November 28, 2006

• Maturity…who needs it?

  Let me begin by saying that I have absolutely no idea what the phrase
  “grasping at straws” means, other than that as far as I know, it is
  used in a literary to denote when someone is attempting to do something
  but is stuck in a futile cycle and cannot actually make any progress. I
  mean, was someone just sitting around one day, reaching for straws at a
  restaurant and not getting any, only to lower his head in shame and
  ponder on the great mystery of grasping for a straw? Who comes up with
  this? I have no idea

  Anyway, in the usual vein (or at least what used to be usual) of my study break postings, i decided i would bring back one of everyone’s my favorite features, wacky porn! But in the spirit of science, it is medical wacky porn

  The involvement of immune mechanisms in
  the aetiology of preeclampsia is often suggested. Normal pregnancy is
  thought to be associated with a state of tolerance to the foreign
  antigens of the fetus, whereas in preeclamptic women this immunological
  tolerance might be hampered. The present study shows that oral sex and swallowing sperm is correlated with a diminished occurrence of preeclampsia which fits in the existing idea that a paternal factor is involved in the occurrence of preeclampsia. Because
  pregnancy has many similarities with transplantation, we hypothesize
  that induction of allogeneic tolerance to the paternal HLA molecules of
  the fetus may be crucial. Recent data suggest that exposure, and
  especially oral exposure to soluble HLA (sHLA) or HLA derived peptides
  can lead to transplantation tolerance. Similarly, sHLA antigens, that
  are present in the seminal plasma, might cause tolerance in the mother
  to paternal antigens. In order to test whether this indeed may be the
  case, we investigated whether sHLA antigens are present in seminal
  plasma. Using a specific ELISA we detected sHLA class I molecules in
  seminal plasma. The level varied between individuals and was related to
  the level in plasma. Further studies showed that these sHLA class I
  molecules included classical HLA class I alleles, such as sHLA-A2, -B7,
  -B51, -B35 and sHLA-A9. Preliminary data show lower levels of sHLA in
  seminal plasma in the preeclampsia group, although not significantly
  different from the control group. An extension of the present study is
  necessary to verify this hypothesis.

  So there you have it, ladies. Thousands of years of male pressure have really been just an attempt to protect your heart. Yes, i really did waste 10 minutes looking this up on pubmed to avoid studying for boards.

  • 11:33 pm
  • 3 Comments