Fertility test to predict woman's biological clock: Study
New York: For women facing a dilemma
between career and family there is a way out, thanks to a new
test that seems to predict the rate at which a woman's egg
supply diminishes.
By monitoring the speed of the biological clock, the
test can reveal how many eggs a woman has left - and give
early warning of declining fertility.
No one is yet sure how useful the test will be. But
the aim is to tell a woman in her early 20s whether she is at
high risk of early menopause. If she is, monitoring her egg
supply will confirm whether her fertility is in early decline.
Armed with this information she could then decide
whether to start a family sooner or later, or freeze some eggs
to increase her chances of conceiving later on.
If a woman tests positive, she can opt to start a
family sooner - or freeze some eggs to increase the chances of
conceiving a child in her 30s.
The breakthrough follows the discovery of a gene
called Fragile X that indicates the rate at which a woman's
egg supply will diminish over the years.
Now Professor Norbert Gleicher, of the Centre for
Human Reproduction in New York, has shown that the gene can
also reveal whether a woman is at risk of early ovarian
ageing, New Scientist reports today.
"We can take an 18 or 20-year-old girl and check her
Fragile X and make a pretty good prediction of whether she's
at risk," he was quoted as saying by the New Scientist.
Bureau Report