Rewinding the Menopause

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Dr Aarathi Prasad looks at how new research into women's fertility may help stave off the menopause, improving health and quality of life. The conventional wisdom is that a woman has a finite number of eggs which begin dying off before she is even born. Researchers in the 1950s counted the number of healthy eggs in human ovaries over the course of a life time. After the menopause none remain. In 2004, Dr Jonathan Tilly's lab at the Massachusetts General Hospital challenged this assumption when they identified cells they believed could replenish a woman's bank of eggs. The research is controversial as it has yet to be convincingly replicated, although scientists like Dr Evelyn Telfer - once sceptical of Dr Tilly's claims - have isolated the cells and already produced some promising results. Meanwhile, medical colleagues in Edinburgh have been freezing ovarian tissue, harvested from patients who - either through illness or medical treatment such as chemotherapy - face an early menopause. The aim is to use the patient's ovarian tissue at a later date to reverse the menopause and restore their fertility. In the long-term, such research could have implications for all menopausal women. However, obstetrician Dr Susan Bewley warns that benefits could come at a cost. She believes the menopause is a natural part of aging and there are risks in trying to reverse it. So what might the future hold for the application of this new research? Producer: Sara Parker A Juniper production for BBC Radio 4.