Will vitamin C improve the IVF?

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Published on Monday, 15 July 2013 10:46

The Californian scientists Kathryn Blaschke and Kevin Ebata have experimentally proved that vitamin C affects the activity of genes in the stem cells. Watching the reaction of embryonic stem cells of mice, the researchers have concluded that adding vitamin C leads to the increased activity of important enzymes which prevent the work of a group of genes. According to the researchers, this finding may have the most immediate value for IVF because vitamin C "brakes" the impact of "unnecessary" genes in the embryo soon after conception, when the egg and sperm are combining. Finally, this could lead to the use of vitamin C for best results of IVF in which early embryos today are usually grown without vitamin. Frankly, I am always with a cautious attitude to such studies. First, as rightly noted experimenters, our body, in contrast to many animals and plants can not produce their own vitamin C. This means that the only way to know how it reacts - is to Intervene directly in life of the genes and nobody can predict the outcome of this experiment.

The IVF and autism

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Published on Tuesday, 09 July 2013 11:19

Experts from King's College London in the UK, Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in the U.S. have analyzed data on more than 2.5 million children who had been born in Sweden between 1982 and 2007, which nearly 31,000 of them had been born as a result of IVF procedures. The purpose of the study was to reveal the connection between the procedure IVF and the diagnosis of "autism" or mental retardation of test-tube children. It was found that the risk of autism for children conceived naturally and for those who’d been born due to the IVF, is about the same. At the same time, among the test- tube babies, there is a small - about 18 percent - increase of risk of mental retardation.

Well, there were no such scare stories for a long: to be honest, I even started to worry where all researchers had disappeared. I’d start with a brief reference. The limited statistics says that one of the 88 children in the world is suffering from autism (a disorder that comes from the breach of the brain). This disorder is characterized by severe and comprehensive shortage of social interaction and communication. Experiments and research aimed to give an answer what is actually the cause of autism, often leed to contradictory results: the only thing agreed, perhaps, by all the scientists, is that the key factor here is mother’s age.

Are antioxidants useful during the IVF?

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Published on Wednesday, 10 July 2013 11:26

After the recent studies in California under the guidance of Andy Virobeka it turned out that antioxidants (substances that slow down an oxidation of organic compounds) significantly affect the quality of sperm. Scientists have discovered that the female partners of men accepting antioxidants the get pregnant more often and give live births more often as well. The beneficial effect of antioxidants proved to be more significant for people using reproductive technology: according to the report, antioxidants increase the pregnancy rate to 4 times and the frequency of live births to 5 times. It is also known that antioxidants neutralize the oxidative stress, which can seriously damage the sperm, or in extreme cases, lead to infertility.

Bed rest after IVF

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Published on Monday, 08 July 2013 11:48

Scientists from the University of Valencia conducted a study to reveal interrelation between bed rest after IVF and effectiveness of the procedure. The conclusions were quite amusing. According to the Spanish experts, stay in bed right after replanting of embryos, recommended by an absolute majority of doctors, is completely useless.

In the experiment 240 women were divided into 2 groups. The subjects in the first group were staying in a bed for 10 minutes after the embryo transfer, but women from the second group got up immediately after the procedure and walked about the room. In the first group pregnancies resulted with miscarriage in 27.5% of cases, in the second - only in 18%. From first group 50 women gave birth successfully, in the second - 68.