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Speaker 1: Hey, this is Anny and Samantha and welcome to Steffan

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Speaker 1: never told your prediction of iHeart Radio.

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Speaker 2: And welcome to another feminist around the world. And today

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Speaker 2: we are jumping into the world of medical sciences and

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Speaker 2: we want to talk about scientists, geneticist and professor doctor

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Speaker 2: Malena Faso. So now, doctor Faso has been making headlines

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Speaker 2: in the last couple of years for her discovery after

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Speaker 2: years of research, and just this year she was selected

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Speaker 2: as one of the Time Women of the Year. So

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Speaker 2: it is twenty twenty four August of twenty twenty four

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Speaker 2: to be specific, So just for that timestamp, because who knows,

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Speaker 2: you may be listening three years on the road, huh. Anyway,

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Speaker 2: So what did doctor Faso work so hard to discover? Well,

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Speaker 2: she discovered the cost of morning sickness that so often

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Speaker 2: plague pregnant people. Her discovery, which hardly anyone wanted to

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Speaker 2: help with in the beginning, is one that could actually

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Speaker 2: help those who oftentimes are so affected by it that

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Speaker 2: they become unable to do everyday tasks. If you've been pregnant,

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Speaker 2: I know, you know what I mean. There's some people

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Speaker 2: who are like no, I wasn't a big deal. And

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Speaker 2: there's some people who are like, nah, I'm bedridden, Like

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Speaker 2: I'm in so much pain, I couldn't imagine. So doctor

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Speaker 2: Faso herself had struggled through some intense intents, and I say,

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Speaker 2: I feel like, say, morning sickness is not enough pregnancy sickness,

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Speaker 2: but like that still feels like it undermines it. Just

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Speaker 2: the overall ailments I guess that would often disrupt her life.

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Speaker 1: In an article written for the University of Southern California,

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Speaker 1: they talk about doctor Faso's work and recognitions. Here's a

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Speaker 1: quote about it. Quote. Up to eighty percent of pregnant

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Speaker 1: women experience morning sickness, more accurately known as pregnancy sickness

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Speaker 1: since it can occur at any time of day. Another

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Speaker 1: two percent are affected by a severe form called hyperemesis

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Speaker 1: gravidarum or HG, which can cause dehydration, weight loss, electrolyte imbalances,

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Speaker 1: and hospitalization. Doctor Faso's persistence in understanding HG and her

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Speaker 1: exceptional research has advanced her understanding of the biology of HG,

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Speaker 1: which is information that will be used to improve health

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Speaker 1: outcomes for both mothers at risk and their children, said

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Speaker 1: Christopher Hyman, director of the Center for Genetic Epidemiology at

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Speaker 1: the Kech School of Medicine of USC.

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Speaker 2: Right and in the Times article that featured doctor Fasos

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Speaker 2: as one of the Women of the Year, they detailed

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Speaker 2: doctor Faso's own experience that helped lead her to her discovery.

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Speaker 2: Quote geneticist Marlena Fasos had a difficult start to her

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Speaker 2: first pregnancy. She suffered from nausea and vomiting, as roughly

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Speaker 2: seventy percent of pregnant people do, but pushed through until

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Speaker 2: the symptoms lesson with time. Her second pregnancy in nineteen

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Speaker 2: ninety nine was another story. For weeks, all Phaso could

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Speaker 2: do was life flat on her back, since even rolling

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Speaker 2: on her side that triggered debilitating nausea, eating or drinking

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Speaker 2: was out of the question, forcing her to get a

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Speaker 2: home ivy for nourishment. Every second, she says, was torture. Faso,

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Speaker 2: who is now fifty six and a clinical assistant professor

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Speaker 2: at the University of Southern California's Tech School of Medicine,

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Speaker 2: had something more serious than typical morning sickness. She was

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Speaker 2: ultimately diagnosed with hybrid missus Grabaduram HG, a condition that

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Speaker 2: Lisa extreme nausea and vomiting in one percent to three

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Speaker 2: percent of pregnancies.

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Speaker 1: And, as the article continues, haunted by her doctor's dismissal

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Speaker 1: in the limits of his care, Faso tried to learn

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Speaker 1: whatever she could about HG. While she recovered that turned

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Speaker 1: out to be not much at all. The condition was

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Speaker 1: barely studied at the time. There was so little known,

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Speaker 1: Faso says, but she had a hunch there was something

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Speaker 1: biological going on. She vowed to be the one to

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Speaker 1: find out what it was, both for her own sake

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Speaker 1: and that of her future children twin daughters who were

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Speaker 1: later born via surrogate. I didn't want my daughters to

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Speaker 1: have to go through that, she says, or anybody else.

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Speaker 1: And she knew that this was something that hasn't been

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Speaker 1: thoroughly liked that. In fact, according to a New York

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Speaker 1: Times article she was featured in, she talked about how

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Speaker 1: little information there was quote nothing was known, she said,

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Speaker 1: there was so little research. Hyperimesis has long been under

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Speaker 1: researched and insufficiently recognized, in part because about seventy percent

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Speaker 1: of pregnancies come with some degree of nausea and vomiting,

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Speaker 1: which is usually not dangerous. Doctor Toovic said healthcare providers

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Speaker 1: can be slow to differentiate between the more common mourning

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Speaker 1: sickness and the rareer but more severe hypoemesis, and to

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Speaker 1: offer treatment, including medications and nutrition. She said, Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Disturbingly, with the little information about hyperomesis, doctors would blame

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Speaker 2: women for the cause. And here's more from the Times article.

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Speaker 2: Over the last century, physicians have claimed, without evidence, that

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Speaker 2: hyper emissis is a subconscious attempt at oral a bot

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Speaker 2: as if trying to throw up a pregnancy, a rejection

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Speaker 2: of femininity, a product of sexual rigidity, a strategy of

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Speaker 2: taking a time out from stressful household responsibilities, or a

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Speaker 2: bid for attention, as doctor Fazus's doctor had told her,

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Speaker 2: which as a result, women have often been blamed and

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Speaker 2: punished for their own illnesses. In the nineteen thirties, hospitalized

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Speaker 2: hyperardymussis patients were denied the solace of the vomitabowl and

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Speaker 2: forced to lie in their own vomit. So to this day,

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Speaker 2: patients hospitalized with the condition are sometimes isolated in a

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Speaker 2: dark room and prohibited from having visitors or access to

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Speaker 2: their cell phones. This treatment has been based in part

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Speaker 2: on the theory that hypardy missus is caused by a

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Speaker 2: woman's subconscious rejection of pregnancy, and the isolation would make

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Speaker 2: her accepted, said doctor Philip be Darewell, a professor of

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Speaker 2: obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Strausburg.

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Speaker 1: Via email and being an expert already working in women's health,

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Speaker 1: which included her doing research and breast cancer and in fibroids,

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Speaker 1: she started focusing on the root cause of her own experiences.

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Speaker 1: The article continues about her research efforts quote. Unable to

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Speaker 1: find a mentor interested in hyperemesis, doctor Faso took a

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Speaker 1: job studying a varian cancer at the university, a position

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Speaker 1: she stayed in mostly part time for twenty years, but

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Speaker 1: she began piecing together research on hyperimesis during her evenings

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Speaker 1: and weekends and on Fridays when she wasn't working in

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Speaker 1: the lab. Her younger brother, Rick Schoenberg fifty one, a

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Speaker 1: statistician at UCLA, helped her create an online survey of

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Speaker 1: hyperomesis patients and the hyperomesis education and research. Her foundation

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Speaker 1: offered collaborators and small grants to fund her work. In

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Speaker 1: two thousand and five, doctor Faso also began partnering with

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Speaker 1: obstetrician gynecologists at the University of Southern California.

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Speaker 2: Right and although she was able to finally get samples

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Speaker 2: for her tests, she wasn't able to get the funding

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Speaker 2: she needed for the research. But she was able to

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Speaker 2: to do so when she took a twenty three and

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Speaker 2: me DNA test. Here's some more from her feature in

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Speaker 2: the Times article. Then in twenty ten, she took a

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Speaker 2: twenty three med DNA test that changed everything. When Faso

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Speaker 2: saw the survey twenty three meters since to its customers

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Speaker 2: to learn more about how their genes relate to their health,

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Speaker 2: it sparked an idea. She persuaded the company to include

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Speaker 2: questions about hg in a survey, and by twenty sixteen

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Speaker 2: she had access to genetic data and survey responses from

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Speaker 2: about fifty thousand people. By analyzing that trove of data,

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Speaker 2: Faso was able to zero in on two genes of interest,

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Speaker 2: One in particular seemed promising. It codes for the hormone

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Speaker 2: GDF fifteen, which is linked to appetite suppression and vomiting,

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Speaker 2: and which the body produces in earnest during a pregnancy.

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Speaker 2: In twenty eighteen, she published a paper in Nature Communications

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Speaker 2: suggesting that a variant of that gene could predispose people

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Speaker 2: to HG. She later bolstered that binding discovering a rare

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Speaker 2: genetic mutation that seemed to be even more strongly linked

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Speaker 2: to developing HG.

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Speaker 1: She soon would go on to be able to publish

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Speaker 1: her findings, giving those who suffer these intense levels of

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Speaker 1: pain and distress an option for possible treatment and preventative measures.

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Speaker 1: Again from the Times article quote. Last year, more than

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Speaker 1: two decades after her hairing experience with HG, Bezo had

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Speaker 1: another breakthrough. In a paper published in Nature. She reported

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Speaker 1: that people with HG tend to have high blood levels

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Speaker 1: of GDF fifteen during pregnancy, yet produce lower than average

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Speaker 1: amounts of GDF fifteen prior to pregnancy. When GDF fifteen

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Speaker 1: levels naturally arise after conception, the shock to the system

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Speaker 1: results in HG's relentless nausea and vomiting. That finding opens

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Speaker 1: up promising avenues for treatment. Doctors could lower GDF fifteen

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Speaker 1: levels during pregnancy, or if they could gradually supplement levels

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Speaker 1: up the hormone and people who are not yet pregnant

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Speaker 1: but deemed high risk based on personal or family history

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Speaker 1: of HT, they could feasibly smooth the transition and avoid

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Speaker 1: debilitating symptoms. FASO is now applying for funding for a

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Speaker 1: clinical trial to test whether the drug met Foreman, which

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Speaker 1: is approved to treat type two diabetes but is used

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Speaker 1: off label for numerous purposes and has been shown to

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Speaker 1: raise GDF fifteen levels, works as a preventative therapy.

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Speaker 2: Right, I think a big question will be whether or

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Speaker 2: not anyone will fund it, whether or not the government

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Speaker 2: will see that as a need, because as we already know,

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Speaker 2: when it comes to pregnant people in the US and

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Speaker 2: everywhere else, they are not really taken care of and

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Speaker 2: are expected just to suck it up. Like I'm just

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Speaker 2: even thinking about how and I guess we should probably

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Speaker 2: do this as a whole episode, But like how they

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Speaker 2: glamorize and romanticize morning sicknesses and they really don't tell

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Speaker 2: you what this is. And yeah, if I have talked

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Speaker 2: to people who talked about being so much pain in

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Speaker 2: different ways, they didn't realize was going to be a

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Speaker 2: part of the pain. And then things like this about

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Speaker 2: nausea and sicknesses. They just literally think, you know, eat

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Speaker 2: a saltine cracker. Yeah, that's the solution. And I could

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Speaker 2: not imagine. There's so many reasons why. This is also

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Speaker 2: why I don't want to be pregnant, because they don't

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Speaker 2: take care of you, and they don't care, and they

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Speaker 2: blame you anyway. She has just recently been recruited by

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Speaker 2: the Materna Biosciences as chief scientific advisor to help develop

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Speaker 2: a GDF fifteen based treatment for HG which is going

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Speaker 2: to be ongoing for a while and hopefully it won't

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Speaker 2: be kept anytime soon because definitely need that. And again,

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Speaker 2: her own experience and her own story talks about why

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Speaker 2: she's like, I'm not getting pregnant again, no way in hell.

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Speaker 2: And I think there's so many people who experience that,

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Speaker 2: as well as the fact that they talk about the

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Speaker 2: high suicide rate, high morbidity rate that happens within pregnancy

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Speaker 2: people in general. So this could be a conversation about

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Speaker 2: having pregnant people being comfortable and why that should be

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Speaker 2: a standard. Like this whole level of like is a

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Speaker 2: sind thing. This is that whole religious aspect and women

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Speaker 2: need to suffer in order to have being blessed with

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Speaker 2: a child. It seems like such a nonsense. But anyway,

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Speaker 2: with works like what doctor Faso has been doing and

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Speaker 2: continues to do, I think it's amazing and I hope

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Speaker 2: that we get more information like this.

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Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely, it's so needed, and it's so sad that

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Speaker 1: so many things like this we're like, Wow, only now

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Speaker 1: somebody taking like, finally, you know what. People shouldn't just

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Speaker 1: have to deal with this, right, this shouldn't be a thing.

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Speaker 2: It shouldn't be a thing.

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Speaker 1: This shouldn't be a thing. We should look into this. Well,

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Speaker 1: we are glad that doctor Faso is looking into it,

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Speaker 1: and I'm sure we'll return and discuss that more in

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Speaker 1: depth because there is a lot to talk about there.

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Speaker 1: But in the meantime, listeners, if you have any thoughts

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Speaker 1: about this, any resources, if you have any suggestions on

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Speaker 1: who we should talk about next, you can let us know.

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Speaker 1: You can email us at stuff and the Amom Stuff

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Speaker 1: at iHeartMedia dot com. You can find us on Twitter

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Speaker 1: at Monster podcast, or on Instagram and TikTok at stuff

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Speaker 1: One Never told you. We're also on YouTube. We have

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Speaker 1: a tea public store, and we have a book you

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Speaker 1: can get wherever you get your books. Thanks as always

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Speaker 1: to our super produced Christine, our executive producer Maya, and

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Speaker 1: our contributor Joey. Thank you and thanks to you for listening.

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Speaker 1: Stuff I Never Told You is prediction of my Heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, you can check

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Speaker 1: out the heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you

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Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows,