Study Suggests Higher Cancer Rate Among IVF Babies

Although its been very helpful in helping couple who cannot conceive,be able to have the chance to start a family, they should have been able to per dict this before they actually allowed it.

MONDAY, July 19 (HealthDay News) -- Children conceived using in vitro fertilization have a higher risk of developing cancer than do children who were conceived naturally, new research shows.


While the study found the risk of cancer was increased by 42 percent for Swedish youngsters conceived with IVF, the absolute risk of cancer was still quite low.

"We found a roughly 50 percent increased risk for cancer in the IVF children, which means that if the risk without IVF is two per 1,000, it increases to three per 1,000 after IVF," explained study author Dr. Bengt Kallen, a professor emeritus in embryology at the Tornblad Institute at the University of Lund in Sweden.

The findings will be published in the August print issue of Pediatrics, but were posted online on July 19.

In vitro fertilization (IVF) is an assisted reproduction technology. Using eggs harvested from the prospective mother and sperm given by the prospective father, doctors can create human embryos that are then implanted into the mother's uterus.

Babies born using this technology are known to have an increased risk of birth defects and of birth complications, such as preterm birth. Previous research has also suggested that children born through this method of conception may also have an increased risk of cancer.

Using the Swedish Medical Birth Register, the researchers gathered information on almost 27,000 children who were born using IVF in Sweden from 1982 through 2005.

When they looked at the number of children who had cancer, they found that 53 children born from IVF had developed cancer compared to the expected rate of 38 cases of cancer in non-IVF children.

Other factors appeared to influence the risk of cancer as well. Children born before 37 weeks' gestation and those with a low birth weight, respiratory problems or a low Apgar score (a test given at birth to assess a newborn's health), had higher rates of cancer.

A mother's age, weight, smoking status and the number of miscarriages she'd already had didn't appear to affect a child's cancer risk. A multiple birth pregnancy also didn't appear to affect the risk of cancer.

Cancers of the blood, such as acute lymphoblastic leukemia, were the most common, affecting 18 children. The next most common were cancers of the eye or central nervous system, affecting 17 children.

Although it's not clear what's to blame for the increase, the study authors think it's unlikely that IVF is at the root of the increased risk of cancer.

"This study is interesting and thought-provoking, and it adds to our growing knowledge of potential IVF consequences," said Dr. David Cohen, chief of reproductive medicine at the University of Chicago.

"But, it's difficult to think what the biological plausibility would be. If it were something that occurs during the in vitro process or some substance in the media used, I would think that it would cause a much higher number of cancers. This may just be a statistical oddity," he added.

"This is the largest study that I'm aware of, and it does suggest an increased risk of childhood cancers ... but it doesn't really delineate whether it's the IVF process or the patient selection. Is this increase due to the procedure, or is it secondary due to a difference in the patient population?" said Dr. Edward Illions, a reproductive endocrinology specialist at the Montefiore Medical Center in New York City and the Montefiore Institute for Reproductive Medicine in Hartsdale, N.Y.

The three experts do not believe these findings will have a significant influence on a couple's decision to have the IVF procedure.

"The absolute risk is so small that it will hardly influence the decision to get an IVF," Kallen said.

"This adds more information to the [pre-IVF] counseling session, but I don't think it will change the decision. The absolute risk is still well less than 1 percent," said Cohen.

More information

Learn more about in vitro fertilization from the American Pregnancy Association

original article.
category: Health Concern
Featured Product on Bayho: Viral

MMM i this next article is making me hungry especially some chips and salsa and guacamole! all tooo good. anyways after reading this article i started to pay more attention to these things at resultant. but i still love guacamole dip and I'm sure i will continue eating it just with a little more cation.

Better put down that tortilla chip.

Contaminated salsa or guacamole were the culprits in nearly 1 out of every 25 foodborne illness outbreaks linked to food in restaurants between 1998 and 2008, according to new research released today by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

That’s more than double the rate during the previous decade, CDC officials said.

“Fresh salsa and guacamole, especially those served in retail food establishments, may be important vehicles of foodborne infection,” said Magdalena Kendall, a researcher at Tennessee's Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education who collaborated on the study.

Part of the problem is that individual ingredients in salsa — peppers, tomatoes, cilantro — all have been linked to widespread salmonella outbreaks in recent years.

Kendall and her colleagues scoured CDC records for salsa- and guacamole-linked outbreaks starting in 1973, when the agency began surveillance. They didn’t detect any until 1984. Of the 136 dip-related outbreaks they found, 84 percent were tied to restaurants and delis.

Between 1984 and 1997, salsa- and guacamole-linked accounted for about 1.5 percent of all food establishment outbreaks. From 1998 and 2008, that figure rose to nearly 4 percent, the CDC said.

original article.
category: Health Concern
Featured Product on Bayho: Detoxification

Is Your Trendy Reusable Bag Infected?

I'm definitely going to have to let my mom know because she uses her reuse able bags all the time each time we go to the market.

The war against plastic bags could have a serious casualty: Your health. (via LA Times)

Those trendy reusable bags (encouraged in place of plastic ones) tote everything from vegetables to books. But it turns out they can also carry bacteria, including deadly E. coli.

A new study (dubiously paid for by the American Chemical Society, which is lobbying against California's potential ban of plastic bags) found that out of 84 bags tested, 12% contained traces of E. coli, and all but one was growing some sort of bacteria.

The source? Three quarters of users interviewed in California and Arizona carry vegetables and meat in the same bag.

But here's the study's more interesting finding: 97% of consumers said they didn't clean their bags on a regular basis—or ever.

Don't worry, though, there's a solution: Washing a reusable bag kills 99.9% of bacteria.

Nice try, plastic

original article.
category:Cold & Flu
Featured Product on Bayho: Cold and Flu Season + 30 cap