Posts Tagged ‘progesterone’

Emory University researchers have disclosed that administration of progesterone to victims with Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) shortly after the injury can reduce the chances of death and degree of disability to a considerable extent.

The research was published in the Annals of Emergency Medicine.

From News-medical.net:

As the results were so impressive, the research team felt it was time to take the treatment to the bedside for testing in patients who had suffered a serious brain injury.

It is estimated that 1.5 to 2 million people in the U.S. sustain a TBI each year, leading to 50,000 deaths and 80,000 new cases of long-term disability.

It is also a major cause of death and disability among children and military personnel.

Despite the enormity of the problem, scientists have failed to identify effective medications to improve outcomes following a TBI and no new medical therapies have been developed for traumatic brain injuries in over 30 years.

Although it is classed as a “sex steroid,” progesterone is also a neurosteroid that exerts protective effects on human tissue.

It is naturally present in small but measurable amounts in the brains of males and females.

It was revealed by the researchers that progesterone treatment for TBI has been extensively studied in laboratory animals for more than fifteen years and was found to be effective.

Providing progesterone to patients treated for traumatic brain injuries (TBI), shortly after the injury, can reduce the risk of death and degree of disability, as per researchers from the Emory University.

The study revealed that treatment involving progesterone for brain injuries is safe and extensively studied on animals for more than 15 years.

From News-medical.net:

As the results were so impressive, the research team felt it was time to take the treatment to the bedside for testing in patients who had suffered a serious brain injury.

It is estimated that 1.5 to 2 million people in the U.S. sustain a TBI each year, leading to 50,000 deaths and 80,000 new cases of long-term disability.

It is also a major cause of death and disability among children and military personnel.

Despite the enormity of the problem, scientists have failed to identify effective medications to improve outcomes following a TBI and no new medical therapies have been developed for traumatic brain injuries in over 30 years.

Although it is classed as a “sex steroid,” progesterone is also a neurosteroid that exerts protective effects on human tissue.

It is naturally present in small but measurable amounts in the brains of males and females.

The research was published in the Annals of Emergency Medicine.

Two abstracts summarizing Emory research on the hormone were presented direction at the 2009 Society for Neuroscience (SFN) meeting in Chicago to examine whether the idea of testing progesterone to optimize efficacy of the hormone for treating patients suffering from traumatic brain injury is worth an effort. The trial was developed by Donald Stein, PhD, Asa G. Candler Professor of Emergency Medicine at Emory School of Medicine.

A multisite phase III clinical trial called ProTECT III would be started in the near future to examine the hormone efficacy.

From Sciencedaily.com:

One of the SFN abstracts reports on progesterone analogues that are more water-soluble. This work comes from Stein and his colleagues in collaboration with the laboratory of Dennis Liotta, PhD, Emory professor of chemistry.

Currently, the lack of water solubility limits delivery of progesterone, in that the hormone must be prepared hours ahead and cannot be kept at room temperature. Small chemical modifications may allow similar compounds with the same effects as progesterone to be given to patients closer to the time of injury.

According to the results, two compounds similar to progesterone showed an equivalent ability to reduce brain swelling in an animal model of traumatic brain injury.

The second abstract describes evidence that adding vitamin D to progesterone enhances the hormone’s effectiveness when applied to neurons under stress in the laboratory. Like progesterone, vitamin D is a steroid hormone that is inexpensive, has good safety properties and acts on many different biochemical pathways.

It was noted by the authors that even low amounts of vitamin D can boost progesterone’s ability of guarding that is a principal cause of brain injury and cell death.

According to two abstracts highlighting Emory research on the hormone were presented at the 2009 Society for Neuroscience (SFN) meeting in Chicago, Progesterone can be highly effective for treating patients suffering from traumatic brain injury and is therefore tested for optimization.

This trial was developed by Donald Stein, PhD, Asa G. Candler Professor of Emergency Medicine at Emory School of Medicine.

From Sciencedaily.com:

One of the SFN abstracts reports on progesterone analogues that are more water-soluble. This work comes from Stein and his colleagues in collaboration with the laboratory of Dennis Liotta, PhD, Emory professor of chemistry.

Currently, the lack of water solubility limits delivery of progesterone, in that the hormone must be prepared hours ahead and cannot be kept at room temperature. Small chemical modifications may allow similar compounds with the same effects as progesterone to be given to patients closer to the time of injury.

According to the results, two compounds similar to progesterone showed an equivalent ability to reduce brain swelling in an animal model of traumatic brain injury.

The second abstract describes evidence that adding vitamin D to progesterone enhances the hormone’s effectiveness when applied to neurons under stress in the laboratory. Like progesterone, vitamin D is a steroid hormone that is inexpensive, has good safety properties and acts on many different biochemical pathways.

It was noted by the authors that a small amount of Vitamin D may improve the ability of progesterone to guard neurons from excito-toxicity, biggest cause of brain injury and cell death.

According to a new research, women who eat large beef quantities in the pregnancy stage are at a higher risk of having sons with poor sperm quality when adults.

Professor Shanna Swan, the lead author of the study that is published online in Human Reproduction journal, said that the finding suggests that maternal beef consumption is associated with lower sperm concentration and possible sub-fertility, which could be influenced by the presence of anabolic steroids and other xenobiotics in beef.

From News-Medical.Net:

Growth promoters for cattle, such as the synthetic hormone diethylstilbestrol (DES), have been used in the USA since 1954. Although DES was banned for use in cattle in 1979, other hormones such as oestradiol, testosterone, progesterone, zeranol, trenbolone acetate and melengestrol continue to be used. Residues of these chemicals remain in the meat after slaughter and so, in the USA, the FDA has regulated their use to avoid unintended adverse effects in humans eating the meat and defined an “acceptable daily intake”. The International Joint Food and Agricultural Organization’s World Health Organization Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) has also published ADIs. In Europe, the use of these hormones has been banned since 1988.

“These ADIs are based on traditional toxicological testing, and the possible effects on human populations exposed to residues of anabolic sex hormones through meat consumption have never, to our knowledge, been studied. Theoretically, the foetus and young children are particularly sensitive to exposure to sex steroids. Therefore, the consumption of residues of steroids in meat by pregnant women and young children is of particular concern,” said Prof Swan, who is director of the Center for Reproductive Epidemiology, associate chair for research and professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry.

The reported intriguing relationship is expected to stimulate future research to examine the link between maternal beef consumption during pregnancy stage and sperm concentration in the male offspring.