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Experts Clarify Conflicting Criteria for Diagnosing Polycystic Ovary Syndrome
Medicine

Experts Clarify Conflicting Criteria for Diagnosing Polycystic Ovary Syndrome

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The Endocrine Society today issued a Clinical Practice Guideline (CPG) for the diagnosis and treatment of polycystic ovary syndrome, the most common hormone disorder in women of reproductive age and a leading cause of infertility.

The CPG, entitled “Diagnosis and Treatment of Polycystic Ovary Syndrome: An Endocrine Society Clinical Practice Guideline” will appear in the December 2013 issue of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism (JCEM), a publication of The Endocrine Society.

Sugar Toxic to Mice in 'Safe' Doses
Primary Care

Sugar Toxic to Mice in ‘Safe’ Doses

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When mice ate a diet of 25 percent extra sugar – the mouse equivalent of a healthy human diet plus three cans of soda daily – females died at twice the normal rate and males were a quarter less likely to hold territory and reproduce, according to a toxicity test developed at the University of Utah.

Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia
Profile in Rare Diseases

CAH: Making Better Wives and Mothers Through Pharmaceuticals

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Congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) is a group of rare autosomal recessive disorders affecting the endocrine system. The disease affects production pathways for glucocorticoids (GCs) and mineralocorticoids (MCs) such as cortisol and aldosterone. In affected individuals, cortisol levels do not normalize, resulting in a runaway steroidogenesis process and an overabundance of androgens (male sex hormones). Individuals with CAH develop adrenal hyperactivity and abnormally large adrenal glands (hyperplasia). Symptoms may be mild or severe and presentations may vary from ambiguous female genitalia, underdeveloped male genitalia, precocious pseudopuberty, skeletal malformations, to a very serious salt-wasting crisis. Some females may present with symptoms that resemble polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), displaying unusual excessive hair growth, irregular or absent menstrual cycles, and anovulation (lack of an ovum release during menstruation).

The "City of Microbes" Within Our Bodies May Maintain Our Health
Medicine

The “City of Microbes” Within Our Bodies May Maintain Our Health, Expert Says

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There is a vast city hidden inside your body. You might not be directly aware of its inhabitants, but it’s quite likely you owe your health to them. These inhabitants are microbes, of course. Hundreds of species of them inhabit us, and the term “microbiome” refers to their collective genes. Even though scientists are just beginning to map it, many researchers believe the microbiome affects our health—and when it’s unbalanced it predisposes us to numerous autoimmune diseases. Is our sterile Western environment—which has rid our bodies of many kinds of bacteria—to blame for this?

Dietary Fructose Causes Liver Damage in Animal Model
The Fit MD

Dietary Fructose Causes Liver Damage in Animal Model

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The role of dietary fructose in the development of obesity and fatty liver diseases remains controversial, with previous studies indicating that the problems resulted from fructose and a diet too high in calories.

However, a new study conducted in an animal model at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center showed that fructose rapidly caused liver damage even without weight gain. The researchers found that over the six-week study period liver damage more than doubled in the animals fed a high-fructose diet as compared to those in the control group.

The Fasting Diet
The Fit MD

The Fasting Diet

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Straight off the British Isles is another import. It’s not the Beatles or the Rolling Stones; it’s “the fasting diet” and it’s hot. The diet was covered recently by a BBC documentary.

It purports to help patients lose weight quickly by slashing their dietary intake on 2 non-consecutive days per week. This is not a total fast, mind you, just a serious reduction in calories on those 2 days: 600 calories for men and 500 calories for women. To sum it up, for 5 days you eat what you normally consume (don’t gorge, obviously), and on 2 days during the week, not in a row, you do a reduced-calorie fast.

Snoring May Be Early Sign of Future Health Risks
Medicine

Snoring May Be Early Sign of Future Health Risks

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Here’s a wake-up call for snorers: Snoring may put you at a greater risk than those who are overweight, smoke or have high cholesterol to have thickening or abnormalities in the carotid artery, according to researchers at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit.

The increased thickening in the lining of the two large blood vessels that supply the brain with oxygenated blood is a precursor to atherosclerosis, a hardening of the arteries responsible for many vascular diseases.

Study Finds Up to Half of Gestational Diabetes Patients Will Develop Type 2 Diabetes
Medicine

Study Finds Up to Half of Gestational Diabetes Patients Will Develop Type 2 Diabetes

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The prospective cohort study tracked 843 women who were diagnosed with gestational diabetes between 1996 and 2003 at Cheil General Hospital in Seoul, South Korea. About 12.5 percent of the women developed Type 2 diabetes within two months of delivering their babies. During the next decade, the number of women diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes continued to grow at a rate of 6.8 percent a year.

Diet Nation
The Fit MD

Diet Nation

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In the United States, the diet and weight loss industry is nearly a $61 billion enterprise. In some instances, its purveyors are modern-day equivalents of traveling snake oil salesmen. For a case in point, the new Hollywood diet craze—the HCG fat-burning supplement—promises that with daily sublingual applications of a couple of drops of their product, people can burn up to 2 pounds of fat per day.

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