Assistant Professor Stacey Schutte, left, and Research Associate Andreja Moset Zupan study new avenues to treat fibroids in Schutte's biomedical engineering lab in UC's Bioscience Center.
Photo/Andrew Higley/UC Marketing + Brand
Almost 80% of women of child-bearing age will develop uterine fibroids. Although usually not malignant, they can nevertheless be extremely painful, can cause bleeding and can lead to infertility. The economic cost of fibroids has been estimated to be some $9 billion in the USA alone.
Fibroids grow in response to the same hormones, oestragen and progesterone, which cause the endometrium to thicken then breakdown during the menstrual cycle. Now a research team at the University of Cincinnati have shown that cell stretching is also a factor in their growth.
Hormones and uterine stretching as the endometrium thicken and shrinks and during pregnancy and childbirth are, of course part of the normal state of affairs for the uterus that creationists believe must have been designed by their supposedly omniscience, omnipotent designer, so, if we accept that childish notion of magic design by an omniscient supernatural entity, for the sake of argument, we have to assume growing fibroids was all part of the plan, since it is not possible for an omniscient designer to not be aware of the outcome of its design and for it not to design with that outcome in mind.
So, the only alternative, within the creationist paradigm, is that fibroids are the accidental and unforeseen consequences of the design and function of the uterus - which would mean one of three things:
- The designer was not omniscient.
- The designer was incompetent.
- If the designer was both competent and omniscient it must have been malevolent and intended a high percentage of women to suffer the pain and inconvenience of fibroids.
ObjectiveIt's a measure of their intellectual bankruptcy that creationists can never be persuaded to address these sorts of problems for their childish beliefs. It's almost exactly like they know that to consider these problems would cause them to realise their superstition has no basis in logic and can't be defended with honesty and integrity.
To determine whether cyclic strain affects fibroid cell cytoskeletal organization, proliferation, and collagen synthesis differently than myometrial cells.
Design
A basic science study using primary cultures of patient-matched myometrial and fibroid cells.
Setting
Academic laboratory.
Patient(s)
Premenopausal women undergoing myomectomy or hysterectomy for the treatment of symptomatic uterine fibroids.
Intervention(s)
Application of uniaxial strain patterns mimicking periovulation, menses, or dysmenorrhea using the Flexcell tension system or static control. Secondarily, inhibition of G protein-coupled estrogen receptor-1 and phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase.
Main Outcome Measure(s)
Cell alignment, cell number, and collagen content.
Result(s)
Menses-strained cells demonstrated the most variation in cell alignment, cell proliferation, and procollagen content between myometrial and fibroid cells. Procollagen content decreased in myometrial cells with increasing strain amplitude and decreasing frequency. G protein-coupled estrogen receptor-1 inhibition decreases cellular alignment in the presence of strain.
Conclusion(s)
Mechanotransduction affecting cytoskeletal arrangement through the G protein-coupled estrogen receptor-1-phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase pathway is altered in fibroid cells. These results highlight the importance of incorporating mechanical stimulation into the in vitro study of fibroid pathology.
I wonder what gave them that idea!
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