Common Virus Tied to Diabetes, Heart Disease in Women Under 50

UCSF: A type of herpes virus that infects about half of the U.S. population has been associated with risk factors for type 2 diabetes and heart disease in normal-weight women aged 20 to 49, according to a new UC San Francisco-led study. A research team, headed by first author Shannon Fleck-Derderian, MPH, of the UCSF Department of Pediatrics, and senior author Janet Wojcicki, PhD, MPH, associate professor of pediatrics and epidemiology at UCSF, found that women of normal weight who were infected with cytomegalovirus (CMV), which typically causes no evident symptoms, were more likely to have metabolic syndrome. This condition includes risk factors such as excess abdominal fat, unhealthy cholesterol and blood fat levels, high blood pressure and elevated blood glucose.

Congenital cytomegalovirus more common in children with cerebral palsy than previously reported

Scimex: Cytomegalovirus is a common herpesvirus that can cross the placenta, infect the fetus and cause damage to the developing brain. The retrospective observational study of 323 children with cerebral palsy reveals that 9.6 per cent had cytomegalovirus (CMV) DNA in blood taken from their newborn screening card. This proportion is much higher than the proportion of children with CMV detected in the newborn period in the general community, which is less than one per cent.

Report warns of threat to unborn babies from CMV virus

NHS: "Thousands of pregnant women are unwittingly passing on infections to their unborn babies that cause severe disabilities," is the headline in the Daily Mail after a new report highlighted the risks cytomegalovirus (CMV) can pose to pregnancies. The paper says cytomegalovirus "can lie dormant in mother's body for years" and "is caught from other children through nappy changing and wiping mouths", so often older siblings can pass it on to unborn babies.