News by Subject Social & Behavior

The question of whether alcohol intake affects male reproductive function is controversial. In a new Andrology study, moderate alcohol intake was linked with higher semen volume, sperm concentration, and total sperm count.

A fatal neurodegenerative condition known as Gaucher disease can be prevented in mice following fetal gene therapy, finds a new study led by UCL, the KK Women's and Children's Hospital and National University Health System in Singapore. The study, published today in Nature Medicine, highlights the potential of fetal gene therapy to prevent and cure neonatal lethal neurodegenerative diseases in humans in utero.

Scientists have gained a glimpse of how marks on our genes that could be linked to adverse health outcomes in later life behave differently in the first few days after conception, according to new research published in Science Advances.

Exposing newborn mice to vaginal microbes from stressed female mice may transfer the effects of stress to the newborns, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. These changes resemble those seen specifically in the male offspring of moms that were stressed during pregnancy.

A recent meta-analysis of published studies has compared the efficacy and safety of antihypertensive drugs during pregnancy.

The inclusion of nuts in a regular diet significantly improves the quality and function of human sperm, according to results of a randomised trial which measured conventional semen parameters and molecular changes over a 14-week study period. The findings, say the investigators, 'support a beneficial role for chronic nut consumption in sperm quality' and reflect a research need for further male-specific dietary recommendations.

New research shows that pelvic exams do not help diagnose certain STDs in adolescent females.

Despite dramatic uptake in the numbers of women electing to freeze their eggs as insurance against an anticipated age-related fertility decline, there is still little that clinics can predict about outcome based on real-life experience. Indeed, at one of Europe's biggest fertility centers -- the Brussels Centre for Reproductive Medicine in Belgium -- only 7.6 percent of women have returned to thaw their eggs and try for a pregnancy. And only one-third of those have been successful.