Ovulation-stimulation drugs and cancer risks: a long-term follow-up of a British cohort

To assess long-term health effects of ovarian-stimulation drugs we followed-up for over 20 years a British cohort of 7355 women with ovulatory disorders, 43% of whom were prescribed ovarian-stimulation drugs, and identified a total of 274 deaths and 367 incident cancers. Relative to the general population, the cohort experienced lower mortality from most causes, including from all neoplasms combined, and lower incidence of cervical cancer, but higher incidence of cancers of the breast (relative risk: 1.13; 95% CI 0.97, 1.30) and corpus uteri (2.02; 1.37, 2.87). There were, however, no significant differences in the risk of cancers of the breast, corpus uteri, ovary, or of any other site, between women who had been prescribed ovarian-stimulation drugs and those who had not. Further analyses by type of drug and dose revealed a dose–response gradient in the risk of cancer of the corpus uteri (P for linear trend=0.03), with women given ⩾2250 mg of clomiphene having a 2.6-fold (2.62; 0.94, 6.82) increase in risk relative to those who were not treated. These findings do not support strong associations between ovulation-stimulation drugs and cancer risks, but they indicate the need for continued monitoring to establish whether risks are elevated in certain subgroups of users

New agricultural practices in the Loess Plateau of China do not reduce colonisation by arbuscular mycorrhizal or root invading fungi and do not carry a yield penalty

First published online in 2009Agricultural practices aimed to reduce soil erosion and improve crop yield have been suggested to influence the activity of arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) and root pathogenic fungi. We conducted a two-year field survey to investigate the effect of recently introduced agricultural practices on crop yield, AM colonisation and percentage isolation of root-invading fungi on the heavily eroded Loess Plateau of China. A rotation of maize (Zea mays L.), winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) and soybean (Glycine max L.) replaced monoculture of winter wheat. No-tillage (NT), and return of previous crop residues to the field in tilled (CTR) and non-tilled (NTR) systems replaced conventional tillage (CT). Yield, biomass and phosphorus content of the crops showed similar trends. Residue application increased yields of maize and soybean independent of tillage treatment in 2004, but only under CT in 2005. CT slightly increased maize yield. Neither residue application nor tillage treatment affected yield of wheat. None of the treatments influenced total percent isolation of root-invading fungi from wheat roots. The increase of some individual pathogenic fungi in NT did not translate into reduction of yield by disease. Importantly, the recommended practices did not have a penalty on yield while maintaining high levels of AM colonisation.Tingyu Duan, Yuying Shen, Evelina Facelli, Sally E. Smith and Zhibiao Na

Cadmium uptake and distribution in Arabidopsis thaliana exposed to low chronic concentrations depends on plant growth

This study tested the hypothesis that Cd uptake is correlated with the shoot or root growth of Arabidopsis thaliana ecotype Columbia cultivated hydroponically at environmentally relevant Cd concentrations: 20, 100 and 350 nmol L-1. Growth of both roots and shoots were delayed at 350 nmol L-1. The rate of Cd uptake determined by spiking the nutrient solution with Cd-109 for 24 h, was significantly correlated with the root growth rate. The fraction of Cd absorbed that was allocated to shoots was constant with time but decreased with increasing exposure to Cd. Autoradiography and gamma counting showed that Cd was preferentially allocated to developing leaves. Hence, the quantity of Cd in shoots depended both on the root growth, which probably governed the uptake, and on the maturity of the leaves, which may have determined the Cd allocated to shoots through changes in the transpiration stream