Pregnancy history may be tied to Alzheimer's disease
Seoul, July 22 : Women, take note. Your history of pregnancy may affect the risk of Alzheimer's disease decades later, a new study has found.
The study, published in journal Neurology, found that women who give birth to five or more children may be more likely to develop Alzheimer's disease than women who have fewer births.
"Estrogen levels double by the eighth week of pregnancy before climbing to up to 40 times the normal peak level," said co-author Ki Woong Kim frrom the Seoul National University.
"If these results are confirmed in other populations, it is possible that these findings could lead to the development of hormone-based preventive strategies for Alzheimer's disease based on the hormonal changes in the first trimester of pregnancy," Kim added.
For the study, the researchers combined the data from two independent population-based studies with a total of 3,549 women.
Women -- who were an average age of about 71 at the start of the study -- provided information on their reproductive history. They took the diagnostic examination after an average of 46 years from their first childbirth.
During that time, the participants took tests of their memory and thinking skills to see whether they had developed Alzheimer's disease or its precursor, mild cognitive impairment.
The study found that a total of 118 women developed Alzheimer's disease and 896 women developed mild cognitive impairment.
The researchers also found that women who had given birth to five or more children were 70 per cent more likely to develop Alzheimer's disease than women who gave birth to fewer children.
Women who had experienced an incomplete pregnancy were about half as likely to develop Alzheimer's disease as women who had never had an incomplete pregnancy.
Of the 2,375 women who had an incomplete pregnancy, 47 developed Alzheimer's disease, compared to 71 of the 1,174 women who never had an incomplete pregnancy, they added.
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US VP JD Vance says Lebanon not part of ceasefire, calls it ‘misunderstanding’
Budapest/Washington: US Vice President J D Vance has said that Lebanon was never included in the ceasefire understanding with Iran, describing the confusion as a “legitimate misunderstanding”.
Speaking to reporters before departing from Hungary, Vance said, “I think the Iranians thought that the ceasefire included Lebanon and it just didn’t. We never made that promise.”
He stressed that the United States had not included Lebanon in the scope of the ceasefire at any stage.
His remarks come amid continued Israeli strikes in Lebanon, where more than 200 people were reported killed, even as ceasefire talks between Iran and the US move forward.
Vance said Israel had “offered … to check themselves a little bit in Lebanon because they want to make sure that our negotiation is successful”.
He warned that if Iran allows the situation in Lebanon to affect the negotiations, it could derail the talks.
“If Iran wants to let this negotiation fall apart in a conflict where they were getting hammered over Lebanon, which has nothing to do with them and which the United States never once said was part of the ceasefire, that’s ultimately their choice,” he said.
