Human egg harvesting ring broken

Police in Attica on Saturday arrested five suspects, one of them a Greek doctor, in connection with a cross-border ring believed to have been exploiting immigrant women by harvesting eggs from their ovaries to give to Greek women interested in in vitro fertilization (IVF).

Two Bulgarian men, a Bulgarian woman and two Romanian men were detained as suspected members of the gang, according to Greek police who said they were assisted by their counterparts in Romania and Bulgaria.

The 47-year-old doctor was arrested at an Athens fertility clinic late on Friday as he was about to remove eggs from the ovaries of a 20-year-old Romanian woman, police said. Most of the women alleged to have been exploited by the gang had been brought to Greece, ostensibly for legitimate jobs, before being sold into prostitution and then being forced to agree to the removal of their eggs. One of the Romanian suspects, a 37-year-old woman, allegedly underwent the same procedure herself several times before bringing six of her compatriots into contact with the gang, police said.

The suspects face long jail terms if convicted.

Early puberty in girls may be linked to absent fathers in higher-income families

Girls are starting puberty earlier, studies show, and some researchers speculate that rising obesity rates might be a factor. A new study finds there may be a link between early puberty and girls living in higher-income households without a biological father.

The study, published this week in the Journal of Adolescent Health, looked at data on 444 ethnically diverse girls age 6 to 8, 80 of whom had no biological father living at home at the time of the study. Researchers noted the girls' onset of puberty (breast and pubic hair development), body mass index, ethnicity and income. Among the 80 participants, 21% had other men living at home, including stepfathers.

Not having a biological father at home was associated with earlier breast development, but only for girls who lived in families with incomes over $50,000. Not having a father at home was linked with earlier development of pubic hair among African American girls living in higher income homes. Factoring in BMI did not change the results.

The study offered some reasons for the link: higher-income families may have weaker support systems than lower-income families; mothers working outside of the home may put extra stress on family life and relationships; and having fathers leave while kids are young may indicate early familiarity with marital discord; and children living in higher-income households may have more exposure to environmental toxins that may have an effect on puberty.

"The hunt for an explanation to this trend is significant since girls who enter puberty earlier than their peers are not only at greater risk for reproductive cancers, they are also more likely to develop asthma and engage in higher risk sexual behaviors and substance abuse, so these studies have broader relevance to women's health," said senior author Dr. Robert Hiatt, professor and co-chair of epidemiology and biostatistics at UC San Francisco, in a news release.

Artificial ovary is a world first

The breakthrough could help preserve fertility for women having chemotherapy or other invasive treatments.
Using a honeycomb-shaped cell structure, US researchers placed human egg cells into the individual pods. Within a couple of days, the cells enveloped the eggs, mimicking a real ovary.
The 3D tissue structure was a first, said Sandra Carson, who led the team at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University in Rhode Island.
‘This is really very, very new and is the first success in using 3D tissue engineering principles for in vitro oocyte maturation,’ she said.
The scientists believe the structure could answer fundamental questions about how healthy ovaries work but could also act as a testbed for seeing how problems can disrupt egg maturation and health. They also say the artificial ovary could play a role in preserving the fertility of women facing cancer treatment in the future.
Immature eggs could be salvaged and frozen before the onset of chemotherapy or radiation and then matured outside the patient in the artificial ovary.
Meanwhile, in another fertility breakthrough, stem cells have been used to cure faulty ovaries.
About one in 100 women under the age of 40 suffer premature ovary failure ahead of the menopause.
Egyptian researchers repaired faulty ovaries in rats using stem cells.
‘We have not yet reached the stage of producing offspring, and so we will need to understand if the baby rats will be genetically related to the mother, or to the donor of the stem cells,’ said Prof Osama Azmy of Cairo’s National Research Centre.

Cyprus clinic at centre of human egg trafficking probe

Police are waiting for the green light from Ukrainian authorities in order to begin an investigation into claims of human eggs trafficking at a fertility clinic near the village of Zygi.
The clinic was run by a staff comprised mostly by Russians, with donors being mainly women from Eastern Europe.
Suspicion of illegal trade in human eggs came about after the testimonies of three Ukrainian women in their thirties, all of whom were working in Cyprus legally. According to police, these women sold their eggs illegally - in violation of Cypriot and European law which says that donors should only have their expenses covered.
Officially, the clinic is under investigation for failing to provide full data for the tracing of embryos and gametes. According to a police spokesperson, the clinic closed in May this year after an edict from the health ministry.
Health Ministry Inspector Pampos Charilaou said the clinic was forced to close as it failed to present an archive listing the origins of ovules, who owned them and the conditions under which they were kept.
“Without traceability of the ovules and sperm, I could not, as an inspector, give permission to this clinic to continue with the procedures they were implementing. You have to understand that we need that sort of detail in order to safeguard the safety and health of the recipients,” Charilaou said.
After the clinic closed, all of its biological material was transferred to the Health Ministry where it is now stored. “Although the law allows us to destroy the tissues and cells we have acquired from the clinic, we are storing them in good condition, but we don’t know where they come from, nor who owns them,” said Charilaou.
He also added that the Ministry’s Inspectors were only responsible for monitoring the traceability of ovules and gametes, and that issues regarding egg trafficking were a police concern.
A group of Italian patients of the clinic are demanding their embryos back so that they can continue with the fertilisation process in their own country. “I promised to my eight Cypriot embryos that have been confiscated that I will fight to the end,” said Maria, an Italian who came to Cyprus for treatment, speaking to French news agency AFP. She would not give her real name because of the investigation still in process, while she also condemned the Cypriot authorities for their “lack of control” in the case.
According to AFP, shortly after the clinic closed, the Italian and Israeli embassies – whose nationals made up many of the clinic’s patients – were flooded with calls from distressed couples who were worried about their embryos.
Many couples are working around restrictive laws on fertility treatment in their own countries by coming to Cyprus, a favoured destination for ‘fertility tourism’. Swift processes, lower prices and the anonymity of the gamete donors all help to attract patients to the island.

Placebo pills may help women with sexual dysfunction, study finds

Women with low sexual arousal who took a placebo drug showed an improvement in symtpoms, a new study finds.

The 12-week double-blind study, published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, followed 50 women who were diagnosed with female sexual arousal disorder and randomly given a placebo as part of a pharmaceutical trial sponsored by Eli Lilly/ICOS (the company agreed to release the results of those who took the placebo).

The women in the study reported 1,292 sexual events during the 12-week trial. Sexual events went up during the first eight weeks, but when down during the last four weeks to levels similar to the start of the study.

But researchers also discovered that the proportion of sexual activities that the women considered satisfying went from 23% at the beginning of the study to 50.7% during the last four weeks.

They determined that more than 50% of participants showed improvement that wouldn't likely be chalked up to statistical error, and about 33% showed clinically significant change.

The best forecaster of improvement was having more satisfying sexual encounters during the study.

"It's important to note that, even though these women received placebo, they all had an opportunity to talk to a health provider about their difficulties and were asked to closely monitor their sexual behavior and feelings over a 12-week period," said study coauthor Andrea Bradford in a news release. "Just taking part in this study probably started some meaningful conversations. Our study shows that even a limited intervention can have a positive effect in many women with sexual dysfunction." Bradford, a psychologist at Baylor College of Medicinein Houston, wrote the study with Cindy Meston, in the department of psychology of the University of Texas at Austin.

Endocrinologists speak out about two 'Internet diseases': adrenal fatigue and Wilson's temperature syndrome

Everyone knows there is a lot of garbage on the Internet, particularly medical information that is distorted, misleading or flat-out wrong. The Hormone Foundation, the public-education affiliate of the Endocrine Society, on Wednesday issued fact sheets about two "Internet diseases": diseases that exist only in the minds of people who post about them on the Internet. The so-called diseases in question are adrenal fatigue and Wilson's temperature syndrome, diseases apparently conceived only in an effort to sell products promoted to treat them.

Adrenal fatigue, whose symptoms are said to include tiredness, trouble falling asleep at night or waking up in the morning, salt and sugar craving and needing stimulants such as coffee to get through the day, is said to be caused by overstimulation of the adrenal glands. Long-term life stresses, the theory goes, wear out the adrenal gland so that it can no longer keep up with the body's daily needs for stress hormones such as cortisol.

Those symptoms, the foundation said, may be produced by other diseases and can also occur as part of a normal, busy life.

Adrenal fatigue "is not a real medical condition," the foundation said. There are no scientific facts to support its existence, and it cannot be diagnosed through blood tests -- which would reveal a shortage of adrenal hormones.

Vitamins and supplements promoted to treat this "disease" often include extracts from human adrenal glands and hypothalamus that could be dangerous, and none of them have been tested for safety. Unfortunately, Congress has not given the Food and Drug Administration authority to regulate nutritional supplements such as those marketed for adrenal fatigue.

The foundation noted, however, that there is a very real disease called adrenal insufficiency. It is not caused by stress, but by physical damage to the adrenal glands or by tumors growing on them. Its symptoms include dehydration, confusion, weight loss, weakness, dizziness and low blood pressure. Other symptoms include stomach pain, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. It can be diagnosed through blood tests and is treated with medications that replace the hormones the adrenal glands would normally make.

Wilson's temperature syndrome was supposedly identified in 1990 by "E. Denis Wilson M.D." of Longwood, Fla. He said that stress and illness result in a hormone imbalance that causes a lack of the thyroid hormone T3, resulting in low body temperature and slow metabolism. He promotes a product called WT3 that is supposedly a time-released version of the hormone T3, as well as special herbal and nutritional supplements. Such treatments are dangerous because too much T3 can stress the heart and damage bones.

Again, there is no medical evidence to support the existence of Wilson's temperature syndrome, no medical test can diagnose it, and there's no clinical evidence that the drugs and supplements promoted by Wilson offer any benefit.

"Doctors urge you not to accept an unproven diagnosis like Wilson's syndrome," the foundation said. "Your symptoms could be caused by a serious health problem. To take care of your health, it is important to get a correct diagnosis and proper medical treatment."

Wilson's temperature syndrome is also discussed at Quackwatch along with other "fad diagnoses."

Neither Medicare nor insurance companies will pay for treatments for either disease because they are not considered real conditions.

Infertile men 2.6 times as likely to have aggressive prostate cancer

Men who have difficulty conceiving children are 2.6 times as likely to have highly aggressive prostate cancer and 60% more likely to have slow-growing tumors, researchers reported Monday. Although the absolute risk of developing prostate cancer was still low in these men, the findings suggest that such men should be screened for prostate cancer at an earlier age, said Dr. Otis Brawley, chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society.

Previous studies have looked at the relationship between prostate cancer and the number of children a man has, but they have produced differing results. Some suggested that fatherhood was protective, while others suggested that it increased risk. Because the number of children a man has may not be an accurate reflector of his fertility, Dr. Thomas J. Walsh of the University of Washington School of Medicine and his colleagues decided to study men who had been evaluated for infertility.

The team studied 22,562 men who had been evaluated from 1967 to 1998 at 15 California infertility centers, comparing them with a similar group of healthy men from the general population. They reported in the journal Cancer that they identified 168 cases of prostate cancer among the men, about the same as the 185 cases that would be expected in a group that size. That suggests that simply being evaluated for infertility does not affect the incidence of prostate cancer.

Overall, 0.4% of the fertile men developed prostate cancer during the decade of follow-up, compared with 1.2% of those diagnosed as infertile. Taking age into account, that translated to a 160% increased risk of developing aggressive tumors and a 60% increased risk of developing slow-growing tumors, the team reported.

It is not clear why infertile men have a higher risk. Walsh speculated that the risk might result from exposure to environmental toxins in the womb that cause damage to the male chromosome, but argued that more research needs to be done, both to confirm their findings and to explore potential mechanisms.

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men after skin cancer, striking 192,000 American men each year and killing 27,000. Other risk factors include older age, a family history of the disease, obesity and being African American. Most national organizations now recommend that men be offered screening beginning at age 50, but there is a widespread controversy about this. Some critics argue that the screening leads to an unacceptably high rate of invasive procedures in men who do not have cancer, leading to impotence, urinary incontinence and other problems