Historic Discovery Promises to Prevent Miscarriages and Birth Defects Globally | Hacker News Reader

Historic Discovery Promises to Prevent Miscarriages and Birth Defects Globally

victorchang.edu.au

1 pointfemto4 comments

From the article:

> Before vitamin B3 was introduced into the mother’s diet, embryos were either lost through miscarriage or the offspring were born with a range of severe birth defects. After the dietary change, both the miscarriages and birth defects were completely prevented, with all the offspring born perfectly healthy.

Sorry for breaking the "be civil" rule, but this is in-fucking-possible. There are many problems that can produce a miscarriage and birth defects, like a wrong number of chromosomes.

Is this published in a serious peer review journal?

I hope that something simple like this can prevent many problems (not all the problems), but this article looks overhyped and probably gives false hopes for the people with other problems.

The Science article:

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/08/vitamin-b3-could-help...

is less breathless, with the comment:

"Of course, more human studies are needed before doctors could recommend B3 supplements for pregnant women, says Matthew Vander Heiden, who studies the role of NAD in cancer biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. But the work opens a potentially exciting new area of research for developmental biologists: Trying to understand how cell metabolism affects development. Few people would have guessed that NAD deficiency causes birth defects, he says, “but it fits in with what we’ve been finding” about how NAD can influence cell growth."

I too was surprised by the breathless tone of the press release. The Victor Chang Institute is well respected in Australia, so here's hoping that there is reason for their effusing, even if it is over the top.

Edit: A further article with some more reasonable words from the lead researcher:

http://www.smh.com.au/national/health/breakthrough-discovery...

"Some 80 per cent of birth defects had no known cause. NAD levels could explain a significant proportion of these malformations, Professor Dunwoodie said."

The "complete" claim refers to the mouse population in their experiment and shouldn't be applied to all human births.

Further Edit: Source for Vander Heiden's comment: http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1707487

A largely independent analysis of the implications of the study, putting to rest some of the hype:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-10/what-the-news-about-b3...

A key quote: "most miscarriages are caused by chromosomal abnormalities, which cannot be modified by the use of supplements"

The paper: http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1616361

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