Vaginal steam bath finds a place among Southern California spa options

Pungent steam rises from a boiling pot of a mugwort tea blended with wormwood and a variety of other herbs. Above it sits a nude woman on an open-seated stool, partaking in a centuries-old Korean remedy that is gaining a toehold in the West.

Vaginal steam baths, called chai-yok, are said to reduce stress, fight infections, clear hemorrhoids, regulate menstrual cycles and aid infertility, among many other health benefits. In Korea, many women steam regularly after their monthly periods.

There is folk wisdom — and even some logic — to support the idea that the carefully targeted steam may provide some physiological benefits for women. But there are no studies to document its effectiveness, and few American doctors have even heard of it.

"It sounds like voodoo medicine that sometimes works," said Dr. Vicken Sahakian, medical director of Pacific Fertility Center in Los Angeles.

Niki Han Schwarz believes it worked for her. After five steams, she found she had fewer body aches and more energy. She also became pregnant eight months ago at the age of 45 after attempting to conceive for three years.

Han Schwarz and her husband, orthopedic surgeon Charles Schwarz, are determined to introduce vaginal steam baths to Southern California women. Their Santa Monica spa, Tikkun Holistic Spa, offers a 30-minute V-Steam treatment for $50. (The identical treatment is available for men, to steam the perineal area.)

At Daengki Spa in Koreatown, a 45-minute V-Herbal Therapy treatment can be had for $20 a squat. The steam includes a mixture of 14 herbs imported from Korea by spa manager Jin Young. The spa's website claims the treatment will "rid the body of toxins" and help women with menstrual cramps, bladder infections, kidney problems and fertility issues. "It is a traditional Korean health remedy," according to the website.

Across the country, chai-yok treatments are not easy to find. They are available in a scattering of alternative holistic health centers. The flashy Juvenex Spa in Manhattan offers its 30-minute Gyno Spa Cure for $75. A complete setup for a do-it-yourself steam — open-seated stool, boiler and herbs — can be purchased online at http://www.rakuten.com for $330.

Scientists offer hope to thousands of infertile couples

Scientists have discovered why some embryos fail to implant in the womb which could lead to new treatments for thousands of infertile couples. For the first time, scientists have discovered the process that allows the embryo to latch on to the womb lining and create a successful pregnancy. The team at Oxford University have filmed the event in detail in the laboratory.
Fertility experts said the reason why some perfectly healthy embryos fail to implant in the womb has remained a mystery of human reproduction and the findings are "very exciting".
Infertility treatment, despite using the best quality embryos, can only manage to get half to implant in the womb. Even in healthy couples without fertility problems, many potential pregnancies are lost because fertilised eggs do not implant properly.
One in seven couples in the UK have problems conceiving and around 32,000 undergo IVF treatment each year. Dr Gillian Lockwood, medical director of Midlands Fertility Services, said a "significant" number of the one in four patients whose infertility remains unexplained could be affected with implantation problems.
"I think this is a very exciting development. In women with viable embryos only half actually achieve implantation. But there is a lot of difference between being able to identify what is going wrong and being able to fix it."
The findings are published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Professor Helen J. Mardon, of St Catherine's College, University of Oxford, and the Nuffield Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, said: "In many women, attachment and implantation doesn't happen and this is a major cause of infertility.
Prof Mardon, who led the study, said: "By understanding how this process works, we may be able to inform the development of drugs to help embryos implant properly." In order for the embryo to create a successful pregnancy, it must initially attach to the lining of the womb. Then cells from the embryo begin to invade the womb lining, eventually connecting with the mother's blood vessels and forming the placenta.
Professor Mardon said: "The embryo and womb lining talk to each other, molecularly speaking, which allows them to interact "When the embryo lands on the surface of the uterus wall, it triggers a cascade of signals in both the embryo and uterus. The resulting changes allow the embryo to invade the lining."
The Oxford team working with Professor Anne J. Ridley at King's College, London, have found two proteins that make cells in the womb lining move out of the way and allow the embryo cells to get in.
The research, funded by the Wellcome Trust and Medical Research Council, showed two proteins belonging to a family called Rho GTPases are involved.
Prof Mardon said: "We have shown that two proteins, called Rac1 and RhoA, control the invasion.
"The first stimulates cells in the womb lining to move and allow the embryo to invade and implant properly while the second inhibits this. We believe this controlled balance of the two proteins is critical for successful implantation of the embryo."
Using tissue samples taken from women with their consent and embryos donated to the Oxford Fertility Unit for research purposes, the team were able to simulate the very start of a pregnancy in the laboratory.
Prof Mardon said: "Essentially what we've done is to capture a particular stage of implantation going on in a petri dish. "The experiment mimics the stage in which an early-stage human embryo invades the lining of the womb, and allows us to dissect the molecular processes that control this critical stage of implantation."

BPA exposure linked to reduced egg quality in women

A small-scale University of California, San Francisco-led study has identified the first evidence in humans that exposure to bisphenol A (BPA) may compromise the quality of a woman’s eggs retrieved for in vitro fertilization (IVF). As blood levels of BPA in the women studied doubled, the percentage of eggs that fertilized normally declined by 50 percent, according to the research team.

The chemical BPA, which makes plastic hard and clear, has been used in many consumer products such as reusable water bottles. It also is found in epoxy resins, which form a protective lining inside metal food and beverage cans.

“While preliminary, the data indicate the negative effect of BPA on reproductive health and the importance of allocating more funding to further investigate why such environmental contaminants might be disrupting fertility potential,” said Dr. Victor Y. Fujimoto, lead study author and professor in the UCSF Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences, who also is on the faculty of the UCSF Center for Reproductive Health.

In the study, BPA levels and fertilization rates were analyzed for 26 women undergoing IVF during 2007 and 2008 at the UCSF Center for Reproductive Health. The women were a subgroup of a larger study evaluating the effect on reproductive health of trace exposures to toxic metals — mercury, cadmium and lead.

“Given the widespread nature of BPA exposure in the U.S., even a modest effect on reproduction is of substantial concern,” said Michael S. Bloom, senior author and an assistant professor in the departments of Environmental Health Sciences, and Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the School of Public Health of the University at Albany, State University of New York. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found BPA in the urine of nearly everyone tested in a 2004 analysis of the U.S. population.

BPA is gaining global attention as an environmental contaminant that impacts health owing to its widespread exposure and endocrine-disrupting properties, according to the researchers. An endocrine disruptor is a synthetic chemical that when absorbed into the body either mimics or blocks hormones and interferes with the body’s normal functions.

Previous studies in mouse models have indicated that BPA levels alter the DNA of eggs, and a 2010 study in humans demonstrated BPA urinary concentrations to be inversely associated with the number of eggs retrieved during an IVF cycle.

“Unfortunately, at this time there is no clinically-available test to determine BPA levels in women,” Fujimoto said. “Despite the limited evidence, a cautious approach for women who are considering IVF treatment would be to reduce their exposure to BPA through modifications in lifestyle and diet.”

Earlier this year, an alliance of partners led by the UCSF Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment launched an online resource called Toxic Matters to help consumers make smarter decisions about substances that can harm general and reproductive health.

Dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) supplementation in infertility?

In 2005, the Center for Human Reproduction (CHR) first introduced dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) supplementation to the infertility field and reported that DHEA had increased egg numbers in women with “older” ovaries going through IVF treatment (Fertility and Sterility). CHR researchers have since reported that DHEA treatment has much broader benefits in the treatment of female infertility - a finding recently confirmed by a study from Israel.

A recent worldwide survey of in vitro fertilization (IVF) centers concluded that approximately one-third have introduced DHEA supplementation into their treatment regimens for women with so-called diminished ovarian reserve.

Investigators at CHR now report to have elucidated at least one of the mechanisms by which DHEA exerts beneficial effects on egg and embryo quality, thereby improving pregnancy chances and reducing miscarriages after IVF. The mechanism involves improvement of chromosomal integrity of embryos.

It is well known that as women age, the risk of chromosomal abnormalities in pregnancies and offspring increases. Most chromosomal abnormalities in embryos result in miscarriages. Collaborating in 2009 with colleagues from Toronto, Canada, investigators from CHR reported unexpectedly low spontaneous miscarriage rates in pregnancies conceived on DHEA supplementation. They suspected that such low miscarriage rates had to be the consequence of lower aneuploidy (chromosomal abnormalities), but proof was lacking.

In a recently published study, investigators from CHR now, for the first time, confirmed that DHEA reduces chromosomal abnormalities (aneuploidy) in embryos through preimplantation genetic screening (PGS). The greatest reduction in aneuploidy (22%) was observed with 4-12 weeks of DHEA supplementation prior to IVF.

Norbert Gleicher, CHR’s Medical Director, comments: “This is the first direct evidence that DHEA beneficially affects egg and embryo quality by reducing chromosomal abnormalities.” He continues: ”It appears likely, however, that this is not the only way by which DHEA exerts its positive effects on older ovaries. Indeed, DHEA may only be a forerunner for a whole new family of infertility drugs, which, ultimately, still may allow older women to conceive through well-designed infertility treatments.”

David H. Barad, Clinical Director of CHR’s IVF Program, adds: “Our finding may have implications far beyond infertility because it suggests that beneficial effects of DHEA supplementation on embryos' chromosomal health could also be extended to normally fertile older women.” DHEA supplementation, like taking folic acid to prevent neural tube defects, could become routine in prenatal care.

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