Scientists Find Way To Beat The Menopause
Moderate Mammal
Good news for the girl bunnies. As you may recall women have few
options unlike men in treating menopause and even those can have
unacceptable even serious side effects.
--
Keith
http://tinyurl.com/33jh8
Scientists find a way to beat the menopause
By Roger Highfield, Science Editor
(Filed: 11/03/2004)
Scientists have discovered a new way to defy the menopause which could
change women's lives, they announce today.
Charlotte Woodhouse
Their research raises the prospect of extending childbearing years and
offers a more natural alternative to HRT to offset ageing and maintain
youthful vigour.
The discovery that women may make eggs after birth, rather than be born
with all the eggs they would ever have, could provide profound insights
into the timing of the menopause.
It is also likely to help to improve the success of grafts of ovary
tissue to restore fertility in women after chemotherapy for cancer.
The study overturns a theory of female fertility that has persisted for
more than half a century and discloses that ovaries may have hidden
reserves, a find with "significant clinical implications".
The work, published in the journal Nature, was carried out at
Massachusetts general hospital, Boston.
Dr Marian Damewood, the president of the American Society for
Reproductive Medicine, said it "could be the most significant advance in
reproductive medicine since the advent of IVF more than 25 years ago".
That depends on whether the research is confirmed and a way is found to
tap this new-found reserve of female fertility.
Every textbook on reproductive science indicates that women are born
with their lifetime's complement of eggs which are steadily lost until
the supply is exhausted, leading to menopause.
But the textbooks may have to be rewritten. The study suggests that
women continue to produce eggs after birth from special stem cells,
which have been overlooked until now.
The eggs derived from these cells also form new follicles, where eggs
ripen, which drive the production of hormones. The project's leading
author, Prof Jonathan Tilly, said yesterday: "These are basic biological
findings that may change everything in our field. Although there is no
way to say how long it may take for these findings to actually affect
the care of patients, we are very excited."
However, the study was done on mice and a leading figure in the field,
Prof Roger Gosden, was cautious.
He welcomed the research, but said:
"Reproductive biology is very variable between species and, as yet,
there is no evidence in humans contrary to the old dogma that egg
production ceases before birth.
"If we have been wrong, I will be astounded."
If today's findings hold in humans, "all theories about the ageing of
the female reproductive system will have to be revisited," said Prof
Tilly.
The study raises the issue of whether such things as smoking,
chemotherapy and radiation could harm these stem cells and prematurely
age the ovary, he said.
Now the cells have been identified, ways to delay ovarian ageing - and
extend fertility - can be studied.
Removing, storing and reimplanting these stem cells could offer an
alternative to storing mature eggs, which is difficult, for fertility
preservation in cancer patients.
The same approach could be used to delay the menopause. "That is
something we are very excited about," said Prof Tilley.
The work also suggests that therapeutic cloning - where stem cells are
derived from an early cloned embryo - could make eggs for infertile
women, though Prof Tilly said this was difficult to achieve.
The team made the find by uncovering a "dramatic inconsistency" in the
numbers of dying eggs and the reserve of eggs in juvenile and adult
life.
Treating prepubertal female mice with a chemical known to kill stem
cells caused ovarian failure by a mechanism that did not involve
destruction of eggs present at the start of the treatment.
Examination of ovaries of young and mature mice identified cells on the
organs' outer surface that resembled cells which are the source of eggs
in foetal animals - now recognised as stem cells.
The team showed that new egg cells develop and form follicles in ovarian
tissue in genetically altered mice.
If the work applies to women, it may explain why fertility declines
after 30: that this might be due to depletion of stem cells, rather than
exhaustion of an egg reserve laid down before birth.
The team is trying to isolate and store the stem cells in mice so they
can investigate how to prevent ovarian failure and infertility caused by
ageing or cancer treatments, with a view to applying this research to
women.
Charlotte Woodhouse went through the menopause at the age of 14 and pins
her hopes of raising a family on a breakthrough in research.
For the past few years the thought of a scientific advance that could
help delay or even reverse the menopause has brought comfort to the
23-year-old, who lives in Biggin Hill, Kent.
In her case, the new understanding of stem cells would have to be
combined with therapeutic cloning, a contentious method under
development that is more hope than real substance.
No matter how experimental, she hopes the work can help all women in her
predicament. "It would not bother me being a guinea pig," she said.
_____
"Cosmic upheaval is not so moving as a little child pondering the death
of a sparrow in the corner of a barn." -Anouk Aimee, French Actor
_____
"Death is better, a milder fate than tyranny", Aeschylus (525BC-456BC),
Agamemnon
_____
"I wear no Burka." - Mother Nature
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Donald L Ferrt
Hard to say! When I was at The American Medical Center in Spivak
Colorado in the early 70's, the strain of BALB/c we used in Cancer
research still produced sperm after treatment with DES
(Diethylstilbestrol) pellets! In other strains of mice sperm
production was halted after treatment with synthetic estrogen! So,
this finding may not even extend to all strains of mice - much less
human beings!
August Pamplona
Donald L Ferrt <wolfb...@mindspring.com> typed:
> BunnE...@webtv.net (Moderate Mammal) wrote in message
> news:<15300-405...@storefull-3253.bay.webtv.net>...
>> Good news for the girl bunnies. As you may recall women have few
>> options unlike men in treating menopause and even those can have
>> unacceptable even serious side effects.
>>
>> --
>> Keith
>>
>> http://tinyurl.com/33jh8
>>
[snip]
>>
>> The team made the find by uncovering a "dramatic inconsistency" in
>> the numbers of dying eggs and the reserve of eggs in juvenile and
>> adult life.
>>
[snip]
>>
>> No matter how experimental, she hopes the work can help all women in
>> her predicament. "It would not bother me being a guinea pig," she
>> said.
>>
>
> Hard to say! When I was at The American Medical Center in Spivak
> Colorado in the early 70's, the strain of BALB/c we used in Cancer
> research still produced sperm after treatment with DES
> (Diethylstilbestrol) pellets! In other strains of mice sperm
> production was halted after treatment with synthetic estrogen! So,
> this finding may not even extend to all strains of mice - much less
> human beings!
Though it is not mentioned in this article, I believe the reference
to a "dramatic inconsistency" is actually to the extrapolation of
reproductively useful ovarian function lifespan from the numbers of
dying follicles and oocytes as a proportion of the total number.
Quoting
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2004-03/mgh-msf030404.php
What they found was remarkable. Measurements taken during
the early stages of life found a steady, low level of dying
follicles,
but as the mice reached adulthood the number of dying
follicles
increased markedly. In young adult animals, the researchers
measured 1,200 dying follicles per ovary, compared with
about
3,000 healthy follicles remaining.
So basically, it's simple math that led them to the further
explorations mentioned. Either there is another source of oocytes or the
rumors of the demise of a large number of these oocytes were greatly
exagerated (IOW, the expected observation would have been that the
number of dying oocytes and follicles would be have been an
insignificant fraction of the total number --but they found otherwise).
If there really is something to this, it is not some quirk of
response to some drug; rather it is something more fundamental than that
(and why would one mouse strain differ so fundamentally from all other
strains? --or from other mammals, for that matter).
Basically, if this is replicated it overturns a little piece of
dogma that you can find in any biology textbook mentioning human or
mammalian biology from high school level and upwards.
August Pamplona
--
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- omegazero2003 on m.f.w.
a.a. # 1811 apatriot #20 Eater of smut
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Vanilla Gorilla (Monkey Boy)
(Moderate Mammal) wrote in alt.fan.art-bell:
>
>Good news for the girl bunnies. As you may recall women have few
>options unlike men in treating menopause and even those can have
>unacceptable even serious side effects.
>
>--
>Keith
>
>http://tinyurl.com/33jh8
>
>Scientists find a way to beat the menopause
>
>By Roger Highfield, Science Editor
>(Filed: 11/03/2004)
>
>Scientists have discovered a new way to defy the menopause which could
>change women's lives, they announce today.
>
>Charlotte Woodhouse
>
>Their research raises the prospect of extending childbearing years and
>offers a more natural alternative to HRT to offset ageing and maintain
>youthful vigour.
>
>The discovery that women may make eggs after birth, rather than be born
>with all the eggs they would ever have, could provide profound insights
>into the timing of the menopause.
Hey, if you want to make an omelet...
--
V.G.
Change pobox dot alaska to gci.
"People are more violently opposed to fur than leather, because it is easier to harrass
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(This sig file contains not less than 80% recycled SPAM)
Sarcasm is my sword, Apathy is my shield.
Donald L Ferrt
For now that sounds like some wild interpolation of experimental
results until more exploration is carried out!
The Microscopic Lens of Scrutiny
peanut butter
> Hard to say! When I was at The American Medical Center in Spivak
> Colorado in the early 70's,
Thats an awfully fancy name for a bobo clinic, Farrt.