Scientists claim to have effectively reversed the menopause by ‘rejuvenating’ women’s ovaries.
The Greek team says the technique enabled women to release eggs and re-start their periods, according to an article published by the Daily Mail.
One woman began menstruating even after a five-year hiatus, New Scientist reports.
‘[The treatment] offers a window of hope that menopausal women will be able to get pregnant using their own genetic material,’ Konstantinos Sfakianoudis, a gynaecologist at the Greek fertility clinic Genesis Athens, told the magazine.
The Greek team say the technique enabled women to release eggs and re-start their periods.
The new technique involves platelet-rich plasma (PRP) – a concentrated mix of substances in the blood that help cells grow – and may stimulate tissue regeneration.
Dr Sfakianoudis and his team found PRP also seems to rejuvenate older ovaries.
When they injected it into the ovaries of menopausal women, they claim it restarted their menstrual cycles, and enabled them to collect and fertilise the eggs that were released.
He told New Scientist: ‘I had a patient whose menopause had established five years ago, at the age of 40.
‘Six months after the team injected PRP into her ovaries, she experienced her first period since menopause.’
To date, his team has collected three eggs from the patient – two which have been successfully fertilised two using her husband’s sperm.
Once there are three, they will be implanted into her womb. Until then, the other two remain on ice.
The technique can be manipulated in other ways, too.
After injecting PRP into the uteruses of six women who had had multiple miscarriages and failed IVF attempts, three became pregnant through IVF – and are now in their second trimester.
If the treatment continues to show promise, it could potentially allow older women and those who have suffered premature menopause to conceive.
‘It is potentially quite exciting,” says Roger Sturmey at Hull York Medical School in the UK. “But it also opens up ethical questions over what the upper age limit of mothers should be.’
If the treatment continues to show promise, it could potentially allow older women and those who have suffered premature menopause to conceive.
Most women are born with an average of two million eggs, but every month, they lose up to 1,500 eggs.
By the time she is 30, the average woman has 70,000 eggs remaining, which drops to 30,000 when she is 35 and 25,000 when she is 37.5.
Figures released last week revealed the fertility rate for women aged 40 and over has risen above that for the under-20s for the first time since 1947.
The report, from the Office for National Statistics for England and Wales, found there were 15.2 live births per 1,000 women aged 40 and over in 2015.
This is compared to 14.5 for those aged under 20.
In 1981, the rate was 4.9 for women aged 40 and over compared to 28.1 for women under 20.
Meanwhile other women experience the agony of premature menopause.
In the UK, the average age of menopause is 51, and comes when a woman’s natural supply of oestrogen dwindles and her ovaries run out of eggs.
But while most women first experience menopause symptoms in their late 40s and early 50s, a lot of women do get them much earlier.
One study estimated that as many as one in 20 women goes through early menopause.
If a woman is under 40, it’s called premature menopause; for those between 40 and 45, it’s referred to as early-onset menopause.
HOW THE TECHNIQUE WORKS
The new treatment pioneered by the Greek scientists involves platelet-rich plasma (PRP).
This is a concentrated mix of substances in the blood that help cells grow – and may stimulate tissue regeneration.
Dr Sfakianoudis and his team found PRP also seems to rejuvenate older ovaries.
When they injected PRP into the ovaries of menopausal women, the claim it restarted their menstrual cycles, and enabled them to collect and fertilise the eggs that were released.
He told New Scientist: ‘I had a patient whose menopause had established five years ago, at the age of 40. Six months after the team injected PRP into her ovaries, she experienced her first period since menopause.’
To date, his team has collected three eggs from the patient – two which have been successfully fertilised two using her husband’s sperm.
Figures released last week revealed the fertility rate for women aged 40 and over has risen above that for the under-20s for the first time since 1947.
The report, from the Office for National Statistics for England and Wales, found there were 15.2 live births per 1,000 women aged 40 and over in 2015.
This is compared to 14.5 for those aged under 20.
In 1981, the rate was 4.9 for women aged 40 and over compared to 28.1 for women under 20.
Meanwhile other women experience the agony of premature menopause.
In the UK, the average age of menopause is 51, and comes when a woman’s natural supply of oestrogen dwindles and her ovaries run out of eggs.
But while most women first experience menopause symptoms in their late 40s and early 50s, a lot of women do get them much earlier.
One study estimated that as many as one in 20 women goes through early menopause.
If a woman is under 40, it’s called premature menopause; for those between 40 and 45, it’s referred to as early-onset menopause.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-3699710/Scientists-REVERSE-menopause-Women-d-not-period-five-years-menstuating-ovaries-rejuvenated.html#v-4193649519001