Lauren Berson Sugarman: What This Week in Fertility Research Reveals About Health and Reproduction
Lauren Berson Sugarman, Founder and CEO at Conceive, shared a post on LinkedIn about a paper by Marlena Fejzo et al. published in Nature Genetics:
“More evidence that sperm quality is one of the earliest health signals we’re consistently ignoring. More on that and everything else in this week’s Friday Fertility News
A large Swedish study found that men with severe infertility had nearly twice the risk of colorectal cancer and three times the risk of thyroid cancer compared to men who conceived naturally. It’s observational – not causal – and the absolute risk is still low, so I want to be careful not to catastrophize it. But the throughline is compelling: sperm quality might be one of the earliest signals of overall health, not just reproductive function. We wait until a couple is struggling to test semen – when it might be one of the simplest, earliest health markers. (And as I often say, it’s easy, cheap, and pleasurable!)
The new Title X funding priorities are becoming clearer, and they mark a noticeable shift. The program funds birth control, cancer screenings, and STI testing for millions of low-income patients, and is being reframed around ‘family formation,’ with far less emphasis on contraception. The disconnect is hard to ignore: experts say falling birth rates aren’t being driven by lack of access to birth control. They point to cost, timing, and the realities of modern parenthood. Expanding women’s health is one thing. Using a safety-net program to chase a birth-rate agenda is another.
New research adds to our understanding of hyperemesis gravidarum—the severe form of pregnancy nausea. Scientists identified 10 genetic variants associated with HG, six of them new, pointing toward pathways in appetite regulation, insulin signaling, and brain function. Why does this matter? Because understanding the biology is the first step toward actual treatments – and for the estimated 3% of pregnant people who experience HG, that can’t come soon enough. Marlena Fejzo
Title: Multi-ancestry genome-wide association study of severe pregnancy nausea and vomiting
Researchers at Washington State University found that endometriosis can teach your nervous system to be in pain even after surgery removes every visible lesion. They found that repeated inflammation rewires the brain to keep firing pain signals on its own. So if you’ve had surgery, been told everything looks clear, and are still in agony, you’re not imagining it and you are not broken. Your nervous system just got very good at a job it no longer needs to do. That’s not comforting exactly, but it’s real.
Freya Biosciences is developing a drug that actually fixes the vaginal microbiome. Their Phase 1 data, published this week, shows it can shift a dysbiotic microbiome toward a healthier state – without antibiotics – with effects still present at six months. he FDA has cleared them to move into Phase 2 in women undergoing frozen embryo transfer. Recurrent implantation failure is one of the most defeating things in IVF – good embryo, good lining, no explanation. This is at least a new place to look.”
Title: Multi-ancestry genome-wide association study of severe pregnancy nausea and vomiting
Authors: Marlena Fejzo, Xinran Wang, Qing Tan, Julia Zöllner, Natàlia Pujol-Gualdo, Triin Laisk, Estonian Biobank Research Team, Sarah Finer, David A. van Heel, Health Research Team, Ben Brumpton, Laxmi Bhatta, Kristian Hveem, Elizabeth A. Jasper, Digna R. Velez Edwards, Jacklyn N. Hellwege, Todd Edwards, Gail P. Jarvik, Yuan Luo, Atlas Khan, Kimber MacGibbon, Yuan Gao, Gaoxiang Ge, Inna Averbukh, Erin Soon, Michael Angelo, Per Magnus, Stefan Johansson, Pål R. Njølstad, Artem Kim, Steven Gazal, Marc Vaudel, Chang April Shu, Nicholas Mancuso
Stay updated on all scientific advances in the field of fertility with Fertility News.
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