Maternal obesity increases risk of wheezing in babies

Maternal obesity increases the risk of frequent wheezing in offspring — Tobacco and excess weight: 2 factors linked to asthma in babies – The fact that excess weight during pregnancy has negative consequences is not new information. A new study now concludes that the children of mothers obese before falling pregnant are four times more likely to have frequent wheezing, which is one of the symptoms of asthma, compared to the children of mothers weighing a normal weight.

Prenatal intervention may reduce learning deficit in Down syndrome children

Prenatal intervention reduces learning deficit in mice — NIH study shows improvements in animals with Down syndrome characteristics – Mice with a condition that serves as a laboratory model for Down syndrome perform better on memory and learning tasks as adults if they were treated before birth with neuroprotective peptides, according to researchers at the National Institutes of Health.

Low birth weight may increase heart disease and kidney disease risk

Low birth weight may increase risk for cardiovascular disease, kidney disease and diabetes — New research in The FASEB Journal suggests that poor high blood pressure management during pregnancy may have negative long-term health consequences for offspring – Being underweight at birth may have consequences above and beyond the known short-term effects says a research report. The report shows that rats with a low birth weight have an increased long-term risk for developing cardiovascular disease, kidney disease, and diabetes.

Autism in children linked to Father’s Age

deCODE Genetics Study Finds Father?s Age?Not Mother?s Critical to New Mutations Passed to Offspring — Nature Published Study Signals Rise in Autism Spectrum Disorder May Be Partially Tied to Increasing Age of Fathers at Time When Children are Conceived – deCODE Genetics, a global leader in analyzing and understanding the human genome, in collaboration with Illumina, a global leader in the making of instruments to analyze the genome, reported in the journal Nature that a father?s age, not a mother?s, at the time a child is conceived is the single largest contributor to the passing of new hereditary mutations to offspring.

Malaria mosquitoes can’t spot a spermless mate

Mosquitoes can’t spot a spermless mate – A female mosquito cannot tell if the male that she has mated with is fertile or ‘sperm less’ and unable to fertilize her eggs, according to a recent study from scientists at Imperial College London.

DHA or Omega 3 fatty acids during pregnancy good for babies health

Study shows protective benefits of DHA taken during pregnancy – If pregnant women take daily 400 mg of DHA during pregnancy are more likely to deliver healthier infants, and babies fall sick less and for short duration. Babies are more healthier in their infancy period.

Elevations in 5 amino acids metabolite may predict diabetes risk

Metabolite levels may be able to improve diabetes risk prediction — Elevations in 5 amino acids may signal future disease risk, indicate candidates for preventive measures – Measuring the levels of small molecules in the blood may be able to identify individuals at elevated risk of developing type 2 diabetes as much as a decade before symptoms of the disorder appear.

Higher education or advanced degrees lower blood pressure in women

Advanced degrees add up to lower blood pressure – Freshmen on the eve of finals and graduate students staring down a thesis committee may not feel this way, but the privilege of obtaining an advanced education correlates with decades of lower blood pressure, according to a study led by a public health researcher at Brown University. The benefit appears to be greater for women than for men.

Vitamin D deficiency reduces lung growth and lung function

Vitamin D deficiency alters lung growth and decreases lung function – Vitamin D deficiency is linked to deficits in lung function and altered lung structure. Examinations of specific tissue responses revealed model mice had reduced lung function.

Reducing diet in pregnancy may affect brain growth in fetus

Reducing diet early in pregnancy stunts fetal brain development — Study shows that the fetal brain is vulnerable to moderate decreases in maternal nutrition – Eating less during early pregnancy impaired fetal brain development in a nonhuman primate model, revealed by researchers from The University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio.

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