Friday, June 30, 2006
Some soaps may give boys breasts
Some soaps may give boys breasts--pass it on.
Thursday, June 29, 2006 Personal-care products containing tea tree oils and lavender appear to cause abnormal breast development in pre-pubescent boys, a new study found.
The ingredients, which have an oestrogen-like effect, are found in various shampoos, lotions, soaps and other products.
Advertisement "There's definitely an association between exposure to lavender oil and tea tree oil and gynecomastia [abnormally large breasts in men]," said Derek Henley, lead author of the research and a postdoctoral fellow at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina.
Cause-and-effect not provenHenley stopped short of declaring a cause-and-effect relationship, but did emphasise that the information could help physicians identify cases of gynecomastia that have no readily apparent cause.
"It may help steer physicians in a direction they wouldn't have thought of," Henley said. "The message is to raise awareness, so the public is aware of the association, and physicians are aware of it," he said.Dr Edward Reiter, chairman of paediatrics at Bay State Children's Hospital in Springfield, Massachusetts, added, "The issue is a Sherlock Holmes kind of thing. This was a pretty good pick-up. It's old-fashioned science sleuthing. You have a problem, and you figure out what's going on."
Henley presented the findings at the just-completed annual meeting of the Endocrine Society, in Boston. Reiter was moderator of a press conference announcing the findings.
No resistance to extra oestrogenGynecomastia is associated with an imbalance of oestrogens (so-called female hormones) and androgens (so-called male hormones). Young boys don't produce much testosterone, so there is nothing in the body to counteract extra oestrogen, such as might come from mistakenly taking a mother's birth control pill or, more concerning, an oestrogen-secreting tumour.
The condition is unusual. "I may see a patient every year or every other year with this, a pre-pubertal boy who has some breast development," Reiter said. "Usually, it's a tiny amount, and you never find out what it is, then it goes away," he explained.
But when Dr Clifford Bloch, co-author of the study and a paediatric endocrinologist in Denver, saw five boys with the problem, he decided to investigate. All of the boys, he soon realized, had used over-the-counter health-care products containing lavender and/or tea tree oil on their hair or skin.
Mimics oestrogen activityWhen tested on human breast cancer cells, the oils appeared to mimic the activity of oestrogen and also suppressed male hormone responsiveness. After discontinuing use of the lavender and tea tree oils, all of the boys saw the problem resolved.
And even though the condition is relatively uncommon, experts think this information will help clear other "mystery" cases.
"My guess is that this sort of thing occurs in a scattered way in little boys all the time," Reiter said. "It may well be that someone wouldn't even think of this. Now, doctors can ask if the patient is using any products," he said. - (HealthDayNews)
Read more: Child Centre June 2006
Thursday, June 29, 2006 Personal-care products containing tea tree oils and lavender appear to cause abnormal breast development in pre-pubescent boys, a new study found.
The ingredients, which have an oestrogen-like effect, are found in various shampoos, lotions, soaps and other products.
Advertisement "There's definitely an association between exposure to lavender oil and tea tree oil and gynecomastia [abnormally large breasts in men]," said Derek Henley, lead author of the research and a postdoctoral fellow at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina.
Cause-and-effect not provenHenley stopped short of declaring a cause-and-effect relationship, but did emphasise that the information could help physicians identify cases of gynecomastia that have no readily apparent cause.
"It may help steer physicians in a direction they wouldn't have thought of," Henley said. "The message is to raise awareness, so the public is aware of the association, and physicians are aware of it," he said.Dr Edward Reiter, chairman of paediatrics at Bay State Children's Hospital in Springfield, Massachusetts, added, "The issue is a Sherlock Holmes kind of thing. This was a pretty good pick-up. It's old-fashioned science sleuthing. You have a problem, and you figure out what's going on."
Henley presented the findings at the just-completed annual meeting of the Endocrine Society, in Boston. Reiter was moderator of a press conference announcing the findings.
No resistance to extra oestrogenGynecomastia is associated with an imbalance of oestrogens (so-called female hormones) and androgens (so-called male hormones). Young boys don't produce much testosterone, so there is nothing in the body to counteract extra oestrogen, such as might come from mistakenly taking a mother's birth control pill or, more concerning, an oestrogen-secreting tumour.
The condition is unusual. "I may see a patient every year or every other year with this, a pre-pubertal boy who has some breast development," Reiter said. "Usually, it's a tiny amount, and you never find out what it is, then it goes away," he explained.
But when Dr Clifford Bloch, co-author of the study and a paediatric endocrinologist in Denver, saw five boys with the problem, he decided to investigate. All of the boys, he soon realized, had used over-the-counter health-care products containing lavender and/or tea tree oil on their hair or skin.
Mimics oestrogen activityWhen tested on human breast cancer cells, the oils appeared to mimic the activity of oestrogen and also suppressed male hormone responsiveness. After discontinuing use of the lavender and tea tree oils, all of the boys saw the problem resolved.
And even though the condition is relatively uncommon, experts think this information will help clear other "mystery" cases.
"My guess is that this sort of thing occurs in a scattered way in little boys all the time," Reiter said. "It may well be that someone wouldn't even think of this. Now, doctors can ask if the patient is using any products," he said. - (HealthDayNews)
Read more: Child Centre June 2006
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Monday, June 26, 2006
Difference between couplehood and babyhood
"People often ask me, "What's the difference between couplehood and babyhood?" In a word? Moisture. Everything in my life is now more moist. Between your spittle, your diapers, your spit-up and drool, you got your baby food, your wipes, your formula, your leaky bottles, sweaty baby backs, and numerous other untraceable sources--all creating an ever-present moistness in my life, which heretofore was mainly dry." -- Paul Reiser, Babyhood
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Vincent's first friends
The gang's all here.
(Sorry for the low quality photo.)
babies: Lindsy, Anianna, Elsbeth, Helen, Vincent, Alan, Caleb, Sam
missing from photo: another Sam and Tobias
Vince and I hang out with these mommies and babies every Wednesday to talk about our trials and tribulations as new moms, a safe place for crying babies, hungry babies and silly worries.
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
Saturday, June 17, 2006
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
Weak
I just noticed all the advertiser posts in the comments section. That's so weak. Get a life.
Vincent is disgusted.
Sunday, June 11, 2006
Why are babies cute? For those who need a technical answer (like me) ....
"We are inherently attracted to a specific set of characteristics, including large, symmetrical heads, large eyes, small mouths and small noses," according to Jeffrey Kurland, associate professor of biological anthropology and human development. But why do almost all humans find this particular set of features so appealing?
Kurland said the answer lies in evolution. According to Darwin, individuals of a given species will exhibit a new trait if that trait provides a survival advantage, boosting an organism's chances of living to see sexual maturity and successfully reproduce. But what does evolutionary fitness have to do with being cute?
One of two basic processes may be at work, Kurland suggested. In the first, a distant female ancestor was born with a slightly different makeup than her forebears, perhaps the result of some random genetic mutation. This change in her genes caused her to prefer babies with the features we see as cute. She passed on this preference to future generations, and thereafter infants with "cuteness" attracted more attention and received more care than their less-cute compatriots. The cuties therefore were more likely to survive and reproduce, and their offspring inherited both their "cuteness" trait and their preference for cuteness. "Because the two traits became linked in this way, they both increased in the population," said Kurland.
The second evolutionary possibility is much like the first, except that here cuteness runs more than skin deep. In this scenario, too, Kurland explained, a fore-mother was born with an arbitrary preference for "cute" babies -- to her they just look better. And again, she gives more attention and care to her "cute" babies, who survive in greater numbers to pass on both their own cuteness genes and the genes for her preference, and this genetic combination gradually increases in the population.
In this case, however, the babies do not merely look better -- they are better, from an evolutionary standpoint. According to Kurland, infants who displayed cute features actually may have been healthier, and as adults more sexually attractive. They would have been more likely to survive and reproduce. Cuteness, in this case, is an indicator of good genes.
Again, the mother's preference trait and the infant's cuteness trait reinforce each other. Over many generations, mothers keep selecting cuter, and in turn strengthening their preferences.
In both cases, Kurland stressed, cuteness and the preference for cuteness are passed on not just through female offspring, but through males as well. Fathers, uncles and big brothers -- as well as aunts and grandmas and family friends -- will prefer infants who are as cute as they themselves were. "The two traits spread through the entire population."
At some point in the distant past, it would seem, babies were not all cute. Their particular physical characteristics attracted no special attention. But once the "cuteness" preference took hold in the genes, babies had no choice but to become cuter over the generations. In effect, they had to wage a kind of cuteness war to get attention -- and to this day people seemingly are helpless against the onslaught.
Source: By Tom Fitzgerald, Research/Penn State
Saturday, June 10, 2006
Thursday, June 08, 2006
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
Vince on Vacation
romantic walk on the beach
brunch with the girls
hanging out in a diaper
lounging with aunt
Thursday, June 01, 2006
Spice and Rice, Jason and Jen
Our DC visitors are doing a study on parenting. Hypothesis, they would like a Vincent sometime in the next 40 years. 
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