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Obese women have to w o rry about heart disease and diabetes and cancer.  Now a new study has found that   in vitro fertilization   (IVF) probably won't work for them either. That's because they need a bigger dose of hormones to account for their weight.   Obese women may need a different dose of medication than normal weight women in order to successfully have their eggs harvested for IVF procedures, according to newswise.com. But that comes with a caution, at least from me, who is not a medical person but who developed breast cancer after four IVFs, because, I'm convinced, of the hormones. If you get a bigger dose, does that increase your chances of cancer?  This has been studied, and is starting to appear true, but because fertility treatments are such a money-maker (my guess), the issue hasn't been addressed loudly enough. (I'd think it was just me, my bad luck, except many of my friends who also did IVF have breast cancer, too.) But, back to the s...

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 ...

Interesting story today at smartplanet.com.   Designer babies . It's not what you think.  Or maybe it is.  But British researchers have found a way to make a baby using three people.  It's not to make sure the baby has blond hair and blue eyes, and is a girl, with a 150 IQ, but to provide additional genes to prevent "debilitating and potentially fatal mitochondrial disease." According to David Worthington, mitochondria are the parts of cells known as 'power stations' because they provide energy.  "Diseased mitochondria leaves people weak and can cause blindness, heart failure and death," he writes. This disorder affects one in every 6,500 babies in the UK, according to the BBC. The way it works is through an in-vitro fertilization procedure.  Doctors extract eggs from the mother and sperm from the father, then combine them in the lab with a third person's disease-free mitochrondria.  I remember talk about something like this when I was tryi...