September 22nd, 2017
Podcast 213: Continuous glucose monitoring in pregnancies with type 1 diabetes
Pregnant women with type 1 diabetes can realize more than better control with continuous glucose monitoring: their babies are less likely to be large for gestational age and less likely to spend time in neonatal ICUs. Dr. Denice Feig, who authored a recent international study in The Lancet, talks about her findings and makes recommendations […]
February 29th, 2012
Podcast 148: Smoking cessation during pregnancy is probably more effective with behavioral approaches than with relying on nicotine replacement
In the largest study of its kind, UK researchers find that helping pregnant women to quit smoking until at least delivery isn’t helped much by nicotine replacement therapy. The primary outcome, self-reported cessation lasting between the start of therapy and delivery, differed little between the active treatment group and those randomized to placebo (9% versus 8%). In […]
October 8th, 2011
Podcast 133: Over 50 years later, DES’s adverse effects continue
A cluster of clear-cell adenocarcinomas of the vagina in young women led to the realization some 40 years ago that almost all their mothers had taken diethylstilbestrol during pregnancy — a drug in wide use in the early 1950s. In a follow-up to that drug disaster, researchers (including one of the authors of the original reports […]
September 10th, 2011
Podcast 129: Non-aspirin NSAIDs are associated, as a class, with spontaneous abortion in a Quebec study
Last week the Canadian Medical Association Journal published an analysis of data from the Quebec Pregnancy Registry showing that the use of any non-aspirin NSAID during pregnancy was associated with an increased risk for spontaneous abortion before the 20th week of gestation. There was no apparent dose-response effect. We discuss the research with the paper’s senior […]
July 30th, 2010
Podcast 96: Survivors of childhood cancer face manageable reproductive risks.
What becomes of children who survive cancer treatment and enter their reproductive years? Would their attempts to have children end in a higher-than-normal rate of stillbirths and miscarriages? Apparently not. It turns out the major concern is with women who’ve undergone pelvic irradiation before menarche. That treatment seems to hobble uterine development, but not irretrievably. For […]
May 2nd, 2010
Podcast 85: B vitamins lower homocysteine levels, so why don’t they retard the progression of diabetic nephropathy?
A surprise finding: homocysteine is supposed to be a factor in vascular inflammation, but lowering hyperhomocysteinemia in patients with diabetic nephropathy actually accelerated the decline of their GFRs. What gives? We have a conversation with Dr. J. David Spence, whose results were just published in JAMA. Interview-related link: JAMA paper on the effect of B vitamins on diabetic […]