Register for email alerts and news feeds:
This journal | BMJ Group
To SUBMIT an e-letter please go to the abstract/full text of the article and click the 'Submit a response' link in the box to the right of the text. For further help click here.

Electronic Letters to:

L J Peppone, K M Piazza, M C Mahoney, G R Morrow, K M Mustian, O G Palesh, A Hyland
Associations between adult and childhood secondhand smoke exposures and fecundity and fetal loss among women who visited a cancer hospital
Tob Control 2009; 18: 115-120 [Abstract] [Full text] [PDF]
*eLetters: Submit a response to this article

Electronic letters published:

[Read eLetter] This may be due to Low DHEA
James M. Howard   (21 December 2008)

This may be due to Low DHEA 21 December 2008
Top
James M. Howard,
Biologist
independent

Send letter to journal:
Re: This may be due to Low DHEA

jmhoward{at}anthropogeny.com James M. Howard

It is known that smoking increases DHEAS, the precursor of DHEA. The same should happen because of exposure to secondhand smoke.

DHEA is the active molecule, so increases in DHEAS may indicate that smoking is reducing DHEA. DHEA is known to be important to normal pregnancy-associated outcomes.

I suggest the findings of Peppone, et al., may be explained by reduced DHEA in these women.

BMJ Careers