Medical books have always stated that a lady is born with a limited number of eggs, and that the production of a woman’s eggs happens entirely before birth. A woman has few million immature eggs when she is in her mother’s womb, and that this number drops to few lakhs by the time she reaches puberty.
But recent research has been turning this theory on its head. Scientists have discovered a new type of stem-cell in the human ovary that may point to the possibility of new eggs continually being formed throughout a woman’s reproductive years.
According to a new study, women may make new eggs throughout their reproductive years, challenging the longstanding belief that females are born with finite supplies. New avenues for improving women’s health and fertility may be possible as a result of the discovery.
Previous research had suggested that a woman is born with all the egg cells she will ever have in her lifetime.
In recent experiments, scientists discovered a new type of stem cell in the ovaries that can be grown in the lab and turned into immature egg cells.
Women may make new eggs throughout their reproductive years—challenging a longstanding tenet that females are born with finite supplies, a new study says. The discovery may also lead to new avenues for improving women’s health and fertility.
Stem cells, found in embryos and certain adult body tissues, have the potential to grow into many different types of cells. That study, published in the journal Nature in 2004, was the “first to reach the conclusion that this long-held belief in our field—that young girls are given a bank account at birth that you can no longer deposit eggs to, just withdraw from—was no longer true,” said study leader Jonathan Tilly.
The concept that women generate eggs during their reproductive years makes perfect sense from a purely biological point of view—men continuously replenish their sperm, so it stands to reason that women should do the same with their eggs.
The small study, involving cancer patients, showed that ovarian biopsies taken from young women who had been given a chemotherapy drug had a far higher density of eggs than healthy women of the same age.
Prof Evelyn Telfer, who led the work at the University of Edinburgh, said: “This was something remarkable and completely unexpected for us. The tissue appeared to have formed new eggs. The dogma is that the human ovary has a fixed population of eggs and that no new eggs form throughout life.”
To figure out what was going on, they looked at the ovarian biopsies of 11 women with Hodgkin lymphoma – eight of whom had been given ABVD and three who’d been given a stronger drug combination that’s known to cause infertility.
They compared these samples to the ovarian biopsies of 10 healthy women.
Surprisingly, the women who’d been treated with ABVD had between double and four times the density of viable eggs in their ovaries than the healthy women. Those given the stronger drug combination had far fewer.
“It suggests that the ovary is indeed a more complex and versatile organ than we have been taught, or that we expected, with an inherent capacity of renewal,” Kenny Rodriguez-Wallberg from the Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm, who wasn’t involved in the study, told The Guardian.
At Welling Clinic, we have often experienced in many of our patients with low AMH, that AMH increase to some extent. It always confused us as women with very low AMH would conceive naturally after our homeopathy treatment. Earlier they would have been advised donor eggs due to very low number of eggs in their ovaries which an IVF specialist would say were insufficient for nature conception. More such studies are required to answer the reports we see in our patients with increased AMH post our speciality homeopathy treatment.
Journal Reference:
- M. McLaughlin, T.W. Kelsey, W.H.B. Wallace, R.A. Anderson, E.E. Telfer. Non-growing follicle density is increased following adriamycin, bleomycin, vinblastine and dacarbazine (ABVD) chemotherapy in the adult human ovary. Human Reproduction, 2016; DOI: 10.1093/humrep/dew260
Ref:http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/02/120229-women-health-ovaries-eggs-reproduction-science/
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/oct/07/evidence-suggests-womens-ovaries-can-grow-new-eggs
http://www.bionews.org.uk/page_711812.asp
