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In vitro fertilization (IVF) is less likely be successful if the mother’s eggs have been frozen and stored, researchers report in the journal Fertility and Sterility. For the last two decades, women with certain cancers and other diseases save some of their eggs before receiving toxic therapies that could shut down their ovaries for good. Now researchers from Cornell University reports the likelihood of a normal egg yielding a healthy child through IVF is 6.6 per cent. With frozen eggs, the rate drops to 3.4 per cent.

0 to 10

Attempt to prevent asthma in kids at risk, fails

Efforts to avoid exposure to house dust mites along with dietary changes in the first few years of life do not prevent asthma in children with a family history of the condition. Sensitization to house dust mites, and consumption of diets with low amounts of Omega-3 fatty acid (such as found in fish oils) relative to Omega-6 fatty acid have been linked to asthma. The study—done by experts from the Woolcock Institute of Medical Research in New South Wales, and reported in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology—involved 616 children.

10 to 20

Laser treatment useful for severe facial acne

Laser treatment can reduce inflammatory facial acne lesions with few side effects, and it appears to work even with the darkest skin types. The findings, which appear in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, are based on a study of 22 patients, with light to dark skin types, who underwent three treatments with the laser. It was found that average acne lesion counts were reduced by about 75 per cent and 70 per cent with the low and high dose treatment.

20 to 40

Obesity weighs more heavily on women than men

Being overweight puts a greater burden on women’s health than men’s, reports a new study in the American Journal of Public Health. “There’s just a lot more social stigma associated with being overweight among females,and that that causes a lot more stress and distress,” said lead researcher Peter Meunnig from Columbia University. “There’s evidence showing that high levels of stress can increase your risk of morbidity and mortality… The message that women are getting in the mass media about their weight is actually more harmful than we previously thought.”

40 to 60

Early Type 2 diabetes ups death risk in middle age

People who develop Type 2 diabetes before they are 20, have higher rates of end-stage renal disease, and higher mortality rates when they reach middle age compared to those who develop diabetes later in life. Type 2 diabetes has been increasing among children and adolescents in large part because of rising rates of obesity, said the report in Journal of the American Medical Association.

60 and above

Alternative menopause therapies lack proof

While an array of alternative therapies promise to ease menopausal symptoms, none has strong enough evidence to back it up, according to a research by the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland. Individual studies have suggested that some of these therapies—particularly soy supplements and the herb black cohosh—are effective for symptoms like hot flashes and night sweats. But the overall evidence has been mixed, said the report in Archives of Internal Medicine.