Octuplet Mom: Where Do We Draw the Line on IVF?

By Erica Kain

At first, I didn’t believe Nadya Suleman, the infamous mother of octuplets. No doctor would have the gall to transfer more than two embryos into a 33-year-old woman, right?
My initial guess was that she had pulled a Bobbi McCaughey. While trying to conceive, McCaughey took Pergonal and became the mother of septuplets, born in 1997. She did not have an ultrasound to determine how many eggs were waiting for the sperm.

As a result, McCaughey had seven premature babies, one with hypotonic quadriplegia and one with spastic diplegia. The situation seemed avoidable if she’d been under the care of a responsible reproductive endocrinologist who could have warned her against trying to conceive that particular month.

I’ve since learned that Pergonal was not to blame for Suleman’s conception. She did indeed have six embryos implanted by in vitro fertilization (IVF), two of which split, creating eight premature babies who may suffer a host of problems (including heart and brain defects).

If you purposely create more than one child in utero, there’s a good chance they’re going to have to come out early. Who in the world would wish prematurity upon their children? And what physician would consent to a massive embryo transfer?

The parents in my community have been discussing this situation almost nonstop since the story broke. While everyone agrees that Suleman made a terrible decision and her complicit doctor should be punished, no one can agree what the guidelines should be. Here are some of the suggestions:
“How about no IVF after three kids?”

Sounds responsible. But then I think of the well-to-do mother whose fourth child (an IVF baby) takes swim lessons with my daughter. Would I deny her the right to a fourth child just because she is over 35 and her reproductive system stopped cooperating?

“You have to show you can financially support your embryos before you create them.”
But if this were the case for natural conception, so many kids wouldn’t be here today. And the bills related to assisted reproductive technology (ART) tend to drain the savings accounts of even the most fiscally responsible parents. Most insurance companies don’t cover ART, acting as an artificial barrier to prevent low-income women from conceiving through IVF.

Health Tip: If You Have a Food Allergy

(HealthDay News) -- A food allergy is an immune system response to a food that the body mistakenly believes is harmful, according to the Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network.

Once the immune system decides to treat a particular food this way, eating that food can prompt the massive release of chemicals known as histamines. These chemicals, in turn, trigger allergic reactions that can affect the respiratory system, gastrointestinal tract, skin, and cardiovascular system.

Avoiding these foods altogether is the only sure way to prevent a reaction.

Although someone can be allergic to just about any food, the following edibles account for 90 percent of all reactions: milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts (including walnuts and cashews), fish, shellfish, soy, and wheat.

Health Tip: When Arthritis Affects the Hands

(HealthDay News) -- Arthritis in the hands can make it difficult to perform everyday tasks. While the condition can be managed with proper medical care, first you must recognize its common warning signs.

The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons offers this list:

• Dull or burning pain in the fingers and hands, especially after you've been holding tightly to an object for an extended period.
• Swelling and warmth in and around the joints.
• A feeling of being able to move the joints less easily.
• A feeling that the joints in your hand are grinding together.
• A feeling that your joints are loose, or not as stable as they once were.
• Cysts, or small bumps that appear around the joints of the fingers.
  

Dietary Aid Helps Kidney Patients Stay Safe

(HealthDay News) -- Too much dietary intake of phosphorus can be dangerous for people with kidney disease, but a new educational aid helps patients reduce the risk, a U.S. study finds.

Patients with moderate to severe kidney disease have difficulty excreting phosphorus, which can lead to a buildup of the chemical. Elevated blood levels of phosphorus (hyperphosphatemia) increase the risk of illness and death. Patients with kidney disease are advised to limit their intake of foods that are naturally high in phosphorus, such as meats, dairy products, whole grains and nuts. But phosphorus-containing additives are increasingly being added to processed and fast foods, according to background information in the study.

It included 279 end-stage renal disease (ESRD) patients with elevated serum (blood) levels of phosphorus (greater than 5.5 milligrams per deciliter (mg/dL). Some of the patients (145) received education on avoiding foods with phosphorus additives when purchasing groceries or going to fast-food restaurants, while the remainder (134) continued to receive usual care.

At the start of the study, the average serum phosphorus level was 7.2 mg/dL in the intervention group and 7.1 mg/dL in the control group. After three months, those levels declined by 1.0 mg/dL in the intervention group and by 0.4 mg/dL in the control group. Patients in the intervention group were also much more likely to read ingredient lists and nutrition facts labels on food products.

The study was published in the Feb. 11 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

"The 0.6 mg/dL larger decline in average phosphorus level among intervention participants compared with control participants corresponds to a 5 percent to 15 percent reduction in relative mortality risk in observational studies," wrote a team led by Catherine Sullivan, of MetroHealth Medical Center and Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.

"Our findings raise the possibility that typical intakes of processed and fast foods contribute to the persistent hyperphosphatemia, cardiovascular events, and bone disease observed among patients with ESRD. Our results have important implications for patients, clinicians, researchers, and policy makers," the study authors wrote. "Patients with ESRD and clinicians should learn about both naturally occurring phosphorus and phosphorus-containing additives, and patients should limit their total phosphorus intake to 800 to 1,000 milligrams per day as recommended by practice guidelines."

They added that researchers should focus on developing improved methods of preventing and treating hyperphosphatemia, and policy makers should consider ways to tackle the problem, such as mandatory listing of phosphorus content on nutrition labels.

More information
The U.S. National Kidney Disease Education Program has more about kidney disease.

Health Tip: Do I Have a Cold or Flu?

(HealthDay News) -- If you're sneezing, coughing and have a fever, do you know how to tell whether you've caught a cold or have the flu?

The American Academy of Family Physicians offers this list of cold symptoms, and how to tell them apart from symptoms of the flu:

In general, cold symptoms are milder and come on slowly, while symptoms of the flu tend to occur very suddenly.

• It's probably a cold if you have a fever no higher than 102 degrees. The flu usually causes fevers higher than that.


• It's probably a cold if you have symptoms including a congested or runny nose, sneezing and coughing, watery eyes, and a sore throat.


• Symptoms of the flu often include nausea, chills, sweats, vomiting, muscle aches, and loss of appetite.

You Own It, You'll Eat It

(HealthDay News) -- Wondering whether to partake of that expired yogurt at the back of the fridge? What about that hunk of cheese with the bit of mold on top?

If you're like most Americans, you'll take the chance, a new study shows. In fact, spoiled or past-due foods that most people would quickly reject at the supermarket are much more eagerly consumed once they make it home.

That's because consumers are more likely to eat dubious foods once they actually own them, another sign of how people unconsciously give more value to things that are theirs, researchers say.

"We try to come up with justifications about why it's OK to consume what we already own and downplay the reasons why it might not be OK," said study co-author Lauren Block, a professor of marketing at Baruch College in New York City.

Block and her team aimed to examine the so-called "endowment effect." This refers to the extra value people give to things that they own. Studies have shown, for example, that people will sell a product they own for a much higher price than they'd be willing to pay to buy it from someone else.

In the new study, to be published in the June issue of the Journal of Consumer Research, the Baruch team examined data from 165 students who were questioned about their yogurt preferences. The students were given a yogurt smoothie that was past its "best if enjoyed by" date but was still safe to eat. Those in the "endowed" group were told the yogurt was theirs to keep.

Thirty-eight percent of those in the latter group were willing to drink the smoothie either right then or later. But only 13 percent of the students who didn't own the yogurt were willing to drink the smoothie. Those who were told to keep their smoothie were also less likely to think it would make them sick.

"Our results help explain why a person might consume expired food that they found in the fridge, but not consume expired food found in a friend's fridge," Block said.

People seem to rationalize eating the expired yogurt just as many of us adopt the "five-second rule," which states that food that falls on the floor remains edible if it's just there a few seconds, Block said.

The new study has implications for health and safety, experts say, since it suggests that once products make it to consumers' homes, safety labeling such as the "Best Before" date begins to lose its meaning. According to Block, companies could help consumers by doing a better job of communicating information about expiration dates -- and not just when it comes to food.

"For example, many consumers do not know that sunscreen, condoms, fire extinguishers and medicine lose efficacy over time," she said. "Our research suggests that consumers may underestimate the risk associated with using products past their expiration dates, and for some products, this might have a negative consequence."

And what about foods? Fresh, edible products "don't suddenly go bad with overgrowth of bacteria and harmful substances on the expiration date," said Lona Sandon, an assistant professor of clinical nutrition at the University of Texas Southwestern. "But after that freshness date, bacteria may start to grow slowly and ruin the quality of the food."

Canned goods typically have a much longer shelf life, Sandon said, "but leave them too long and you get something that just doesn't taste right. If the can is not dented, bloated, or leaking, the ingredients are probably safe from bacteria," she said. However, "the texture and flavor of the food is likely to be poor. Things like canned tomatoes may start to become more acidic over time. This may not be harmful to your health, but it doesn't taste good."

More information
Learn more about food safety from Fight Bac.