Blood test may predict menopause

A simple blood test may allow young women to predict their menopause with enough accuracy to plan a family.

The "crystal ball" test could help the small minority of women at risk of an early menopause, scientists believe.

But it may also be seen as a way of beating the biological clock by career women eager to know how long they can safely put off having children.

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Experts warned that women should be wary of taking a lifestyle approach to such tests.

Early research suggests that the new test can forecast the age of menopause to an accuracy of four months.

"The results from our study could enable us to make a more realistic assessment of women's reproductive status many years before they reach menopause," said study leader Dr Fahimeh Ramezani Tehrani, from the Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences in Iran.

However she pointed out that larger studies lasting several years were needed before the test could be made available.

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The findings will be presented today at the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (Eshre) in Rome.

Women experience the "change of life", or menopause, when their oestrogen levels fall, their periods stop, and they cease to ovulate.

Most women hit the menopause between the ages of 45 and 55. In Britain the average age for the "change" to occur is 52. However some women experience a premature menopause in their early 40s or even younger.

About 1 per cent have a menopause under the age of 40, and 0.1 per cent when they are still in their 20s. The chances of having a premature menopause are greatly increased if a close relative experienced one too. Women with a mother or aunt who had the menopause early are known to be at risk.

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As well as lacking the mature eggs needed for pregnancy, menopausal women suffer a range of symptoms caused by hormonal and biological changes. Those can include hot flushes, night sweats, irritability, mood swings, insomnia and dry, itchy skin.

The Iranian scientists took blood samples from 266 women aged 20 to 49 who had been enrolled into a larger study of heart disease risk factors.

Dr Ramezani Tehrani's team measured levels of a hormone produced by cells in a woman's ovaries to control the development of follicles, the fluid-filled ovary sacs in which eggs mature.

A statistical model was used to estimate the age of menopause from a single measurement of the hormone, called anti-Mullerian hormone (AMH).

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Menopausal ages for women at different points in their reproductive life were calculated by studying varying levels of AMH in the blood.

"We were able to show that there was a good level of agreement between ages at menopause estimated by our model, and the actual age at menopause for a subgroup of 63 women who reached menopause during the study," said Dr Ramezani Tehrani.

"The average difference between the predicted age at menopause using our model and the women's actual age was only a third of a year, and the maximum margin of error for our model was only three to four years.

"To the best of our knowledge this is the first prediction of age at menopause that has resulted from a population-based cohort study," said Dr Tehrani." Stuart Lavery, director of In-Vitro Fertilisation at Hammersmith Hospital, London, and spokesperson for the British Fertility Society, said: "One issue of concern is if people become too reassured about this. They might think that if their AMH at age 25 is X they don't need to be too concerned. But there can be other factors involved.

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British expert Dr Dagan Wells, from Oxford University, said: "Where this test might be particularly useful, even if it's not super-accurate, could be where women are unaware that they might experience a very premature menopause. It could give them help with planning."

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