We used mice with targeted deletion of 25-hydroxyvitamin D 1α-hydroxylase [1α(OH)ase(-/-)] to investigate the effects of calcium and phosphorus on defects in the reproductive system of 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D [1,25(OH)(2)D]-deficient female mice. The 1α(OH)ase(-/-) mice and their wild-type littermates were fed either a normal diet or a rescue diet (high calcium, phosphate, and lactose) starting...

Facing a cancer diagnosis at any age is devastating. However, young cancer patients have the added burden that life-preserving cancer treatments, including surgery, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy, may compromise their future fertility. The possibility of reproductive dysfunction as a consequence of cancer treatment has a negative impact on the quality of life of cancer survivors. The field of o...

The role of energy imbalance versus psychosocial stress in the pathogenesis of female reproductive dysfunction characterized by anovulation and amenorrhea remains controversial. In women, functional hypothalamic amenorrhea can develop in the absence of significant weight loss, excessive exercise, or profound psychosocial disruption. We posited, therefore, that commonplace, seemingly minor stres...

OBJECTIVE Comparative assessment of the mortality rates of two septic patients' ages and/or gender subgroups, admitted to the intensive care unit of a university hospital. METHODS From December 2005 to April 2008, from a total of 628 patients, 133 were admitted to the intensive care unit with sepsis and included into two age subgroups: (G1) 14 - 40 years old and (G2) more than 50 years old. P...

Interest in human sexuality began in the 18th century, but formal and more rigorous studies focused on sexual satisfaction and sexual practices were published in the early 1900s. Alfred Kinsey's pioneering work on sexuality, in which he surveyed over 10,000 men and women age 16 and older, began in the late 1930s. In the mid-1960s, Masters and Johnson published their seminal work characterizing ...

Understanding of the development of the reproductive organs is essential to the evaluation of abnormalities in sexual differentiation. Recent advances resulting from application of genetic, biochemical, and ultrastructural techniques have helped to clarify the mechanisms regulating gonadal and reproductive tract development. The present review considers the major processes of sexual differentia...

Postmating, prezygotic phenotypes are a common mechanism of reproductive isolation. Here, we describe the dynamics of a noncompetitive gametic isolation phenotype (namely, the ability of a male to induce a female to lay eggs) in a group of recently diverged crickets that are primarily isolated from each other by this phenotype. We not only show that heterospecific males are less able to induce ...

Women's health is an area that is gaining increasing attention with the realization that men's and women's bodies don't just look different-they also react differently to environmental agents. Barbara J. Davis, head of the Female Reproductive Pathology Group and now acting chief of the newly created Laboratory of Women's Health, is leading women's health studies at the NIEHS. Over the course of...

HE process of transformation of races into species is in general slow. The T only approach to its study is through examination of its successive stages represented on our time level in different species and species groups. Nor is the process uniform in all organisms. Even though the essential feature of speciation in sexual cross-fertilizing forms is the development of reproductive isolation be...