IUDs and hormonal implants have become ‘five times as popular’ over past decade

A new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report finds a shift in preferences for birth control among American women, who are increasingly opting for long-lasting reversible contraceptives.Long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARCs) include intrauterine devices (IUDs) and subdermal hormonal implants. Although IUDs were used more commonly in the US during the 1970s, concerns over their safety prompted a decline in use of these devices.Since then, however, IUDs have been redesigned with safety in mind, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report shows that there has been growing interest in IUDs and 5-year contraceptive implants – which were approved in 1990 – because these contraceptive methods are highly effective at preventing unintended pregnancies.IUDs are placed inside the uterus, where they release hormones or copper to prevent pregnancies. The CDC say that the failure rate for IUDs is below 1%, making them more effective than the birth control pill, which – partly due to users sometimes forgetting to take the pill – has a failure rate of about 9%.

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New pathway for stalling BRCA tumor growth revealed

Findings could lead to new therapies for breast, ovarian, and other cancers

Inhibiting the action of a particular enzyme dramatically slows the growth of tumor cells tied to BRCA1 and BRCA2 genetic mutations which, in turn, are closely tied to breast and ovarian cancers, according to researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center.Senior investigator and NYU Langone cell biologist Agnel Sfeir, PhD, says that if further experiments prove successful, these findings could lead to a new class of targeted therapies against cancers with BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations. The researchers’ findings in experiments in mice and human cells are described in the journal Nature online.Dr. Sfeir and her collaborators say their discovery about the enzyme — called polymerase theta, or PolQ — resulted from efforts to answer a fundamental biological question: How do cells prevent the telomere ends of linear chromosomes, which house our genetic material, from sticking together? Cell DNA repair mechanisms can stitch together telomeres broken as part of cell metabolism. But such fusions, the researchers say, compromise normal cell growth and survival.

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