Women’s fertility has shapely declined after 35 years of age and completely lost by the age of 45. Over the past hundred years, tremendous medical advancement increases the woman’s lifespan for almost 30 years, whereas, the age of menopause has altered miserably by 3 to 4 years. In the context of the overall lifespan, a remarkable reproductive life-span gradually decreased.
This is an alarming condition. Medical professionals are a concern to solve this issue. In modern society, women want to delay their family building and postponing pregnancy. Consequently, the age-related decline in fertility increases medical and economic issues.
Sophisticated, expensive, and invasive assisted reproductive technologies have helped many women to solve their age-related fertility decline by providing the opportunity to achieve their reproductive goals. But currently available medical treatment including ART unable to solve oocyte aging, which is one of the potential causes of declining women’s reproductive age. Aging of oocytes as characterized by egg aneuploidy, as a marker of the poor quality egg.
The dietary pattern is changed widely over the past 100 years. A significant alteration occurs in the ratio of omega 6 fatty acids and omega 3 fatty acids. The perfect ratio of these two essential fatty acids should be 1:1, but most of us currently follow a 25:1 ratio. Researchers expected this is one of the primary causes of early female fertility loss. An animal research report showed omega-3 fatty acids rich diet comprising an omega-3 to an omega-6 fatty acid with a ratio of 20:1 provided as docosahexaenoic acid and arachidonic acid able to significantly improve natural fertility at an advanced age. This ratio of combination is also safe to use.
Luteinizing hormone plays an important role in egg maturation in case of the natural reproduction process, whereas, human chorionic gonadotropin hormone has injected in case of in vitro fertilization (IVF) process for development and maturation of the egg. Recently, clinical researchers proposing different strategies to improve egg quality in older women by bringing back a vigorous egg maturation process. Researchers have identified from an animal study that deficiency of putrescine is one of the primary causes of poor egg quality. Putrescine is a biologically produced natural polyamine synthesized in peri-ovulatory ovaries. Ovarian ornithine decarboxylase (ODC) is an enzyme released from women taking part in putrescine production. A human study showed ODC deficiency is significant with increasing women’s age and thus putrescine production declined.
Supplementation of peri-ovulatory putrescine is effective to reduce egg aneuploidy by improving egg quality. Thus it helps to reduce the scope of miscarriage. An animal study research findings support the efficacy of peri-ovulatory putrescine supplement in the improvement of egg quality. Therefore, researchers have a hope peri-ovulatory putrescine supplementation is a promising natural therapeutic, which can hold female fertility and extend their reproductive age by upholding natural conception. This therapy can be incorporated with current ART therapies to improve the treatment outcome.
Apart from nutritional supplementation, medical technology advancement also provides the opportunity to prolong the female reproductive life span through egg cryopreservation. These methods usually recommended when a woman postpones pregnancy or cancer therapy or surgical intervention can be a cause of diminishing fertility.
Multiple eggs have retrieved through ovarian stimulation and flash-frozen with liquid nitrogen. All the cellular activities within the eggs or embryo including aging become paused in the frozen temperature. The frozen eggs will be thawed in a lab whenever require and fertilized with sperm to create an embryo. Then implant in the female womb for further development. This whole process is possible due to the IVF process. Therefore, a combination of egg cryopreservation and IVF also gives the opportunity to prolong female reproductive ability even at her advanced age.
Ravi Sharma is a self-motivated, successful entrepreneur and has a solid experience in the fertility segment. and he is the director at ARTbaby Global (ARThealthcare). He is a pharmacy graduate with post-graduation in business administration and has 14 years of rich experience in the field of infertility segment. He loves to write about IVF, Surrogacy, and other ART (assisted reproductive technology) news, issues, and updates. He is a Pharmacy graduate (B. Pharm) and M.B.A (marketing).
His most recent success includes the successful launch of the medical tourism company, ARTbaby, which offers treatment options for infertility, egg donation, and surrogacy. He likes spending time with his family and writing about various aspects of IVF surrogacy and donating eggs.