{"id":250,"date":"2018-02-05T11:29:26","date_gmt":"2018-02-05T10:29:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/?p=250"},"modified":"2018-02-05T11:30:04","modified_gmt":"2018-02-05T10:30:04","slug":"ibuprofen-taken-in-early-pregnancy-could-affect-daughters-fertility-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/?p=250","title":{"rendered":"Ibuprofen taken in early pregnancy could affect daughter&#8217;s fertility \u2013 study"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Ibuprofen taken by women in their first three months of pregnancy might reduce a daughter\u2019s number of eggs, potentially affecting the child\u2019s future fertility, according to research carried out on human cells in the lab.<\/p>\n<p>It is generally thought that women are born with a fixed number of eggs, although\u00a0<a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/science\/2016\/oct\/07\/evidence-suggests-womens-ovaries-can-grow-new-eggs\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">controversial recent research has challenged the idea<\/a>\u00a0that adult ovaries are unable to produce more.<\/p>\n<p>Previous work in rodents has suggested that painkillers including ibuprofen might affect the ovaries and hence fertility, while\u00a0<a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/science\/2018\/jan\/08\/ibuprofen-may-increase-risk-of-fertility-issues-in-men-study-suggests\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">recent research in men<\/a>\u00a0has linked prolonged high doses of ibuprofen to disruption of male sex hormones. Up to 30% of women are thought to take ibuprofen during pregnancy.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"element element-rich-link element--thumbnail element-rich-link--upgraded\" data-component=\"rich-link\" data-link-name=\"rich-link-2 | 1\">\n<div class=\"rich-link tone-feature--item rich-link--pillar-lifestyle\">\n<div class=\"rich-link__container\">\n<div class=\"rich-link__read-more\">\n<div class=\"rich-link__read-more-text\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>\u201cWe know that fertility rates have declined over recent years, and essentially we are looking for a potential reason why that might be the case,\u201d said Rod Mitchell, co-author of the research from the University of Edinburgh. \u201cBecause it is a relatively recent decline, it is felt that environmental factors [including painkillers] in addition to societal factors might have a role to play.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Writing in the journal\u00a0<a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1093\/humrep\/dex383\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">Human Reproduction<\/a>, Mitchell and colleagues from France and Denmark report how they examined the impact of ibuprofen on developing ovaries using ovarian tissue taken from 185 terminated human foetuses aged between seven and 12 weeks.<\/p>\n<p>In the first step of the study, the team analysed blood taken from the umbilical cords of 13 of the foetuses whose mothers had taken ibuprofen in the hours before termination, to reveal that ibuprofen did indeed cross the placental barrier.<\/p>\n<p>For each of the 185 foetuses, tissue was then cultured under multiple conditions, with one sample exposed to no ibuprofen and others bathed in various concentrations of the drug in a dish, reflecting concentrations that would circulate in humans.<\/p>\n<p>After seven days, compared to samples not exposed to ibuprofen, those bathed in the painkiller at a concentration on a par with the cord blood levels had an average of 50% fewer ovarian cells, and between 50 and 75% fewer \u201cgerm cells\u201d \u2013 cells that develop into eggs. This was down to an increase in cell death and fewer cells multiplying.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"element element-rich-link element--thumbnail element-rich-link--upgraded\" data-component=\"rich-link\" data-link-name=\"rich-link-2 | 2\">\n<div class=\"rich-link tone-feature--item rich-link--pillar-lifestyle\">\n<div class=\"rich-link__container\">\n<div class=\"rich-link__read-more\">\n<div class=\"rich-link__read-more-text\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Further experiments showed that the damage began as early as two days after exposure to the ibuprofen for foetuses aged 8\u201312 weeks. After a five day recovery period for a subset of the samples, only a partial recovery from the effects of the ibuprofen was observed, but only germ cells appeared to bounce back.<\/p>\n<p>But Mitchell cautions that the situation in the body might differ from that in a dish, that it is not clear what level of germ cell loss would be tolerated before fertility is affected, or whether the ovaries could more fully recover over a longer period.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf we see effects on germ cells, which we do in the dish, that could indicate that there are potential for effects in \u2018real life\u2019 and potential for effects on fertility \u2013 but we haven\u2019t shown or proved that by what we have done [in this study],\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>For pregnant women, he added \u201cThe advice doesn\u2019t change,\u201d noting that they should take painkillers only when necessary, and at the lowest dose for the shortest time possible. Currently pregnant women are<a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nhs.uk\/chq\/Pages\/2398.aspx?CategoryID=54\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">\u00a0advised to choose paracetamol over ibuprofen, and not to take ibuprofen after 30 weeks<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>William Colledge, professor of reproductive physiology at the University of Cambridge, who was not involved in the research, said the study was interesting since it looked at a period in which women might not realise they were pregnant. But he had reservations.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is a big step to go from something that happens in the petri dish to saying, well, that definitely may happen in a pregnant woman \u2013 although it shows that we could be cautious,\u201d he said, adding that the number of germ cells in the ovaries naturally declines from a peak of about three million mid-pregnancy. \u201cAt best [women] are only releasing one [egg] each month. So you can cope with the loss of quite a lot of these eggs,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Source https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/science\/2018\/feb\/02\/ibuprofen-taken-in-early-pregnancy-could-affect-daughters-fertility-study<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ibuprofen taken by women in their first three months of pregnancy might reduce a daughter\u2019s number of eggs, potentially affecting the child\u2019s future fertility, according to research carried out on human cells in the lab. It is generally thought that women are born with a fixed number of eggs, although\u00a0controversial recent research has challenged the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":252,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=250"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":251,"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250\/revisions\/251"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}