Behavior/Humans

New Blood Analysis Tells When a Woman Will Enter Menopause

Based on AMH levels

By Stefan Anitei, Science Editor

30th of April 2008, 18:06 GMT

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Every woman has her own biological clock, that tic-tac that signals to her that time has come for her to become a mom. That's because sooner or later - and this means from her 30s to her 60 - she will enter menopause, turning sterile. The age at which menopause will set in can be forecast

realistically now, as revealed by a new research to be published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM).

A Dutch team has correlated the anti-M�llerian hormone (AMH) levels to the nearing menopause, thus allowing to point out a woman's fertile age more accurately than simply based on her age. The amount of blood AMH was found to be connected to the number of small follicles encountered in a woman's ovaries. From this stock, the ovary releases an ovule (egg) during ovulation monthly. When the stock is depleted, menopause has just installed.

"Couples often postpone childbearing until after age thirty, even though variation in menopausal age and corresponding variation in natural fertility means that some women are sterile as early as their thirties. Knowing when menopause may occur could greatly impact childbearing decisions and our findings show that such knowledge may now be available from AMH levels," wrote authors Dr. Jeroen van Disseldorp and Dr Frank Broekmans of the University Medical Center Utrecht in Utrecht.

The team determined the AMH levels in 144 healthy, fertile subjects, and the gathered information was used to calculate a mean AMH in connection with the age. The processed data was then employed to forecast the age of menopause in a poll made of 3,384 women aged 50 to 70. The model based on AMH levels and age was precise in determining the age of menopause for individual women.

In the case of younger women, the same technique could not be applied, as their AMH levels were too low, and a recent research made in mice revealed that mean AMH levels are constant in young females.

TAGS:

menopause | hormone | blood

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