New York, Jun 23 (THAINDIAN NEWS) BeautifulPeople.com has launched a controversial virtual sperm bank. According to Sky News, they have launched the egg and sperm bank for people who want beautiful children.
BeautifulPeople.com has always opened its doors and membership to people who are beautiful. However they have been deluged with demands for the sperm and eggs of the pretty people, so they had no option but to give in to popular demand and create a virtual egg and sperm bank. However they are facing a lot of ridicule and criticism from a number of quarters for this step.
The founder of the website Robert Hintze said that, “Initially, we hesitated to widen the offering to non-beautiful people. But everyone — including ugly people — would like to bring good looking children into the world, and we can’t be selfish with our attractive gene pool.”
The owners of the website also added that they think that every parent would want to have a pretty child, if they had the choice, hence they implemented the idea. However the idea is not without its critics. Dr. David King who belongs to the watchdog group Human Genetics Alert says that this idea is “dangerous for our society.”
AFP – Hormone replacement therapy and lifestyle choices do not boost the risk of breast cancer associated with a dozen common genetic mutations, according to a study published Wednesday.
Factors such as hormone treatment, alcohol consumption, obesity and giving birth to a first child later in life have all been linked to a higher risk of breast cancer.
A number of common genetic variations also correlate with the disease, albeit weakly.
Earlier research suggested that combining the two types of risk factors could amplify the overall danger, but results were inconclusive.
To help tease apart genetic and non-genetic influences, scientists led by Ruth Travis at the University of Oxford examined the medical histories of some 17,350 women, 7,160 of whom had developed breast cancer.
All of the participants provided blood samples for genetic testing and information on lifestyle habits. Most of the women were post-menopausal.
The researchers looked for 12 variants in the women’s DNA known to boost the danger of cancer.
They also measured 10 environmental risk factors: age at puberty, number of births, age at first birth, breastfeeding, menopausal status, age at menopause, use of hormone therapy, body fat, height and alcohol intake.
Surprisingly, none of the 120 possible match-ups between a single genetic variant and a behavioural or body-type risk factor showed a statistically significant increase in breast cancer risk.
“There was no convincing evidence for gene-environment interaction,” the researchers concluded.
The study did not cover data on the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, which have a far stronger association to breast cancer than the other genetic variants examined but are much rarer.
“Genes account for only a small proportion of breast cancers for most women and for most women the main risk remains the lifestyle factors,” said Oxford’s Jane Green, a co-author of the study.
ISLAMABAD: A rare genetic disorder may be responsible for causing strokes in young people, though the condition’s progress can be slowed using enzyme replacement treatment, says a study.
The disorder known as Fabry disease is characterised by attacks of burning pain in the hands and feet, dark nodular skin lesions and progressive renal insufficiency.
It is caused by a missing or faulty enzyme needed by the body to process oils, waxes and fatty acids, reports the online edition of BBC News.
These lipids build up to harmful levels in the eyes, kidneys, nervous system, and cardiovascular system. People with the disease can die prematurely because of renal, cardiac or cerebrovascular complications.
The researchers at University of Rostock, Germany, led by Arndt Rolfs, carried out genetic screening of over 700 adults suffering from unexplained strokes to find out whether they had Fabry disease.
They found that four percent of the studied people, aged 18-55 years who had a stroke, also had Fabry disease. The strokes occurred about a decade earlier in people with the condition, they said.
The researchers found that nearly five percent of the male stroke patients and just over two percent of the female patients had genes linked to Fabry disease.
According to the scientists, this could mean that one in 100 of all young people suffering from strokes may have Fabry disease.
This study also found that the average age for a man with Fabry disease to have a stroke was 38, while for women, it was 40.
For men and women who did not have Fabry disease, the average age at which they had a stroke was 48.
A man’s sperm can contribute to a healthy pregnancy but also runs the risk of being rejected if not entirely compatible with his partner, new research has found.
University of Adelaide Professor Sarah Robertson said semen had special qualities that contributed to a healthy pregnancy, including helping to prepare the female body for nurturing the fetus.
But some sperm fail to communicate with the female reproductive tract and while a man can appear to be fertile, his semen can be rejected if the woman’s body doesn’t consider it compatible.
“We used to think that if a couple couldn’t get pregnant, and the mans semen test was normal, the problem lay with the woman,” Professor Robertson said in a statement on Wednesday.
“But it appears this is not always the case.
“We have discovered that sperm doesn’t just fertilise an egg.
“It actually contains signalling molecules that are responsible for activating immune changes in women so they can accept a foreign substance in the body, in this case sperm, leading to conception and a healthy pregnancy.
“It’s rather like a two-way dance.”
Professor Robertson, a fertility specialist, is leading a national research project examining the actions of semen in the cervix and uterus after intercourse takes place.
That research has revealed the male body provides information that increases the chances of conception and progression to pregnancy, but the female body has a quality control system which needs convincing that the sperm is compatible, and also judges whether the conditions are right for reproducing.
“That’s where the dance can go wrong with some couples if the male signals are not strong enough, or if the female system is too choosy,” Professor Robertson said.
“If we can understand the cascade of events which come into play when the sperm enters the female reproductive tract, we may be able to mimic or assist this with new therapies, encouraging tolerance of her partner’s semen, for those couples who are experiencing difficulties becoming pregnant.”
Professor Robertson is seeking female participants for her ongoing research, which is funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council.
Women aged 18-40 who have had a tubal ligation but are sexually active and in a stable relationship are needed for the study.
They cannot be using any other contraceptives and their partners must not have had a vasectomy.
Professor Robertson said the study was the first of its kind in Australia and would increase knowledge of the importance of semen for reproductive health, hopefully leading to improved treatments for infertility and miscarriage.
Hormone replacement therapy and lifestyle choices do not boost the risk of breast cancer in women who have faulty genes linked with the disease, according to a a new study.
Experts had suggested there might be dangerous interactions between genes that increase the risk of breast cancer and other factors such as taking HRT. This would place such women at a particularly high risk of breast cancer.
However, researchers from Oxford University have found this isn’t the case meaning people aren’t completely at the mercy of their own DNA.
They studied more than seven thousand women with breast cancer and over ten thousand women without it. All of the women provided a blood sample for genetic testing and information about other risk factors like obesity, alcohol consumption and hormone replacement therapy.
The scientists used a statistical analysis to examine the relationship between genetic and lifestyle factors.
They found that although genetic mutations and lifestyle choices both contribute to cancer, they do so separately and do not mix for a more deadly effect.
The genetic mutations studied are carried in up to 60 per cent of women and increase a woman’s breast cancer risk up to a fifth.
The study, published in the medical journal The Lancet, did not include the rare BRCA genes which dramatically increase the risk of breast cancer.
Study author Ruth Travis from the Cancer Epidemiology Unit at Oxford, said it was reassuring she and colleagues didn’t find any proof of synergy between breast cancer mutations and lifestyle factors.
‘There’s a danger of feeling you’re at the fate of your genes,’ Dr Travis said.
‘But whatever you’re born with, there are things you can do to modify your risk.’
Experts said lifestyle factors are often more important in avoiding breast cancer than genetic ones. For example, being overweight elevates your risk by 40 per cent while taking hormone replacement therapy doubles it.
Susan Gapstur, vice president of epidemiology at the American Cancer Society, said the research underlined the complexity of breast cancer and that scientists still don’t completely understand what triggers it.
‘It likely won’t be a single genetic factor (that causes breast cancer) but maybe several genetic variants in combination and some environmental factors,’ she said.
The latest study was paid for by Britain’s Medical Research Council and Cancer Research UK.