2024-07-18 03:45:05
August 2020, China.
This is a new brain hormone just discovered by an American team. Revealing its mission: Protecting skeletal capital The study was published July 10 in the journal nature. This hormone has been detected in lactating female mice and promotes bone recovery following pregnancy and lactation. In fact, these two periods can lead to bone tissue loss. Thus, the mother can meet the calcium needs of the fetus and newborn: calcium is “taken” from the maternal bones, used in the mineralization of the fetal bones, and then used in the production of milk.
“Had we not studied female mice, we might have missed this discovery entirely”emphasizes Holly Ingraham of the University of California, San Francisco, who is coordinating the effort.
For women who are breastfeeding, “Under the influence of another hormone, PTHrP (produced by the placenta and then the breast), bone mineral density is reduced by 5% to 10%.”Roland Chapurlat, Director of the Department of Rheumatology and Osteopathic Pathology at the Edouard-Herriot Hospital in Lyon. Fortunately, this loss is temporary. Most commonly, restoration of maternal bone tissue is “Complete within six to twelve months following weaning”, Françoise Debiais, a rheumatologist at the University Hospital of Poitiers, explains.
brain tracking
More than 200 million people worldwide suffer from osteoporosis, a degeneration of bone tissue that puts people at high risk of fractures. Women are especially vulnerable following menopause because their levels of estrogen, the sex hormone that promotes bone formation, drop. “Approximately 40% of women who enter menopause will experience at least one osteoporotic fracture in the rest of their lives””, Professor Chaprat emphasized.
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But estrogen levels also drop in mammals during breastfeeding. However, osteoporosis and fractures remain rare during this period. This suggests that substances other than estrogen can promote maternal bone regeneration. Another clue: Researchers in Holly Ingraham’s lab had previously shown that by blocking estrogen receptors on certain neurons in a very small region of the brain: the arcuate nucleus of the hypothalamus, They significantly increased bone mass in female mice, but not more.
So they tracked this mysterious element in this area of the brain, eventually identifying a known protein, CCN3, produced by lactating female mice. We already know that this protein, identified in 1993, controls various processes of cell adhesion, migration, proliferation or differentiation once secreted into the extracellular matrix.
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