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New explanation for menopause

20.09.2018

Evolutionary biologists have been puzzling for a long time about why women around the age of 50 lose their fertility. The reason for this is the limited shelf life of their eggs, as evolutionary anthropologists found out now.

 

 

Susanne Huber and Martin Fieder from the Department of Evolutionary Anthropology compared 48 mammal species such as mice, rabbits, sheep, marsupials, wolves, lions, polar bears, monkeys, elephants, humans, manatees and whales. While animals with a short lifespan were usually fertile to the end of their lives, the long-lived representatives often ended their productive phase before the end of their lifetime, they report.

In "Scientific Reports": Huber S, Fieder M "Evidence for a maximum "shelf-life" of oocytes in mammals suggests that human menopause may be an implication of meiotic arrest". www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-32502-2

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