PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Faster growth of the placenta is linked to increased risk of preeclampsia

2023-10-06
(Press-News.org) Research sheds light on how genetics influences the growth of the placenta and reveals a link to increased risk of disease in the mother.

The placenta is an organ which grows in the womb alongside the foetus, which is attached to it by the umbilical cord. It is the only organ that contain tissue from both mother and child. The placenta provides oxygen and nutrients to the growing foetus and removes waste as the baby develops. A poorly functioning placenta is associated with pregnancy complications, and later risk of disease in the child.

Despite its key role, little is yet known about how the growth of the placenta is regulated.

“Understanding placental growth is important, as babies with very small or large placentas are at higher risk of complications”, Professor Pål Rasmus Njølstad at the University of Bergen, explains.

He and his colleagues at the University of Bergen, together with colleagues in UK and Denmark to has led a largescale international collaboration to examine placental growth in the greatest detail yet.

Together they carried out the first ever genome-wide association study of the weight of the placenta at birth, generating several revelations.

“Among the findings published in Nature Genetics, we concluded that faster growth of the placenta can contribute to risk of preeclampsia, and to earlier delivery of the baby”, says Njølstad.

A fast-growing placenta may upset the balance.

The placenta is an important organ during pregnancy, providing an intricate and vital link between mother and baby.

“In our study we have identified 40 variations in the genetic code linked to how big a placenta can grow, which improves our understanding of this vital organ in humans. Several of these genetic variations also influence the weight of the baby, but many are to be predominantly concerned with placental growth”, Njølstad explains.

The team found that where the genetic code of the foetus meant it was more likely that the placenta would grow bigger, there was a higher risk of pre-eclampsia in the mother.

“This could be because the placenta grows too fast, which can upset the balance between the baby’s demand for resources and how much the mother is able to provide, which can be a factor in pre-eclampsia that occurs late in pregnancy”, says Njølstad.

Placenta growth is linked to pregnancy length.

Pre-eclampsia is a condition that may develop in pregnancy, which causes high blood pressure.  Some of the mother’s organs, such as the kidneys and liver, stop working properly.

Detecting it early is essential to avoid severe health problems for mother and baby, yet how preeclampsia develops isn’t fully understood.

“Our study suggests that faster growth of the placenta contributes to a higher risk of preeclampsia in the mother. It seems specific to placenta growth because we did not find the same risk when we looked at the genetics of baby weight”, says Professor Rachel Freathy at the University of Exeter Medical School, and a co-lead of the paper.

Faster-growing placenta was also linked to shorter pregnancy.

“We found that babies with genetic code for a bigger placenta were more likely to be born earlier, which underscores the importance of investigating placental biology in studies of pregnancy duration and the timing of delivery”, says another of the co-leader of the study, senior researcher and group leader, Bjarke Feenstra at the Copenhagen University Hospital and Statens Serum Institut, Denmark.

Insulin was related to placenta growth.

One key finding from the study related to insulin, a hormone that regulates blood sugar. The foetus produces insulin in response to glucose (sugar) from the mother, which acts as a growth factor.

The team found this insulin is also linked to the growth of the placenta, which helps to explain why placentas tend to be large in pregnancies where the mother has high blood glucose due to diabetes.

Further studies are needed.

“Our work is just the starting point for future research which could help us understand far more about the placenta’s role in the growth of the baby and risk of pregnancy complications”, says Professor Stefan Johansson, also co-lead at the University of Bergen.

He thinks this is a great first step, but that the final weight of a placenta can only tell us a limited amount about its function:

“Further studies are needed to examine the shape and development of placenta over the course of pregnancy”, he underlines.

Facts about the study

The study involved wider collaboration included scientists from Australia, Canada, the US and elsewhere in Europe. The study is entitled “Genome-wide association study of placental weight identifies distinct and shared genetic influences between placental and fetal growth” and is published in Nature Genetics.

 

END


ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Integrated chronic care in Africa can improve outcomes and save money

Integrated chronic care in Africa can improve outcomes and save money
2023-10-06
Across Africa about two million premature deaths each year are caused by the effects of diabetes and hypertension. In contrast, most people living with HIV are in regular care and virally suppressed, and HIV mortality rates have fallen five-fold since their peak of 2 million deaths annually in the early 2000s to less than 500,000 in 2022. Dr Josephine Birungi, a co-author and Graduate Researcher-Public Health at La Trobe University, said that the similarities in chronic disease management of HIV and other chronic conditions should make integrated clinics beneficial. “The only difference is the medicine they take. We’re seeing ...

ObesityWeek® features hundreds of innovative scientific abstracts

2023-10-06
ROCKVILLE, Md.— Neary 240 scientific abstracts covering a variety of topics such as anti-obesity medications, body mass index and pediatric obesity will be featured at the 41st Annual Meeting of The Obesity Society’s (TOS) at ObesityWeek® 2023. This in-person event will take place Oct. 14–17, 2023 at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas, Texas. Innovative scientific research results will be presented in both oral and poster formats. These communications provide notable exposure and recognition for studies and authors, and represent cutting-edge research in obesity prevention and ...

Colombian National Cancer Institute signs MOU with BGI Genomics to combat cancer

Colombian National Cancer Institute signs MOU with BGI Genomics to combat cancer
2023-10-06
On October 2, 2023, BGI Genomics signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Colombian National Cancer Institute (INC or Instituto Nacional de Cancerologia). This collaboration, which aims to foster research and further develop cutting-edge solutions based on genetic sequencing for early diagnosis of cervical and colorectal cancer, reflects a shared dedication to enhancing health outcomes in the region. The MoU was formally inked at INC facilities by Dr. Carolina Wiesner, INC Director, and Mr. Rainer Perez, alternate legal representative of BGI Genomics in Colombia. Mr. Marco Antonio Rincón, Latin America Business Director, BGI Genomics, notes: ...

Ginger pigment molecules found in fossil frogs

Ginger pigment molecules found in fossil frogs
2023-10-06
UCC palaeontologists discover molecular evidence of phaeomelanin, the pigment that produces ginger colouration.  “This will paint a more accurate picture of ancient animal colour.”  Phaeomelanin is now toxic to animals – discovery may be first step in understand its evolution.  Palaeontologists at University College Cork (UCC) have found the first molecular evidence of phaeomelanin, the pigment that produces ginger colouration, in the fossil record.   The new study reports ...

Scientists discover ‘long colds’ may exist, as well as long Covid

2023-10-06
A new study from Queen Mary University of London, published in The Lancet’s EClinicalMedicine, has found that people may experience long-term symptoms —or ‘long colds’—after acute respiratory infections that test negative for COVID-19. Some of the most common symptoms of the ‘long cold’ included coughing, stomach pain, and diarrhea more than 4 weeks after the initial infection. While the severity of an illness appears to be a key driver of risk of long-term symptoms, ...

Our sense of smell changes the colors we see, show scientists

2023-10-06
Our five senses bombard us with environmental input 24/7. One way our brain makes sense of this abundance of information is by combining information from two or more senses, such as between smells and the smoothness of textures, pitch, color, and musical dimensions. This sensory integration also causes us to associate higher temperatures with warmer colors, lower sound pitches with less elevated positions, and colors with the flavor of particular foods – for example, the taste of oranges with the color of the same name. Now, a study in Frontiers in Psychology has shown experimentally that such unconscious 'crossmodal' ...

Super-efficient laser light-induced detection of cancer cell-derived nanoparticles

Super-efficient laser light-induced detection of cancer cell-derived nanoparticles
2023-10-06
Osaka, Japan - Can particles as minuscule as viruses be detected accurately within a mere 5 minutes? Osaka Metropolitan University scientists say yes, with their innovative method for ultrafast and ultrasensitive quantitative measurement of biological nanoparticles, opening doors for early diagnosis of a broad range of diseases. Nanoscale extracellular vesicles (EVs) including exosomes, with diameters of 50–150 nm, play essential roles in intercellular communication and have garnered attention as biomarkers for various diseases and drug delivery capsules. Consequently, the rapid and sensitive detection of nanoscale EVs from trace samples is ...

Fathers’ parental leave might protect men against alcohol-related morbidity

2023-10-06
Men who have been on parental leave have a significantly reduced risk of being hospitalized due to alcohol consumption. This is shown by a study published in Addiction from researchers at the Department of Public Health Sciences, Stockholm University. The aim of the study was to assess whether fathers’ parental leave influences alcohol-related morbidity and mortality. In order to try to find out if that is the case, the researchers have investigated the effects of parental leave policy that was implemented in Sweden in 1995. The policy encouraged fathers to use parental leave by reserving 30 days of leave for their use alone and resulted in the proportion ...

A 130g soft robot gripper lifts 100kg?

A 130g soft robot gripper lifts 100kg?
2023-10-06
Utilizing soft, flexible materials such as cloth, paper, and silicone, soft robotic grippers is an essential device that acts like a robot's hand to perform functions such as safely grasping and releasing objects. Unlike conventional rigid material grippers, they are more flexible and safe, and are being researched for household robots that handle fragile objects such as eggs, or for logistics robots that need to carry various types of objects. However, its low load capacity makes it difficult to lift heavy objects, and its poor grasping stability makes it easy to lose the object even under mild external impact. Dr. ...

USTC researchers revolutionize understanding of supermassive black hole accretion radiation in quasars

2023-10-06
Associate Professor CAI Zhenyi and Professor WANG Junxian from the Department of Astronomy at the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), through the study of the optical to extreme ultraviolet radiation generated by the accretion of supermassive black holes at the centers of quasars, have discovered that their spectral energy distribution is independent to the intrinsic brightness of quasars, overturning the traditional ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Reality check: making indoor smartphone-based augmented reality work

Overthinking what you said? It’s your ‘lizard brain’ talking to newer, advanced parts of your brain

Black men — including transit workers — are targets for aggression on public transportation, study shows

Troubling spike in severe pregnancy-related complications for all ages in Illinois

Alcohol use identified by UTHealth Houston researchers as most common predictor of escalated cannabis vaping among youths in Texas

Need a landing pad for helicopter parenting? Frame tasks as learning

New MUSC Hollings Cancer Center research shows how Golgi stress affects T-cells' tumor-fighting ability

#16to365: New resources for year-round activism to end gender-based violence and strengthen bodily autonomy for all

Earliest fish-trapping facility in Central America discovered in Maya lowlands

São Paulo to host School on Disordered Systems

New insights into sleep uncover key mechanisms related to cognitive function

USC announces strategic collaboration with Autobahn Labs to accelerate drug discovery

Detroit health professionals urge the community to act and address the dangers of antimicrobial resistance

3D-printing advance mitigates three defects simultaneously for failure-free metal parts 

Ancient hot water on Mars points to habitable past: Curtin study

In Patagonia, more snow could protect glaciers from melt — but only if we curb greenhouse gas emissions soon

Simplicity is key to understanding and achieving goals

Caste differentiation in ants

Nutrition that aligns with guidelines during pregnancy may be associated with better infant growth outcomes, NIH study finds

New technology points to unexpected uses for snoRNA

Racial and ethnic variation in survival in early-onset colorectal cancer

Disparities by race and urbanicity in online health care facility reviews

Exploring factors affecting workers' acquisition of exercise habits using machine learning approaches

Nano-patterned copper oxide sensor for ultra-low hydrogen detection

Maintaining bridge safer; Digital sensing-based monitoring system

A novel approach for the composition design of high-entropy fluorite oxides with low thermal conductivity

A groundbreaking new approach to treating chronic abdominal pain

ECOG-ACRIN appoints seven researchers to scientific committee leadership positions

New model of neuronal circuit provides insight on eye movement

Cooking up a breakthrough: Penn engineers refine lipid nanoparticles for better mRNA therapies

[Press-News.org] Faster growth of the placenta is linked to increased risk of preeclampsia