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Victoria
http://www.obgynlinx.com/thearts.cfm?artid=307612&specid=5
Oral Diabetes Drug Shows Promise in Preventing Miscarriage in Common Infertility
Disorder
The anti-diabetes drug metformin appears to reduce the likelihood of early
miscarriage in women with a common form of female infertility, according to a
study funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
(NICHD). The study appears in the February issue of the Journal of Clinical
Endocrinology and Metabolism.
In the current study, Dr. Nestler and his coworkers evaluated a group of women
under the care of Venezuelan endocrinologist Daniela J. Jakubowicz. Dr.
Nestler's group had earlier learned that it was Dr. Jakubowicz's practice to
prescribe metformin during the pregnancies of patients under treatment for PCOS.
After analyzing records of patients treated by Dr. Jakubowicz, Dr. Nestler and
his coworkers found that of the 68 pregnancies that were treated with metformin,
6 pregnancies (8.8 percent) ended in miscarriage. By comparison, of the 31
pregnancies in the group that did not receive metformin, 13 pregnancies (41.9
percent) ended in miscarriage.
Only one child born in the metformin group had a birth defect. This child, a
boy, had achondrodysplasia, a genetic disorder in which the limbs fail to keep
pace with the growth of the body. More studies would need to be conducted to
confirm the current study's results and assess the drug's safety for use during
pregnancy.
The study results do not mean that physicians should begin treating PCOS
patients with metformin during their pregnancies, said the project officer for
NICHD's Specialized Cooperative Centers in Reproduction Research, Dr. Louis
DePaolo. Although metformin has not been shown to cause any problems during
pregnancy in animal studies, its use throughout pregnancy has not been
rigorously studied in human beings.
http://humrep.oupjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/17/3/647
Human Reproduction, Vol. 17, No. 3, 647-653, March 2002
Š 2002 European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology
A pilot study of the long-term effects of acipimox in polycystic ovarian
syndrome
M. Ciampelli1, F. Leoni1, F. Lattanzi1, M. Guido1, R. Apa1 and A. Lanzone2,3
1 Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Universitā Cattolica del Sacro Cuore,
L.go A. Gemelli 8, Roma, 00168 and
2 OASI Institute For Research, Troina (EN), Italy
BACKGROUND: To evaluate the effects of long-term acipimox administration on
glucose-induced insulin secretion and peripheral insulin sensitivity in
polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), 20 PCOS subjects (eight lean and 12 obese)
and 14 body mass index-matched controls (seven lean and seven obese) were
investigated. CONCLUSIONS: Acipimox does not appear to be an effective
insulin-lowering drug in PCOS, even if it can be used in obese women with PCOS
as an additional therapeutic agent to ameliorate the atherogenic lipid profile
of the syndrome.
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