Unintelligent Design - Why Some Women Experience Morning Sickness during Pregnancy.

As many as seven in ten pregnancies are affected by nausea and vomiting.
1-3% are severe enough to require hospital treatment

Why seven in ten women experience pregnancy sickness

'Morning sickness, which is common in the earlier stages of pregnancy, and which, in its more severe form, hyperemesis gravidarum, can be seriously debilitating and may even require admission to hospital and iv fluids to prevent life-threatening dehydration, is now known to be caused by a protein hormone, known as GDF15, produced by the foetal part of the placenta.

This discovery, published yesterday in Nature, by a team from Cambridge University, UK, led by Professor Sir Stephen O’Rahilly, and including researchers in Scotland, the USA and Sri Lanka, points to a potential way to prevent pregnancy sickness by exposing mothers to GDF15 ahead of pregnancy to build up their resilience.

It had previously been suggested that GDF15 might be acting on the mother's brain to make her feel nauseous. This has now been confirmed and found to be dependent on two factors:

1. How much of the hormone is being produced.
2. How sensitive to it the mother's brain is.

GDF15 is produced in low levels by all tissues outside of pregnancy and the mother's sensitivity to the hormone is related to how much of it she has been exposed to prior to becoming pregnant.
The team arrived at this conclusion after obtaining data from women recruited to a number of studies, including at the Rosie Maternity Hospital, part of Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Peterborough City Hospital, North West Anglia NHS Foundation Trust. They used a combination of approaches including human genetics, new ways of measuring hormones in pregnant women’s blood, and studies in cells and mice.

The team found that a rare genetic variant that puts women at a much greater risk of hyperemesis gravidarum was associated with lower levels of the hormone in the blood and tissues outside of pregnancy. Similarly, women with the inherited blood disorder beta thalassemia, which causes them to have naturally very high levels of GDF15 prior to pregnancy, experience little or no nausea or vomiting.

Most women who become pregnant will experience nausea and sickness at some point, and while this is not pleasant, for some women it can be much worse – they’ll become so sick they require treatment and even hospitalisation. We now know why.

The baby growing in the womb is producing a hormone at levels the mother is not used to. The more sensitive she is to this hormone, the sicker she will become.

Knowing this gives us a clue as to how we might prevent this from happening. It also makes us more confident that preventing GDF15 from accessing its highly specific receptor in the mother’s brain will ultimately form the basis for an effective and safe way of treating this disorder.

Professor Sir Stephen O’Rahilly, co-senior author.
Co-Director of the Institute of Metabolic Science
and Director of the Medical Research Council Metabolic Diseases Unit
University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

When I was pregnant, I became so ill that I could barely move without being sick. When I tried to find out why, I realised how little was known about my condition, despite pregnancy nausea being very common.

Hopefully, now that we understand the cause of hyperemesis gravidarum, we’re a step closer to developing effective treatments to stop other mothers going through what I and many other women have experienced.

Dr Marlena Fejzo, co-senior author
Center for Genetic Epidemiology
Department of Population and Public Health Sciences
Keck School of Medicine
University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

The problem for creationists here is to explain why their putative designer god designed a protein which is normally very mild but rarely, can kill the mother and child and at the very least makes pregnancy a misery for a large number of women.

Their problem is compounded by the fact that, in this case, they can't blame it all on 'Sin' and let their little pet good off the hook, because the culprit, GDF15, has several important functions unrelated to pregnancy, so the side effects such as morning sickness and hyperemesis gravidarum appear to be an unforeseen consequence of it. No intelligent [sic] designer worthy of the name, especially a reputedly omniscient, omnipotent one, would design a protein hormone with unforeseen consequences, so we have to assume either it knew what it would do and didn't care, or it knew what it would do and designed it for that purpose. Briefly, GDF15 does the following:

What biological function does the hormonal protein GDF15, have? Growth Differentiation Factor 15 (GDF15) is a protein that plays a role in various biological processes, particularly in the regulation of energy balance and metabolic functions. Here are some key aspects of GDF15's biological functions:

1. Appetite Regulation: GDF15 is known to act as a satiety signal, meaning it can reduce appetite and food intake. It is produced in response to conditions such as inflammation, tissue damage, or cellular stress, and it signals to the brain to decrease food consumption.
2. Metabolic Regulation: GDF15 has been implicated in the regulation of metabolism. It can influence energy expenditure and may contribute to the control of body weight. Its levels are often elevated in conditions associated with weight loss, such as cancer or certain chronic diseases.
3. Anti-inflammatory Effects: GDF15 has anti-inflammatory properties and can modulate the immune response. It may play a role in limiting excessive inflammation during certain physiological or pathological conditions.
4. Cardioprotective Effects: GDF15 has been associated with cardioprotective effects. Elevated levels of GDF15 are often observed in response to cardiovascular stress, and it may have a role in protecting the heart and blood vessels.
5. Cancer-Related Functions: GDF15 is expressed in various tissues, and its levels are often increased in certain types of cancer. It may have both tumor-suppressive and tumor-promoting effects, depending on the specific context and type of cancer.

The exact mechanisms through which GDF15 exerts its effects are still an active area of research, and its functions can vary in different physiological and pathological conditions. It's important to note that the understanding of GDF15's functions is continually evolving as new research findings emerge.

So, creationists have a three-way choice here: Is this a result of:

1. Incompetence?
2. Malevolence?
3. Evolution?