Spanish scientists may have found the key to delaying the menopause
Friday, August 6, 2021 @ 7:10 PM
RESEARCHERS from Spain have joined an international study which could predict the lifespan of women's fertility, and even prolong it.
The findings could be equally helpful for women who do not want to have children, since increasing egg reserves delays the menopause and the health and wellbeing issues that come with it.
While some women may welcome the menopause, others may dread it, fearing health problems - such as hot flushes
A 'map' has identified 290 gene variants – 56 of which were already known – which enable scientists to work out more precisely when a woman may hit the menopause.
The team, made up of Barcelona Autonomous University (UAB), Copenhagen University (Denmark), and the British universities of Cambridge and Exeter recalls that, although life expectancy has increased dramatically in the last 150 years and is already around 86 for women in Spain, with living to 100 or beyond no longer as ground-breaking as it was even in the mid-to-late 20th century, reproductive life expectancy has not moved; women continue to be at their most fertile between 17 and 25, when the majority are still at school or college or have not yet 'found their feet' with a career, own home and steady relationship, and the menopause still comes at an average age of 50.
Even before then, the 'perimenopause' can start as young as the early 30s, by which time fertility is already in freefall; from about 27 to 30, the chances of a live birth – not even a pregnancy – are lower than those of a non-pregnancy or a miscarriage; by around 40, they are roughly 20% and by the mid-40s, lower than 5% - typically just as women become 'settled' into life and in a position where having a baby might be feasible.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com