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Older Women More Likely To Have Twins
Doctor Outlines Pregnancy Risks For Older Women

UPDATED: 1:21 pm EDT September 30, 2005

WASHINGTON -- It's no secret that as women get older, they have a harder time getting pregnant.

But medical experts say it may not be as well known that older women are more likely to have twins than younger women, reported WRC-TV in Washington, D.C.

With more and more women over the age of 35 getting pregnant, women shouldn't be surprised if they end up seeing more sets of twins.

And it's not always due to the effects of fertility drugs -- but Mother Nature, doctors say.

Claudia Harvey has four boys, all under the age of 8.

She has her hands full, especially when it comes to her young twins, 3-year-old Jamie and Will. The twins came as a surprise for Harvey and her husband, who had been planning on a third child.

"I cried! I panicked! And I had no idea I was going to have twins, I didn't know it was a possibility," Harvey said, with a laugh.

Twins don't run in Harvey's family, and she didn't use fertility drugs. But at the age of 38, she was a likely candidate for a twin birth. According to medical experts, women in their mid-30s are more likely to have fraternal twins than younger women.

Dr. Richard Beckerman, a obstetrician and gynecologist in Potomac, Md., said there's no clear reason why older women are more likely to have twins. But one theory is that women in their mid-30s produce more eggs, increasing their chances for twins.

"These are not always the healthiest of eggs. However, again, this is, I think, one of the ways the body does try to increase the likelihood of women, as they get older, to conceive," Beckerman said.

According to the most recent figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the number of twins born in the United States jumped 38 percent between 1990 and 2002.
Distributed by Internet Broadcasting Systems, Inc. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Men's Tears May Attract Women
Researchers Study Pheromones In Tears

POSTED: 3:55 pm EDT October 6, 2005

Seeing a man cry may really be the key to a woman's heart.

A new study finds a protein released through tears in male mice attracted female mice. Researchers said that started a series of electrical responses in the female.

Researchers said tears may act as a pheromone, a chemical that can elicit a response from the opposite sex.

According to the study, contact with male tears activated many brain pathways in the female, which may result in the construction of information about sex in the brain.
Distributed by Internet Broadcasting Systems, Inc. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Japanese To Study Viability Of Cancer Vaccines

POSTED: 3:39 pm EDT October 5, 2005

FUKUOKA, Japan -- Pharmaceutical researchers in Japan will soon launch clinical trials for the world's first cancer treatment using vaccines tailor-made for each patient.

The Japanese government recently approved the trials that will involve using 14 types of vaccines made from peptides, which are proteins found on the surface of cancer cells.

Doctors will check a cancer patient's immune system through blood tests in order to choose the four vaccines most likely to be effective in enhancing the ability of the immune cells to attack the cancer cells.

The group said tests carried out in the research phase showed that one in five patients with malignant brain tumors had the number of cancer cells halved through the treatment.

The pharmaceutical company in Kurume City said it plans to conduct clinical tests on brain tumor patients starting next month.

They hope to apply for government approval for the vaccinations in five years to be make the treatments commercially available. Distributed by Internet Broadcasting Systems, Inc. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Climate Change and Human Health

In 1998, Hurricane Mitch dropped six feet of rain on Central America in three days. In its wake, the incidence of malaria, dengue fever, cholera, and leptospirosis soared. In 2000, rain and three cyclones inundated Mozambique for six weeks, and the incidence of malaria rose fivefold. In 2003, a summer heat wave in Europe killed tens of thousands of people, wilted crops, set forests ablaze, and melted 10 percent of the Alpine glacial mass.

This summer's blistering heat wave was unprecedented with regard to intensity, duration, and geographic extent. More than 200 U.S. cities registered new record high temperatures. In Phoenix, Arizona, sustained temperatures above 100°F (38°C) for 39 consecutive days, including a week above 110°F (43°C), took a harsh toll on the homeless. Then came Hurricane Katrina, gathering steam from the heated Gulf of Mexico and causing devastation in coastal communities

These sorts of extreme weather events reflect massive and ongoing changes in our climate to which biologic systems on all continents are reacting. So concluded the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,1 a collaboration of more than 2000 scientists from 100 countries. In 2001, the panel concluded that humans are playing a major role in causing these changes, largely through deforestation and the combustion of fossil fuels that produce heat-trapping gases such as carbon dioxide.

Since 2001, we've learned substantially more. The pace of atmospheric warming and the accumulation of carbon dioxide are quickening; polar and alpine ice is melting at rates not thought possible several years ago2; the deep ocean is heating up, and circumpolar winds are accelerating; and warming in the lower atmosphere is retarding the repair of the protective "ozone shield" in the stratosphere. Moreover, ice cores that are drilled in Greenland indicate that the climate can change abruptly. Given the current rate of carbon dioxide buildup and the projected degree of global warming, we are entering uncharted seas.