prehypertensive patients. The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute is conducting a review, due out next fall, on whether to update the federal recommendations.

Participants in the Trophy trial took either a drug (the angiotensin-receptor blocker called candesartan) or a placebo for two years; then all participants took a placebo for two more years. All were advised to make lifestyle changes. In the first two years, hypertension developed in 154 participants in the placebo group but in only 53 in the drug group, a relative risk reduction of 66%. After four years, the relative risk reduction was 16%.

Stevo Julius, professor emeritus at the University of Michigan Cardiovascular Center and the trial’s lead researcher, says the results show that treating prehypertensive patients with drugs is feasible, but more research is necessary. George Bakris, director of the Hypertension Center at the University of Chicago School of Medicine, who served on the 2003 federal guidelines panel, says the trial demonstrates that “there’s a drug with placebo-like side effects that will buy you time if you can’t do it yourself.”

Experts are sharply divided in the drugs-versus-lifestyle debate. Some doctors don’t even like the term “prehypertension,” let alone the idea of treating it with drugs. Anthony Viera, a family physician at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, says he doesn’t tell patients they have “prehypertension,” instead counseling them on lifestyle modifications. A study he published in October in the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine found there was no difference in reported changes in eating habits, salt reduction or exercise among 97 prehypertensive patients randomly assigned to either a group that was told, or wasn’t told, of the diagnosis.

Laura Svetkey, director of the Hypertension Center at Duke University, agrees drugs shouldn’t be prescribed for prehypertension. “There’s no evidence that treating prehypertension with medication will do more good than harm or vice versa,” she says. By contrast, another Duke researcher, Madan Kwatra, in a paper published in the journal Blood Pressure written with researchers at Wake Forest University last year, recommends drug therapy for everyone with prehypertension.

Americans spent close to $25 billion in 2009 on hypertension medication. But Dr. Kwatra says the cost of treating prehypertension could be half that: It would take only one relatively inexpensive drug to treat most prehypertension patients, while many hypertension patients take multiple drugs. Decreased hospitalizations would offset costs, he adds. Insurers generally go with the doctor’s judgment. Aetna Inc., for example, doesn’t limit use of anti-hypertensive drugs to only hypertension nor does it require pre-certification for prehypertension treatment.

Others say the reality is too many people can’t change their habits. “We know that the population for the most part is going in the wrong direction on lifestyle,” says Brent Egan, director of the hypertension initiative at the Medical University of South Carolina, which participated in the Trophy trial. There may be benefits to treating patients on the upper end of the prehypertension scale with drugs, he says, especially if they have diabetes, kidney disease or other risk factors.

Yet some patients with healthy habits are diagnosed as prehypertensive. Graeme Sharrock, 57, a Chicago real estate investor, is a nonsmoking, nondrinking, athletic vegetarian. He learned in June that his systolic blood pressure had risen by more than 20% in a year, making him prehypertensive. He wasn’t getting enough sleep, was under stress from the death of his father last year and was experiencing tightness in his upper neck that he thinks put pressure on his arteries. Now, he is seeing a chiropractor for his neck and trying to get more sleep. For now, Dr. Bakris has prescribed a low dose of a beta blocker, a hypertension drug. “I’m willing to try various things to get this under control,” Mr. Sharrock says.  By Laura Landro,  Wall Street Journal

The analysis, which used data from nearly 7,000 people ages 44-88 enrolled in the Health and Retirement Study, did not find a similar benefit for men.

Published online Sept. 29 in the journal Health Economics, the study compared people who went to the dentist during the previous two years with those who did not.

“Many studies have found associations between dental care and cardiovascular disease, but our study is the first to show that general dental care leads to fewer heart attacks, strokes, and other adverse cardiovascular outcomes in a causal way,” said study lead author Timothy Brown, assistant adjunct professor of health policy and management at UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health.

In the world of health and medical studies, causality is typically determined through randomized controlled trials in which two or more groups of people are essentially equal, except for the receipt of a treatment or intervention, such as a new drug, a periodontal procedure or a health education class. The group that did not receive the treatment – the control group – is compared with the group that did. Differences in outcomes between the groups are attributed to the treatment.

But randomized controlled trials are not always possible, so researchers sometimes turn to a statistical approach called the method of instrumental variables to rule out other potential factors that could account for different outcomes between groups. The use of instrumental variables is common among economists to evaluate the effects of economic policies, but it is less well-known in the clinical setting.

“While relatively short randomized controlled trials of specific types of dental treatment are possible, we can’t run long-term randomized controlled trials of whether general dental care reduces cardiovascular disease events like heart attacks and strokes,” said Brown, a health economist. “Individuals randomized to the treatment group would enjoy general dental care and those randomized to the control group would get no dental care at all. Many, if not most, people in the control group would simply get dental care on their own, destroying the experimental design, and making the results of the experiment worthless. The method of instrumental variables allows us to avoid this problem.”

The method helped researchers rule out self-selection bias, or the possibility that people who seek out dental care are different – perhaps healthier in general – than those who don’t.

Data from the Health and Retirement Study had been collected every two years from 1996 to 2004. This longitudinal study followed the same individuals over time, and each biennial survey included questions on whether subjects had visited the dentist and whether they had experienced a heart attack, stroke, angina or congestive heart failure during the prior two years. Deaths from heart attacks or strokes were also included in the analysis. The study took into account other risk factors, such as alcohol and tobacco use, high blood pressure and body mass index.

The fact that men and women did not benefit equally from dental care did not completely surprise the researchers. “To my knowledge, previous studies in this area have found that the relationship between poor oral health and cardiovascular disease markers varies by gender, but none have examined differences between men and women with regard to actual cardiovascular disease events,” said Brown, who is also associate director of research at UC Berkeley’s Nicholas C. Petris Center on Health Care Markets & Consumer Welfare.

“We think the findings reflect differences in how men and women develop cardiovascular disease,” said study co-author Dr. Stephen Brown, a first-year obstetrician/gynecologist resident at the West Virginia University Charleston Division School of Medicine. “Other studies suggest that estrogen has a protective effect against heart disease because it helps prevent the development of atherosclerosis. It’s not until women hit menopause around age 50 to 55 that they start catching up with men.”

The study authors suggest that for dental care to have a protective effect, it should occur early in the development of cardiovascular disease.

The researchers did not have data on the type of procedures used during the dental visit, but they pointed to other studies that indicated three-fourths of older adult dental visits involved preventive services, such as cleaning, fluoride and sealant treatments.

Oral health experts recommend twice-yearly visits to the dentist, as well as brushing and flossing at least twice a day. Those wearing dentures should make sure they stay clean to prevent the growth and buildup of plaque and bacteria. redOrbit

The study, published in Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research, retrospectively reviewed the cases of 71 women who had suffered pelvic fractures, 26 of whom subsequently had children. Of those 26 women, 10 delivered vaginally and 16 gave birth by C-section.

More than 100,000 patients are treated for pelvic fractures each year in the U.S., most commonly after car accident injuries.

Lisa Cannada, M.D., associate professor of orthopaedic surgery subspecializing in traumatology at Saint Louis University and lead researcher, says the study offers important information women should discuss with their doctors.

“The C-section rate is so high. It’s important to educate women and their obstetricians that it is possible to deliver vaginally after a pelvic fracture,” said Cannada, who is also a SLUCare orthopaedic surgeon.

“Frequently, these issues are not addressed when women are first treated for a fracture. In some cases, women are given inaccurate information, such as being told not to become pregnant after a pelvic fracture or that they must have a C-section. This is not the case.”

Researchers also found that, in addition to anxiety about future pregnancies, women expressed concern about symptoms related to their injuries and also frequently suffered from urinary symptoms and discomfort during sex.

“We’ve found that many women worry about whether or not they can have children and what type of delivery will be possible,” Cannada said. “Women also worry about pain during sex and urinary issues.”

In many cases, Cannada says, women do not realize their symptoms are related to the fracture they suffered. Urinary issues, sexual dysfunction and post-traumatic stress disorder all can follow a pelvic fracture.

Cannada says it’s important for women to know that there are effective treatment options for these issues.

“Take charge,” Cannada says. “Don’t let a pelvic fracture affect your life or decision to have kids. Talk to your OB/GYN and find out what your best options are.” PhysOrg

The study classified Asians born in Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan as South Asians. The other Asian subgroup consisted of those born in China, the Philippines, North and South Korea, Thailand, Vietnam and other nations.

Researchers used data from the New York City Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, conducted in 2004, to evaluate different racial and ethnic groups for risk factors relating to heart disease and metabolic disorders such as diabetes.

Their findings, based on fasting glucose levels from 1,324 respondents, appears in the latest issue of the journal Ethnicity & Disease.

“In addition to cultural and lifestyle factors, Asians subgroups are also different in terms of their genetic makeup,” said lead study author, Swapnil Rajpathak, M.D., an assistant professor of epidemiology and population health at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

These variations contribute to the disparity in diabetes risk between whites and Asians overall, as well as between South Asians and Asians from other countries.

As many as 1 million Asian-Americans live in New York City, accounting for 10 percent of its total population, and this number is projected to increase.

After adjusting for age, the researchers found that South Asians had the highest prevalence of diabetes at 35.4 percent, compared with 16.1 percent for all Asians and 10.8 percent for whites.

Although these figures rely on a small sample size, the research demonstrates a need for more studies focusing particularly on the elevated risk among South Asians, said Rajpathak, who emigrated from India.

“Immigrants may experience dramatic changes in their diet and physical activity after moving to this country,” he said. “Given their higher genetic susceptibility, unfavorable changes in lifestyle factors may increase the risk of diabetes.”

The findings are of “great interest” but come as “no surprise,” said Vivian Fonseca, M.D., vice president of the American Diabetes Association and chief of endocrinology at Tulane University Health Sciences Center.

In general, “Asians get insulin resistance and increased risk of diabetes and heart disease at a much lower level of obesity than Caucasians,” he said.

To address the disparity, the American Diabetes Association is planning awareness programs aimed specifically at South Asians. Fonseca said the educational efforts “need to be culturally sensitive, understandable for people who may not be fluent in English.”  By Susan Kreimer, PhysOrg

A rare community of highly fluorescent corals discovered in shallow waters in the Lord Howe Island Marine Park could also provide insights into how some corals cope with global warming.

Anya Salih, from the University of Western Sydney will use pigments from the corals to develop new fluorescent labels to help track the inner workings of cells and study what goes wrong in cancer.

Red was in particular demand because it allowed researchers to see deeper into tissues, said Salih, who is collaborating with cancer researchers overseas, reports The Sydney Morning Herald.

The gene that gives the coral its colour gets attached to the cell molecule, lighting it up.

The activity of that molecule, as the cell grows and changes, can then be followed under a special laser microscope using the fluorescence it gives off.

The Lord Howe Island Marine Park manager, Ian Kerr, said the scientifically important discovery was a good example of why biodiversity in the ocean needed to be protected. Newstrack India

“This is the first study to find that a biological measure of stress is associated with a woman’s chances of becoming pregnant that month,” explains Dr Cecilia Pyper of the National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit at the University of Oxford. “We looked at a group of healthy women aged between 18 and 40 who were all planning a pregnancy. We found that those women with high levels of a marker for stress were less likely to succeed in conceiving. “The findings support the idea that couples should aim to stay as relaxed as they can about trying for a baby. In some people’s cases, it might be relevant to look at relaxation techniques, counselling and even approaches like yoga and meditation,” Dr Pyper says.

It is well-known that age affects the ability of women to conceive, and there is evidence that smoking, obesity and alcohol consumption can affect the likelihood of becoming pregnant. As a result the advice given to women planning to get pregnant includes stopping smoking, eating a healthy diet, lowering alcohol intake and taking folic acid. Stress has also been suggested as a factor affecting the chances of couples conceiving, but this has been based largely on anecdotal or indirect evidence.

The research team from Oxford University and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute for Child Health and Human Development set out to measure stress levels among healthy women seeking to get pregnant and see whether the levels were related to their chances of conceiving. “We want to understand the things that affect the chances of pregnancy for normal, healthy women trying for a baby,” says Dr Pyper. “Many couples are very keen to know what they should do to improve their chances of conceiving and having a healthy baby, and this will help us provide the best advice.” Deccan Chronicle