phytochemistry

I’ve been preoccupied with finishing up the very last of my coursework.. so I haven’t been blogging for a while, despite all the interesting articles I’ve come across, not to mention the running list of reproduction-related topics that I’ve been wanting to research and communicate on, in this form. Now the semester is over and I’m sitting in Philadelphia waiting for my sister, and only sibling, to go into labor for the first time. In other words, I will be a first-time aunt! I’ll be the doula of course. Stay tuned for blog entries about the imminent experience..

In other news, a friend forwarded me some information a month or so ago about a really interesting situation in southwestern Nigeria. In the town of Igbo-Ora, population 60,000, a local elder asserts that there is hardly a family without a set of twins or triplets. Some parents in the town even have several sets of twins! According to population experts, Nigeria as a country has one of the highest rates of multiple births, but this particular part of the country seems to be particularly populated with high numbers of multiples.

No one seems to really be quite sure why this is. Some have suggested that it is perhaps a genetic predisposition that accounts for this strange phenomenon. Most interestingly, is the diet-related hypothesis. The Igbo-Ora population consumes a local yam, called agida (Dioscorea, I imagine) in high quantities, utilizing it as a staple food. Yams contain compounds which mimic human estrogens. This was demonstrated for the first time this year by Cheng et al., who found estrogenic activity in all 7 species/varieties of Dioscorea they screened.

It’s interesting to review and compile all these different articles related to the effects of estrogen or lack of estrogen on the human body. It is related to my doctoral work and helps me to have a greater understanding of hormonal regulation of various physiological functions. For instance, one example currently very relevant is my sister’s pregnancy. She has experienced fertility issues for the last several years. In the spring, after I had been reading extensively on female hormones and health for months to prepare for writing grant proposals and beginning my research, I noticed that she had been displaying signs of estrogen deficiency. I suggested that she begin taking a mixed phytoestrogen supplement, and a month later she was pregnant! Now 9 months later, here we are this moment trying to determine if her contractions are indicative of the onset of true labor or if bebe needs a few more days before she’s ready.

Image credit: AFP

Estrogenic yam study reference: Cheng, Wei-Yi, Yueh-Hsiung Kuo and Ching-Jang Huang. 2007. Isolation and Identification of Novel Estrogenic Compounds in Yam Tuber (Dioscorea alata Cv. Tainung No. 2). J. Agric. Food Chem. 55: 7350-7358.

Capsaicin, the compound found in chiles that makes them “hot,” as in picante, has been shown to have the ability to facilitate pain relief without affecting movement and touch as most anesthetics do. This could mean that mothers-to-be in labor could maintain the ability to move around during labor, know when to push and feel themselves giving birth, without the pain. Epidurals today do not allow this. The drugs used in epidurals today affect total nerve function, including those that send signals to the brain about the other non-painful sensations a person is feeling, as well as the nerves that send signals from the brain telling muscles how and when to move. Capsaicin has the ability to open channels selectively so that pain-killers given in conjunction will only enter the desired nerve cells.

The article from BBC NEWS explains how the Harvard research group used a compound which interferes with nerve signals just as conventional anesthetics do, but is actually too large to enter any nerve cell on its own. Capsaicin, however, has the unique capability of opening large enough channels in the cell wall for the large anesthetic compound to enter the cell. Channels are only selectively opened in the cell walls of pain receptor nerve cells, therefore no longer causing loss of sensation and paralysis in addition to killing pain.

Having the ability to walk, move and stand makes labor progress more quickly due to the helpful effects of gravity. But the implications of this go beyond speeding labor. Having an epidural as we know them today can often lead to what birth professionals call the “cascade of interventions,” where the administration of anesthesia (or some other medical labor or birth intervention) triggers a snowballing effect necessitating more and more interventions. Consider this scenario in which a laboring mother receives an epidural, is numb from the waist down so labor slows because she is not able to walk, move or change positions. Mom cannot feel when to push, so after trying pitocin to speed contractions unnaturally, the baby then has to be removed by forceps then requiring an episiotomy.

Here is a really nice diagram I found on the Birth International site. It nicely illustrates some of the trajectories that the cascade of interventions can follow. This one starts not with the epidural, but with induction which is often the case in these cascades. Induction is the act of artificially starting labor through the administration of pitocin (synthetic oxytocin) or other drugs. In terms of this diagram.. I think the use of capsaicin in conjunction with an anesthetic that cannot penetrate cell walls on its own, has the potential to route the cascade away from so many Caesareans and forceps/vacuum extraction methods, and the subsequent interventions.