Brominated flame retardants (BFRs) are found in furniture, electronics, and kitchenware to slow the spread of flames in the event of a fire. However, it has been shown that these molecules may lead to early mammary gland development, which is linked to an increased risk of breast cancer. The study on the subject by Professor Isabelle Plante from the Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS) made the cover of the February issue of the journal Toxicological Sciences.
Part of the flame retardants are considered to be endocrine disruptors, i.e. they interfere with the hormonal system. Since they are not directly bound to the material in which they are added, the molecules escape easily. They are then found in house dust, air and food.
This exposure can cause problems for mammary glands because their development is highly regulated by hormones. “BFRs pose a significant risk, particularly during sensitive periods, from intrauterine life to puberty and during pregnancy,” says Professor Plante, co-director of the Intersectoral Centre for Endocrine Disruptor Analysis and environmental toxicologist. Endocrine disruptors, such as BFRs, can mimic hormones and cause cells to respond inappropriately.
The effects of environmental exposure
In their experiments, the research team exposed female rodents to a mixture of BFRs, similar to that found in house dust, prior to mating, during gestation and during lactation. Biologists were able to observe the effects on the offspring at two stages of development and on the mothers.
In pre-pubertal rats, the team noted early development of mammary glands. For pubescent rats, the results, published in 2019, showed a deregulation of communication between cells. Similar consequences were observed in female genitors in a 2017 study. All of these effects are associated with an increased risk of breast cancer.
Professor Isabelle Plante points out that peaks in human exposure to BFRs have been observed in the early 2000s. “Young women exposed to BFRs in utero and through breastfeeding are now in the early stages of fertility. Their mothers are in their fifties, a period of increased risk for breast cancer,” says Professor Plante. This is why the team is currently studying endocrine disruptors related to a predisposition to breast cancer, funded by the Breast Cancer Foundation and the Cancer Research Society.
Debate over legislation
In all three studies, most of the effects were observed when subjects were exposed to the lowest dose, from dust, and not the higher doses. This observation raises questions about the current legislation for endocrine disruptors. “To evaluate the “safe” dose, experts give an increasing dose and then, when they observe an effect, identify it as the maximum dose. With endocrine disruptors, the long-term consequences would be caused by lower doses” reports Professor Plante.
Although counter-intuitive, this observation comes from the fact that high doses trigger a toxic response in the cells. When the body is exposed to lower doses, similar to the concentration of hormones in our body, the consequences rather consist in the deregulation of the hormonal system.

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Materials provided by Institut national de la recherche scientifique – INRS. Original written by Audrey-Maude Vézina. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Scientists at The Wistar Institute identified a new function of ADAR1, a protein responsible for RNA editing, discovering that the ADAR1p110 isoform regulates genome stability at chromosome ends and is required for continued proliferation of cancer cells. These findings, reported in Nature Communications, reveal an additional oncogenic function of ADAR1 and reaffirm its potential as a therapeutic target in cancer.
The lab of Kazuko Nishikura, Ph.D., professor in the Gene Expression & Regulation Program of The Wistar Institute Cancer Center, was one of the first to discover ADAR1 in mammalian cells and to characterize the process of RNA editing and its multiple functions in the cell.
Similar to changing one or more letters in a written word, RNA editing allows cells to make discrete modifications to single nucleotides within an RNA molecule. This process can affect RNA metabolism and how it is translated into proteins and has implications for neurological and developmental disorders and antitumor immunity.
There are two forms of the ADAR1 protein, ADAR1p150 and ADAR1p110. While the RNA editing role of the former, located in the cytoplasm, has been extensively characterized, the function of the nuclear ADAR1p110 isoform remained elusive.
“We discovered that in the nucleus, ADAR1p110 oversees a similar mechanism to ADAR1p150, the better-known cytoplasmic variant, but the editing process in this case targets particular nucleic acid structures called R-loops when formed at the chromosome ends,” said Nishikura. “Through this function, ADAR1p110 seems to be essential for cancer cell proliferation.”
R-loops form during gene transcription when, instead of dissociating from its template DNA strand, the newly synthesized RNA remains attached to it, leading to a stable DNA/RNA hybrid. While these structures can be beneficial for transcriptional regulation in certain conditions, accumulation of R-loops can cause DNA damage, chromosome rearrangements and genomic instability and is linked to neurological disorders and cancer.
Nishikura and colleagues found that ADAR1p110 helps the cells resolve R-loops and prevent their accumulation by editing both the DNA and the RNA strands involved in the structure and facilitating degradation of the RNA strand by the RNase H2 enzyme.
Notably, researchers found that ADAR1p110 depletion results in accumulation of R-loops at the chromosome ends, indicating that ADAR1p110 acts on R-loops formed in the telomeric regions and is required to preserve telomere stability.
Telomeres serve as an internal clock that tells normal cells when it’s time to stop proliferating. Just like the plastic coating on the tips of shoelaces, telomeres protect chromosome ends from the loss of genetic material at each cell division, by their progressive shortening eventually triggers growth arrest or cell death.
Cancer cells bypass this mechanism to become immortal. Researchers found that ADAR1p110 depletion leads to extensive telomeric DNA damage and arrested proliferation specifically in cancer cells.
“It has recently been suggested ADAR1 inhibitors could potentiate tumor response to immunotherapy by interfering with certain cytoplasmic ADAR1p150 functions,” said Nishikura. “Based on our findings on the role of nuclear ADAR1p110 in maintaining telomere stability in cancer cells, we predict that ADAR1 inhibitors would be very effective anticancer therapeutics by interfering with two different and independent pro-oncogenic ADAR1functions exerted by the two isoforms.”
Work supported by: National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants GM040536, CA175058, and GM130716; additional support was provided by the Emerson Collective, the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), and the Uehara Memorial Foundation. Core support for The Wistar Institute was provided by the Cancer Center Support Grant P30CA010815.

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#masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesRisk Near YouVaccine RolloutGuidelines After VaccinationAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main story‘Fraught With Issues’: Faulty Software Snarls Vaccine Sign-UpsHealth departments continue to grapple with delays caused by technical problems with numerous websites used for making appointments.Awaiting shots in Richmond, Va. Health departments around the country continue to face delays giving vaccines, in part because of flawed appointment software like that used in Richmond.Credit…Carlos Bernate for The New York TimesMarch 12, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETWhen coronavirus vaccines first became available, state health officials in Virginia turned to software recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to schedule appointments. But people complained that the software, called VAMS, was too confusing for older adults to use.So the state switched to another system, PrepMod — but that had problems, too. Links sent to seniors for their appointments were reusable and found their way to Facebook, leading to one vaccination event in Richmond with dozens of overbookings. Some of those people threatened health care workers when they were turned away.“It was a nightmare scenario,” said Ruth Morrison, the policy director for the Richmond and Henrico County health district. “People showing up confused, irate, thinking they had an appointment.”State and local health departments around the country continue to face delays dispensing shots, in part because flaws remain in the appointment software tools like those used in Richmond. The problems threaten to slow the vaccine rollout even as supplies and distribution are picking up quickly across the country. Large software systems have often been problematic for companies and governments. HealthCare.gov, a site released after the Affordable Care Act, crashed early on. But the issues with the vaccine sites have an added sense of urgency because health officials are trying to vaccinate as many people as possible, as fast as possible.On Thursday, President Biden said that his administration would send out technical teams to help states improve their websites. He also said the federal government would open a website by May 1 that would allow Americans to find out where the vaccine is available.Many state officials have switched software providers, only to see little or no improvement. In California, tech mishaps have allowed ineligible people to snatch up appointments. Massachusetts residents have been stymied by crashing websites. Some North Carolina residents are eschewing online sign-ups entirely, instead engaging in a vaccine free-for-all.PrepMod is being used by 28 states and localities, after many states shunned the $44 million VAMS tool built by Deloitte. Salesforce and Microsoft have developed vaccine software, too, with their customers being similarly frustrated. Smaller tech companies have pitched their own scheduling tools as well.“Some of these systems have strengths, but they all have weaknesses, too,” said Ruth Morrison, the policy director for the Richmond and Henrico County health district.Credit…Carlos Bernate for The New York Times“It’s like a patchwork quilt,” said Ms. Morrison, who decided after the failed PrepMod trial that her county would try something else. “Some of these systems have strengths, but they all have weaknesses, too.”Other health officials have defended the appointment systems, and the developers behind the software said the complaints about their products were overblown.Tiffany Tate, PrepMod’s creator and the executive director of the Maryland Partnership for Prevention, said criticisms of her system largely stemmed from health providers’ lack of knowledge about how to use it, or from the constantly shifting needs of states.“The pandemic’s evolving, and we’ve got to be able to keep up with it,” she said. “We just have to be a very flexible platform.”Deloitte, whose software is used by nine states, said VAMS was originally intended for smaller groups at early stages of states’ vaccine rollouts, so the company was “responding quickly to meet their changing needs” and was updating the system to handle a greater load.Health experts say multiple factors complicated the software rollout. In some cases, developers condensed work that would normally take years into weeks, leading to glitches. In addition, the varied approaches to determining eligibility in the dozens of localities using the software have made it difficult to develop a one-size-fits-all approach.Some states use more than half a dozen appointment scheduling systems, from tools used by federal, state and local agencies to the software employed by private hospitals and pharmacies to rudimentary solutions like SignUpGenius. Some sites do not support appointment scheduling at all, but allow people to browse databases to find available vaccines or get on wait lists. Often, the systems cannot communicate with one another.At one vaccination event in Richmond intended for older adults, dozens of people who had re-used appointment links showed up, overbooking the event.Credit…Carlos Bernate for The New York Times“You’re basically building and testing data systems on the fly as millions of people are trying to find vaccines,” said Claire Hannan, the executive director of the Association of Immunization Managers, which advocates for state health departments.The Coronavirus Outbreak

#masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }At HomeFall in Love: With TenorsConsider: Miniature GroceriesSpend 24 Hours: With Andra DayGet: A Wildlife CameraAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyTiesHearing My Dead Wife’s Voice in the Pandemic’s SilenceShe had always been the person I turned to in difficult times. Maybe she could help me through this isolation, too.Credit…Lucy JonesMarch 12, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETMy wife died six months before the pandemic struck. Already alone, I was now quarantined with my grief in a house the virus had narrowed from confining to claustrophobic. If the disease didn’t choke me, I worried that loneliness would. My children call every day and I speak by phone with a few close friends, but loneliness breeds in a silent house.The evening before Muriel died, we were enjoying wine and cheese when she exclaimed, “Bob, we’ve been married for 66 years and always have so much to say to each other. Do you suppose other couples married this long have so much to talk about?” As she spoke, an infection was massing within her. Her intestine had perforated, and 18 hours later she was dead of septic shock. The talking stopped. It was as though I had been sentenced to life in silence.I’ve been assured in bereavement groups that after a year the anguish would become less piercing. I would endure the loss forever, but there would be days free of pain. Before the pandemic, my children and grandchildren came from around the country to be with me. Friends invited me to dinner or to just talk. I rarely spent more than two days alone during the week. Even if my pain wasn’t softening, I was surrounded by love that carried the promise of healing. But now doors have closed and there are no visitors or invitations to dinner.I’d read about casualties of despair and vowed I would not become one. But without Muriel, I wasn’t sure how I could prevent that from happening. Over the course of our marriage, she had gone from high-school dropout to psychologist. It was Muriel I turned to in moments of doubt.We met when Muriel was a 17-year-old fashion model and I was 22, just off a troopship from Korea. We began talking almost immediately, revealing dreams and fears we’d hidden from others. Bored with high school, she simply stopped going to classes shortly before we met. I had just enrolled at Columbia University, thanks to the G.I. Bill, and the books I was reading excited her as much as they did me.We married after my freshman year. Muriel would read the notes I had scribbled on 3 by 5 cards and pose questions I was likely to face on tests. She insisted it was her tutorials that helped me graduate in three years instead of four.By then we had two children and were surviving on the G.I. Bill’s $160 monthly benefit. I needed to find a job, and fast.Nervously dressing to go to what I was told would be a final interview at a bank in Manhattan, I felt Muriel tug at my arm. “I’m sure you’ll get this job,” she said. “But it means we’ll be seeing much less of each other. I want you to promise something.” Whatever the length of the vacation I was offered, I was to request an additional week. I hurriedly promised I would.I had been warned that even inquiring if there was a vacation could end an interview, but I found the courage to ask for three weeks’ vacation instead of two. The executive interviewing me seemed startled, but granted my request so long as I told no one. When I returned home, Muriel had only one question: “Did you get us more time to be together?” I had, and it remains the most important promise I ever made.While I was at Columbia, Muriel earned a high school equivalency diploma and began applying to college the day I graduated. She went on to become a psychologist, and her years of schooling initiated a ritual that lasted for over a decade. When I drove home from work, I would find her waiting at the front door at our 850-square-foot Levitt house on Long Island. Edging toward the car, she would say some version of: “Kevin is watching television and needs a bath; Leda is in the play pen; and Shanna is in the high chair, where I think she just pooped. There’s a chicken potpie in the oven for you. Give me the car keys; I’m late!”Three children in four years, little money and a house that smelled of diapers made even the most trivial dispute combustible. But, in our early 20s, we vowed never to go to sleep back-to-back in a silent bedroom.Eventually we moved to a larger house in Great Neck, a leafy suburban town where Muriel began her practice. Its screened porch overlooked a garden and was the only serene corner in a noisy house, perfect for the clients Muriel quickly began seeing. When our children expressed even the slightest hint they were jealous of the attention she paid to clients, she would take out her date book and say, “I’m giving you an appointment. How is 5 o’clock tonight?”Just this week I asked Kim, our youngest child, if she remembered those talks. “Oh,” she said, “I think about them all the time. It might have been only one hour, 50 minutes actually, but I had Mom all to myself. She made the porch a safe place to discuss anything, even things kids don’t usually tell their mothers. All my friends were jealous.”I didn’t need an appointment to talk with Muriel. Even on evenings when we went to dinner with friends, we would hurry to the restaurant an hour early to sit alone at the bar and talk over a glass of wine. But, now I slept in a silent bedroom.A Buddhist friend, aware of my loneliness, urged me to talk with Muriel. “You were together for nearly 70 years,” he told me. “She’s not gone. She’s in your being, your awareness. Talk to her. Ask for her help.” I was about to shrug off his advice, but was in such pain I would try anything.The photograph on the wall nearest the thermostat I adjust every morning and every evening is of Muriel. She seems so full of life that it wouldn’t surprise me if one morning I awoke to find glass on the floor and the frame empty. I decided to talk with that picture. I began to hear her voice, just as I did every evening before we slept, when she would rest her head on my chest as we spoke of the day and of our love for each other.Had there been no pandemic, I would have continued turning to family and friends to help me cope with Muriel’s death. It would have been their voices I heard, not hers. But, as I began talking with her, I realized that instead of relentlessly lamenting to others what I had lost, I was hearing her remind me of what we had. It was as though her voice was a hand she held out to lead me from depression to hope.The grief I carried with me into isolation has softened slightly, thanks perhaps to the passage of time. But if I am beginning to heal, it is because the pandemic forced me to turn inward, to learn if I had the resources and will to go forward without Muriel. It was in the silence of my empty house that I discovered she was with me, that I had found her voice and the confidence it gave me to walk back into life when the pandemic lifts.Robert W. Goldfarb is a management consultant and the author of “What’s Stopping Me From Getting Ahead?”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story

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Multiple coronavirus vaccines are being rolled out in the UK and around the world.Each one is being seen as a way out of the global pandemic and the quickest way to get things back to normal.In many countries, having a vaccine is not mandatory yet the success of vaccination programmes depends upon how many people take up the offer of one.So what will happen if you choose not to get the vaccine?BBC News Health Reporter Laura Foster explains.Video by Laura Foster, Mattea Bubalo and Mel Lou

AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyEuropean Countries Suspend Use of AstraZeneca Shots Over Worries About Blood ClotsMillions of people have received the vaccine without safety problems, and there is no evidence of any causal link between the vaccine and blood clots.A health authority van arrives at a  school on a remote island in Denmark.Credit…Claus Fisker/Ritzau Scanpix, via ReutersRebecca Robbins and March 11, 2021, 7:11 p.m. ETHealth authorities in three European countries on Thursday suspended use of AstraZeneca’s vaccine because of concerns that it might increase the risk of blood clots, but emphasized that they were taking action as a precaution and that there is no evidence of any causal link.Denmark acted after a 60-year-old woman who received a shot died after developing a blood clot. Several other European countries had recently stopped using doses from the same batch of the vaccine after some reports of severe blood clots, and European drug regulators are investigating.In the flurry of suspensions on Thursday, Norway and Iceland followed Denmark’s lead. Italy and Romania also paused shots, but only from a different batch of the vaccine than the one that had raised concerns elsewhere.Public health experts expect medical conditions to turn up by chance in some people after they get any vaccine, just by chance. In the vast majority of cases such illnesses have nothing to do with the shots. Most other countries where the vaccine has been given to many millions of people have not reported similar red flags.The safety scare is a setback for AstraZeneca’s vaccine, which has already struggled with a perception that it is a less desirable shot because it had a lower overall efficacy rate in clinical trials than some others. There is, however, extensive data showing that the vaccine is safe and effective, and especially good at preventing severe illness and death. And in many places across the world, it is the only shot available.As of Wednesday, 30 cases of obstructive blood clots had been reported among nearly five million people vaccinated with the AstraZeneca vaccine in the European Union and three other European countries — a rate no higher than in the general population, the European Medicines Agency said. The agency, Europe’s main drug regulator, said that the vaccine’s benefits outweigh any risks.The agency also said that there is no indication the vaccine “has caused these conditions.”Gonzalo Viña, a spokesman for AstraZeneca, said the company’s data have not turned up such safety issues. “An analysis of our safety data of more than 10 million records has shown no evidence of an increased risk of pulmonary embolism or deep vein thrombosis in any defined age group, gender, batch or in any particular country,” he said.Blood clots, particularly if they are large, can damage tissue or organs like the lungs, heart or brain. Severe cases can be fatal, but people with small clots can often be treated outside of a hospital with prescription drugs.Daniel Salmon, director of the Institute for Vaccine Safety at Johns Hopkins University, said that authorities noticing the cases and investigating them is a sign of the system working as it should. “I wouldn’t jump to any conclusions that because you saw some blood clots after vaccination that they’re causal,” he said. “It warrants looking at it more carefully.”Dr. Salmon said he is worried that an unsubstantiated safety scare will cause public panic and deter people from taking a vaccine that is badly needed to end the pandemic.“There is a possibility for a real problem. There’s a much higher probability that some coincidental event will scare people — and derail the program,” Dr. Salmon said.AstraZeneca’s vaccine has already faced production lags that caused a slow and bumpy rollout in Europe. What’s more, some people in Germany and other countries have resisted the vaccine, saying they prefer shots that showed higher efficacy in trials. At the center of the latest scrutiny is a specific batch of one million doses of the vaccine, which was delivered to 17 European Union countries. The European Medicines Agency said a quality defect in that batch was “unlikely” but that the possibility would be investigated further.Denmark’s drug regulator halted all use of the vaccine for at least 14 days. Health officials have said they wanted to err on the side of safety.Austria over the weekend suspended use of that same batch after severe blood clots turned up in several people who received those doses. One person died 10 days after vaccination. Another is now recovering after being hospitalized.Estonia, Lithuania, Luxembourg and Latvia followed Austria’s lead in suspending use of that batch, though they will continue to inoculate their citizens with AstraZeneca doses from other batches.Italy’s suspension of a different batch was tied to a man in Sicily who died after receiving his shot. It’s unclear whether a blood clot was involved.More than 142,000 people in Denmark, which has a population of about six million, have been injected with the vaccine produced by AstraZeneca.The Danish minister of health, Magnus Heunicke, said on Twitter that it is “currently not possible to conclude whether there is a connection.” He added. “We acted early, it needs to be thoroughly investigated.”Denmark had already scaled back the target for finishing its immunization campaign in part because of delays in deliveries. The safety pause will delay it further.AstraZeneca’s vaccine came under scrutiny over potential safety issues last year while it was being tested in clinical trials. Two vaccinated volunteers in Britain developed neurological symptoms consistent with transverse myelitis, an inflammatory syndrome that affects the spinal cord and is often caused by viral infections.Those concerns temporarily shut down global trials of the vaccine, but investigations ultimately found no evidence linking the symptoms to the vaccine. One of the participants who fell ill was later found to have an undiagnosed case of multiple sclerosis.More than 70 countries have since authorized the vaccine, with the notable exception of the United States, where regulators are waiting on data from a large clinical trial there expected in the next few weeks. A decision from the Food and Drug Administration on whether to authorize AstraZeneca’s vaccine is likely more than a month away.The most extensive real-world data on the vaccine’s safety comes from Britain, which had administered 9.7 million doses through last month. The British drug regulator, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, said “the number and nature of suspected adverse reactions reported so far are not unusual in comparison to other types of routinely used vaccines.”Rebecca Robbins

SharecloseShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingimage copyrightGetty ImagesMore twins are being born than ever before but the world may now have reached peak twin, researchers say.About 1.6 million twins are born each year worldwide, with one in every 42 children born a twin.Delayed childbearing and medical techniques such as IVF have seen the rate of twin births rise by a third since the 1980s.But it could be all downhill from here as the focus shifts to one baby per pregnancy, which is less risky.According to a global overview in the journal Human Reproduction, the peak was reached because of large increases in twinning rates in all regions over 30 years – from a 32% rise in Asia to a 71% rise in North America.The researchers collected information on twinning rates from 165 countries for 2010 to 2015, and compared them with rates for 1980 to 1985. The number of twins born per thousand deliveries is now particularly high in Europe and North America – and worldwide it’s gone from nine per 1,000 deliveries to 12.But twin rates in Africa have always been high and haven’t changed much over the past 30 years, which could be due to population growth.Helping handAfrica and Asia make up about 80% of all twin deliveries in the world at present.Prof Christiaan Monden, the study’s author from the University of Oxford, said there was a reason for that.”The twinning rate in Africa is so high because of the high number of dizygotic twins – twins born from two separate eggs – born there,” he said.”This is most likely to be due to genetic differences between the African population and other populations.”Twinning rates in Europe, North America and Oceanic countries have been catching up – and the increasing use of medically assisted reproduction since the 1970s – for example IVF, ICSI, artificial insemination and ovarian stimulation – have been the main reason.image copyrightGetty ImagesThese techniques all increase the likelihood of a multiple birth.Women choosing to start families later in life, increased use of contraception and lower fertility overall also play a role, the review says.But the emphasis is now on singleton pregnancies, which are safer, says Prof Monden.”This is important as twin deliveries are associated with higher death rates among babies and children, and more complications for mothers and children during pregnancy, and during and after delivery,” he says. Twins have more complications at birth, are more often born premature and have lower birth weights and higher still birth rates.Survival chancesThe review found that the fate of twins in low and middle-income countries was more of a concern.In sub-Saharan Africa, in particular, many twins will lose their co-twin in their first year of life – more than 200,000 each year.”While twinning rates in many rich Western countries are now getting close to those in sub-Saharan Africa, there is a huge difference in the survival chances,” said Prof Jeroen Smits, a study author.Looking ahead, the researchers say India and China will play a major role in future twinning rates.Declining fertility, older mothers at birth and techniques like IVF will all have a bearing on the numbers of twins in years to come.

Overweight low-income mothers of young kids ate fewer fast-food meals and high-fat snacks after participating in a study — not because researchers told them what not to eat, but because the lifestyle intervention being evaluated helped lower the moms’ stress, research suggests.
The 16-week program was aimed at preventing weight gain by promoting stress management, healthy eating and physical activity. The methods to get there were simple steps tucked into lessons on time management and prioritizing, many demonstrated in a series of videos featuring mothers like those participating in the study.
“We used the women’s testimonies in the videos and showed their interactions with their families to raise awareness about stressors. After watching the videos, a lot of intervention participants said, ‘This is the first time I’ve realized I am so stressed out’ — because they’ve lived a stressful life,” said Mei-Wei Chang, lead author of the study and associate professor of nursing at The Ohio State University.
“Many of these women are aware of feeling impatient, and having head and neck pain and trouble sleeping — but they don’t know those are signs of stress.”
An analysis of the study data showed that the women’s lowered perceived stress after participating in the intervention was the key factor influencing their eventual decrease in consumption of high-fat and fast foods.
“It’s not that these women didn’t want to eat healthier,” Chang said. “If you don’t know how to manage stress, then when you are so stressed out, why would you care about what you eat?”
The research is published in a recent issue of the journal Nutrients.

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The 338 participants, overweight or obese moms between the ages of 18 and 39, were recruited from the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), which serves low-income mothers and children up to age 5. Those eligible for the program must have an annual household income no higher than 185 percent of the federal poverty line.
Chang said these women are likely to face a number of challenges that could cause them stress: financial difficulties, living in run-down neighborhoods, frequent moves, unstable romantic relationships and households bustling with little kids. It’s also common for this population to retain 10 or more pounds of pregnancy weight after childbirth and risk life-long obesity and potential problems for themselves and new babies if they become pregnant again.
During the trial, the 212 participants randomized into the intervention group watched a total of 10 videos in which women like them gave unscripted testimonials about healthy eating and food preparation, managing their stress and being physically active. Participants also dialed in to 10 peer support group teleconferences over the course of the study.
Chang and colleagues previously reported that as a group, the women in the intervention arm of the study were more likely to have reduced their fat consumption than women in a comparison group who were given print materials about lifestyle change.
This newer analysis showed that the intervention’s lessons alone did not directly affect that change in diet. When the researchers assessed the potential role of stress as a mediator, the indirect effect of the intervention — reducing participants’ perceived stress — was associated with less consumption of high-fat foods, including fast food. A 1-point reduction in the scale measuring stress was linked to a nearly 7% reduction in how frequently the women ate high-fat foods.

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The intervention focused on showing the women examples of how they could achieve a healthier and less stressful lifestyle rather than telling them what they had to change.
“I learned a lot from those women,” Chang said. “Everything needs to be practical and applicable to daily life — anytime, anywhere.”
Some examples: Comparing a bag of chips to a bag of apples — the chips might be half the price, but they supply far fewer family snacks. Or using a household responsibility chart to assign tasks to young children, and encouraging moms to reward kids with a hug or individual attention when they follow the instructions. And taking deep breaths to counter the feeling of being overwhelmed.
When it came to stress management, the researchers focused on advising the women to shift their thinking, and not to blame themselves when things go wrong, rather than to take on solving the problems that caused them stress.
“We raised their awareness about stressors in their lives, and unfortunately a lot of these problems are not within their control,” Chang said. “So we teach them ways to control their negative emotions — remember that this is temporary, and you can get through it. And give them confidence to look to the future.”
The videos from the intervention are now part of WIC’s continuing education series for mothers. This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health. Co-authors included Duane Wegener from Ohio State and Roger Brown from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

New research by the National Institutes of Health found that unbalanced progesterone signals may cause some pregnant women to experience preterm labor or prolonged labor. The study in mice — published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences — provides novel insights for developing treatments.
During pregnancy, the hormone progesterone helps to prevent the uterus from contracting and going into labor prematurely. This occurs through molecular signaling involving progesterone receptor types A and B, referred to as PGR-A and PGR-B. In this first-of-its-kind study, the scientists showed how unbalanced PGR-A and PGR-B signaling can affect pregnancy duration.
“We used genetically engineered mouse models to alter the ratio of PGR-A and PGR-B in the muscle compartment of the uterus, called the myometrium,” said senior author Francesco DeMayo, Ph.D., head of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences Reproductive and Developmental Biology Laboratory. “Our team found that PGR-A promotes muscle contraction and PGR-B prevents such contraction, and we identified the biological pathways influenced by both forms.”
Previous research showed that PGR-A regulates processes involved in initiating childbirth and that PGR-B affects molecular pathways related to maintaining the normal course of pregnancy. This study builds on those findings, revealing that the relative abundance of PGR-A and PGR-B may be critical in promoting healthy pregnancy. The public health implications are significant.
Preterm birth affects 10% of all pregnancies and is the primary cause of neonatal morbidity and mortality worldwide, while prolonged labor increases the risks of infection, uterine rupture, and neonatal distress, according to the researchers.
The scientists pointed out that care for preterm deliveries can result in high social and economic costs, with infants born preterm at greater risk for experiencing disorders ranging from blindness to cerebral palsy. Prolonged labor can harm both mother and infant and lead to cesarean delivery.
Progesterone treatment aimed at preventing premature labor can help a subset of patients, but for other individuals, confounding factors may reduce effectiveness, noted Steve Wu, Ph.D., first author on the study and a staff scientist in DeMayo’s lab. Wu said that the research team found novel molecules that control uterine muscle contraction, and they could serve as future therapeutic targets. He added that the current study also may help to advance treatment for labor dystocia — the clinical name for abnormally slow or protracted labor.
“Although labor stimulation by oxytocin infusion is an approved measure to mitigate labor dystocia, serious side effects have been associated with this treatment,” said Wu. “Novel proteins that we identified as being part of progesterone signaling could serve as a key molecular switch of uterine contraction, through drug-dependent regulation of their activities,” he explained.
“Hormone signaling in pregnancy is complicated and involves both the hormone levels and the types of receptors in the uterus that sense the hormones,” said co-first author Mary Peavey, M.D., from the department of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “This publication sheds light on how hormones influence labor and can thus be used to help women when the uterus goes into labor too soon or for a prolonged period.”