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Biologically a healthy woman can have kids well into her 50s and even 60s yet her eggs reserve starts to deplete the moment they are born, accelerating exponent

Biologically a healthy woman can have kids well into her 50s and even 60s yet her eggs reserve starts to deplete the moment they are born, accelerating exponentially as they approach 40. From an evolutionary point of view this could have made sense 200 years ago when the lifespan of a human was 45 years. Our bodies are not perfect and we have been able to understand and to certain degree fix many issues with it such as infectious and cardiovascular diseases and some types of cancers. For example we never saw polio as a quality control system for our species. Our understanding of infertility and methods to treat it have remained unchanged for decades. We basically pump an awful amount of drugs into a woman's body hoping to harvest a few good eggs via surgery. It is a brutal and painful process, physically, emotionally and financially that most times has very poor odds of succeeding. If we can do the same with a few drops of blood, removing the drugs, the cost and the randomness of the current procedures while increasing the odds 10x, this would be an amazing feat of science in a positive way.

quickthrowman 3y ago
> From an evolutionary point of view this could have made sense 200 years ago when the lifespan of a human was 45 years. The lifespan of a human was not 45 years in the 18/19th century. The average lifespan may have been, but that number is extremely misleading due to infant/child mortality being much higher prior to modern medicine. If you made it to adulthood prior to modern medicine, you stood a good chance of making it to 70.
- inglor_cz 3y ago
  Depends on what you mean by "good chance". This is the mortality curve in England in the half of the 17th century, which was already a fairly modern society; for example, not suffering from as frequent famines as in the Early Middle Ages. [0] Out of 1000 people born then, approximately 680 reached 20 years of age and approximately 170 reached 70 years of age. So, 25 per cent of all the adults lived to be 70. Not a "good chance" in my understanding of the word. "Somewhat of a chance", perhaps. [0] https://www.cam.ac.uk/sites/www.cam.ac.uk/files/shorthand/214792/7UHPdymR2R/assets/OMJ2XrCAVU/figure-2-1197x569.jpeg https://www.cam.ac.uk/sites/www.cam.ac.uk/files/shorthand/21...
  - quickthrowman 3y ago
    Thanks for sharing some concrete info, it looks like 60 is a better age to use than 70 for a ‘good chance’, and even then it’s a 50/50 chance of making it from 20 to 60.

quickthrowman 3y ago

> From an evolutionary point of view this could have made sense 200 years ago when the lifespan of a human was 45 years. The lifespan of a human was not 45 years in the 18/19th century. The average lifespan may have been, but that number is extremely misleading due to infant/child mortality being much higher prior to modern medicine. If you made it to adulthood prior to modern medicine, you stood a good chance of making it to 70.

inglor_cz 3y ago
Depends on what you mean by "good chance". This is the mortality curve in England in the half of the 17th century, which was already a fairly modern society; for example, not suffering from as frequent famines as in the Early Middle Ages. [0] Out of 1000 people born then, approximately 680 reached 20 years of age and approximately 170 reached 70 years of age. So, 25 per cent of all the adults lived to be 70. Not a "good chance" in my understanding of the word. "Somewhat of a chance", perhaps. [0] https://www.cam.ac.uk/sites/www.cam.ac.uk/files/shorthand/214792/7UHPdymR2R/assets/OMJ2XrCAVU/figure-2-1197x569.jpeg https://www.cam.ac.uk/sites/www.cam.ac.uk/files/shorthand/21...
- quickthrowman 3y ago
  Thanks for sharing some concrete info, it looks like 60 is a better age to use than 70 for a ‘good chance’, and even then it’s a 50/50 chance of making it from 20 to 60.