The Daily Mail today reports on, 'the blood test that will set a date for your menopause.' They say scientists are developing a "simple and cheap" test that will measure the level of anti-M llerian hormone (AMH, involved in the development of ovarian follicles that release eggs) in your blood and be able to 'predict within two or three years when the menopause will happen,' the newspaper says.
This news will receive a lot of interest, particularly among career women who may prefer to wait until starting a family or those who fear that the biological clock is ticking. Increasingly, women are waiting until they're over 30 before starting a family. However, although the news of this test is promising, this is only early research and this test has not previously been used to indicate menopause.
In this Dutch study, the test was trialled in a small group of women who had not yet reached menopause, so there is no way of knowing how accurate the test predictions for their age at menopause were. Much more research is needed into the use of AMH testing and it is likely to be some time before it is clear whether this test could be incorporated into general healthcare, who it would be used for and how it would be made available.
Where did the story come from?
Dr Jeroen van Disseldorp of Department of Reproductive Medicine and Gynaecology, University Medical Center Utrecht, The Netherlands, and colleagues of Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam and Queensland University of Technology, Australia, carried out this research. The study was funded by the European Commission: Public Health and Consumer Protection Directorate 1993 2004; the Dutch Ministry of Health; the Dutch Cancer Society; ZonMw the Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development and the World Cancer Research Fund. It was published in the peer-reviewed medical journal: Journal Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.
What kind of scientific study was this?
This was a cross-sectional study in which the researchers tested anti-M llerian hormone (AMH) levels in healthy female volunteers, and combined these with data from another population-based study (the Prospect-Epic Cohort) to see how levels of AMH relate to age and reproductive events such as the onset of menopause.
The researchers recruited 144 healthy, predominantly Caucasian, women between the ages of 25 and 46 years. All women had to be menstruating regularly and have proven natural fertility (having carried at least one baby to full term with conception being achieved within one year of withdrawing contraception). They also had to have natural two-phase fluctuation of body temperature through the menstrual cycle (which suggests ovulation), no evidence of body hormonal imbalance, no ovarian abnormalities or previous ovarian surgery and all needed to stop taking hormonal contraception at least two months before entering the study.
