Hot MedFax

Women -- and men, too -- who are hoping to conceive may want to have their cholesterol checked.  A new study says that if a man or woman has high cholesterol levels, it will take longer. Cholesterol is a waxy, fat-like substance found in all cells  of the  body. About a third of American adults – 71 million – have high levels of low-density lipoprotein, or “bad” cholesterol, according to the  Centers for Disease  Control and Prevention, as newswise.com reports. Only one of every three adults with high LDL cholesterol has the condition under control. "In addition to raising the risk of cardiovascular disease, our findings suggest cholesterol may contribute to infertility,” newswise quotes one of the study’s authors, Enrique F. Schisterman, MS, PhD, of the National  Institutes of Health ’s Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) in Bethesda, MD. “Our results suggest prospective parents may want to have thei...

I remember when I was trying to get pregnant being told by everyone that all I had to do was relax.  That alone stressed me out.  Every procedure I failed, I'd tell myself it was because I didn't relax enough.  Really great for the cortisol level. Now it's turning out that stressing out and fertility are linked. Well, infertility.  A new study has found, according to Deborah Netburn at The Los Angles Times, that s tressed out women do have more difficulty getting pregnant than women with less stress, according to a new study.  In fact, 29 percent more, Fox news reports. This, of course, contradicts earlier studies that say they don't! From 2005 to 2009, researchers followed 401 reproductively healthy couples who were trying to get pregnant.  Over a period of 12 months, researchers recorded each couple’s time-to-pregnancy and observed that by five to six months into the study, the couples who had yet to conceive were those with the highest levels of c...

An amazing thing.  Children in a recent study said they believed they didn't have eyes or a head before they were conceived but that their soul -- their essence -- was around before they were even physically formed. Boston University  postdoctoral fellow Natalie Emmons studied both children who came from a background with no cultural references to religion (no school, no church, no TV) in remote Ecuador as well as an urban area near Quito where children did have access to such amenities. Emmons found, according to newswise.com, " Both groups gave remarkably similar answers, despite their radically different cultures. The children reasoned that their bodies didn’t exist before birth, and that they didn’t have the ability to think or remember. However, both groups also said that their emotions and desires existed before they were born." Emmons says that, while the children generally reported that they didn’t have eyes and couldn’t see things before birth, "they...

Last week we learned that what a mom eats when she's pregnant affects her unborn baby. Now a new  study is showing that what dads eat before conception matters, too.  One of the first things you're asked to do when you're pregnant -- and even before -- is to take prenatal vitamins, or folates.  It wasn't thought that dads needed to do much of anything. But now the study has shown that dads need folates, too. Folates are found in green leafy vegetables, cereals, fruit and meat.  And it's long been known that taking folates, or folic acid, can help women avoid or prevent miscarriage.  But it's only coming to light now how important it is for dads-to-be to consume this, as well. According to newswise.com, "T he study suggests that fathers should pay as much attention to their lifestyle and diet before they set out to conceive a child as mothers do." And those Big Macs?  You might want to consider cutting them out, too -- if you're concerned ...

Having trouble conceiving? Use your phone. No, not that way.  But with a new app,  women can record the timing of their last menstrual period and as more data is entered, the app, the Glow, more accurately predicts their body's fertility cycle.  Glow populates a calendar to display dates for a woman's period and suspected optimum, ovulation delay, according to Jacqueline Lee.  The app can also remind dads-to-be to "Stay out of the hot tub!", "Wear boxers, not briefs," and other tips to improve their fertility, as well. Infertility strikes one in three women after age 35, so this could be a real money-maker for Levchin, the company which developed the app, whose founder, Max Levchin, also birthed PayPal.  According to estimates,   7.3 million people   in the U.S., or one in eight couples, have trouble conceiving.   Though many couples would prefer to procreate in a less structured way, there's no beating the app for setting up a road m...