
Evidence suggests women's ovaries can grow new eggs - danielmorozoff
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/oct/07/evidence-suggests-womens-ovaries-can-grow-new-eggs
======
pasbesoin
What bothers me is, so many doctors and scientists saying "no" / "it doesn't
happen", as opposed to "we don't know". They haven't observed it -- or, as
often, been told/taught it by someone else. So, it doesn't happen -- it
doesn't exist.

At this point, I feel outright lied to. I've made life decisions bases on such
statements that proved to be patently false and not at all backed by real
science.

And a lot more anecdote and "uninformed" practices of friends and others, that
I initially avoided and regretted witnessing, based upon these "expert"
opinions, has actually proven to be healthier and more productive.

~~~
erroneousfunk
"I've made life decisions bases on such statements that proved to be patently
false and not at all backed by real science."

How would this knowledge impact a life decision? If your doctor told you "The
ABVD I'm prescribing will make you infertile" and you decided to freeze your
eggs, but later found out that ABVD didn't actually make you infertile,
because of this phenomenon, well, sure, I could see that. But knowing the fact
that ovaries are (possibly) capable of producing new eggs doesn't invalidate
any of our current knowledge about how fertility declines with age, or the
effectiveness of our current treatments for it.

Great, our ovaries might produce new eggs in addition to merely storing them,
AND all of the statistics about infertility, difficulty conceiving, and
chromosomal abnormalities still apply just as they did before we knew that!
Even if our ovaries are producing new eggs _right now_ while we're completely
unaware of it, all of the statistics we have about fertility already take this
into account, by virtue of the fact that... well, they were measured on women
with ovaries.

Even if new fertility treatments are created out of this knowledge in the
future, it's still many years out. First, this research has to be expanded,
duplicated, and confirmed. Second, many many years of expensive clinical
trials and research for the FDA need to be done. Third, there's a lot more
that goes into fertility besides the eggs. And, while it's great that new
research comes out, it's usually smart to hedge your bets and make life
decisions that _don 't_ include the assumption that awesome new research is
going to come out that will fix all your problems in the future.

Also, I wouldn't be so harsh to criticize the doctors who told this to you.
Science is about evolving knowledge and discovering new things. Prior to this
discovery, all the existing research suggested that women were born with all
the eggs they would ever have. They cut open ovaries, counted eggs, looked at
them under microscopes, studied how they matured, watched ovaries in vivo, and
documented the organ as thoroughly as they could. Science! Now we have some
more science that was just done, and it described a new feature of ovaries
that we didn't know about before. Awesome!

This is like getting pissed of at Galileo because he lied about the number of
planets in the solar system. I mean, sure, you could argue that Galileo should
more accurately say "we only know about 6 planets, and there may be others out
there" but, heck, there also could be some crazy cheat code out there to allow
us to spontaneously regenerate limbs, or change our eye color on demand. You
can't get made at doctors for saying: "No, your arm cannot be grown back" just
because some crazy new research comes out five years later. We just don't
know.

As unsatisfying as it can be sometimes, the best we can do is act on the
knowledge that we know now, and simply adapt as we discover new things.

------
acaciapalm
It continues to astound me how little we actually seem to know about anatomy,
especially women's anatomy (hold the jokes, folks).

~~~
colejohnson66
What astounds me is that the human brain doesn't even know it works (at least
consciously). Your brain tells your body what to do, but your consciousness
has no idea how.

<rant>

For me, that's what's so amazing about neural networks! If you could ask an
individual neuron why their f(x) is the way it is, they probably would only be
able to tell you that "that gets the result the brain wants". They're like
individual computers, yet they can't work alone; only when put together does
what they're doing make sense.

</rant>

~~~
bordercases
I wonder why we don't have several conscious thoughts at once.

~~~
yazaddaruvala
While most of the time, ideas in my head are extremely cohesive, there are
times when they are not. For one, while talking to myself, I refer to myself
as a we. In other situations, primarily ones of brainstorming, I can
definitely feel multiple "quadrants" of my brain initiating different ideas.
The reason I feel they are different consciouses is because each idea is
driven by different motivations. Some of these are good ideas, some are bad,
some are moral, some are immoral. We mostly come to a consensus in fractions
of a second, but sometimes its long and drawn out. Like any good team, we
ensure everyone is heard and respected, we understand that there will be
disagreements and we won't always get our way. Some of us never get our way.
But overall we(I) seem to work well with all of the other versions of myself.
Lol, at least for now. There are definitely parts of me which are very upset
with the consensus to write this post.

I think you just don't hear a lot about it, and people don't acknowledge it
much in themselves, because of the stigma/demonization of multiple personality
disorders. For me, as long as I(we) can pass the Turing Test of Normality, I
don't really mind that my brain works the way it does. If anything, I quite
like the way it works.

~~~
Senji
That's interesting. I, don't "talk" or "think aloud" in my head myself. At
all. Ideas just snap into focus at once immediately. Same goes for when I'm
trying to figure out a puzzle or when programing.

At the moment I learn something new it just snaps into place at once and the
knowledge is integrated on the spot.

Also English is a foreign language for me and the same goes for my native
language. Whole concepts emerge as I'm trying to do or say something and then
I have to put them into words(in either language).

Sometimes the process of talking is excruciatingly slow and interferes with my
thoughts. I find that I can type a lot faster and that helps a little.

~~~
psyc
This is true for me, but only for domains I know very well. The less I
understand the problem, the more I have to think in my head. But there is a
mode that I make use of frequently when I want the best answer I can currently
produce - I just have to quiet my mind, and the best available answer
immediately bubbles to top of mind.

------
theparanoid
Buried the lead - "...or that egg follicles split into two or more parts due
to damage from the treatment. The results should be seen as a curiosity rather
than a discovery until replicated and investigated further, Albertini said."

------
BinaryIdiot
This seems to be one of many studies done that keep hinting that ovaries may
continue to produce eggs. That's pretty awesome news especially for young
women who have had to undergo treatments that may have killed off eggs early
on. I also wonder how long they continue to be made. For instance if someone
had a genetic disease that was somehow overcome with, say, genetic
modification in some future time would her future eggs also carry the updated
genetics?

~~~
Declanomous
> If someone had a genetic disease that was somehow overcome with, say,
> genetic modification in some future time would her future eggs also carry
> the updated genetics?

The answer is almost certainly yes, if the cells used to create the gametes
had their DNA modified.

The really interesting question is whether the epigenetic code changes in
these cells. The discovery of epigenetics had huge implications in human
development. If women are born with all of the eggs they will ever have, that
would mean children are affected by the decisions made by their grandmother.
If grandma lived through a famine, her grandchild might be predisposed to
obesity due to epigenetic factors, regardless of what mom does.

~~~
sambe
What do you mean by "epigenetic code"? Epigenetic means not encoded in DNA.
Heritability is hotly debated (and anything positive in that area tends to be
overstated in the media).

Wiki has a few links on contested terms and taking caution vs enthusiasm of eg
Chopra. There have also been several stories like this
[http://epgntxeinstein.tumblr.com/post/127416455028/over-
inte...](http://epgntxeinstein.tumblr.com/post/127416455028/over-interpreted-
epigenetics-study-of-the-week) over the last months.

~~~
Declanomous
I realize epigenetic traits are not encoded in DNA. It's perfectly acceptable
to use the term code to refer to an epigenetic "configuration". I didn't point
out this fact because I figured the people reading Hacker News probably know
that things can be encoded without using DNA, and I felt the distinction was
needlessly pedantic.

I recognize the limited scope of epigenetics, however epigenetics do play a
significant role in gene expression. To say otherwise would be foolish.

I know heritability of epigenetic traits is limited. I didn't claim epigenetic
traits are being passed down between generations. If women are born with all
of their eggs, the DNA in her eggs would DIRECTLY be affected by the
environment of her mother. There is strong scientific evidence epigenetic
traits are reliably inherited by each of the daughter cells during mitosis.
Thus it is fully plausible the epigenetic code of a child could be affected by
their grandmother.

If what you know about epigenetics comes from Wikipedia, you are probably
about as informed as "the media". As a formally trained lab biologist, I'm
going to go out on a limb and say that biology is one of the worst scientific
fields to learn about from Wikipedia, especially when it comes to discoveries
in young fields like epigentics.

~~~
photogrammetry
They are encoded in DNA. They are patterns in the physical structure of DNA
beyond the raw A,T,G,C etc. Please be accurate in HN comments, and don't
oversimplify for 'clarity' or 'readability,' especially for a topic as complex
as the heritability of epigenetic traits.

Additionally, Wikipedia [0] is a quite satisfactory source for information on
epigenetics. Your casual dismissal of it suggests that you don't even know the
basics of the topic, and shouldn't be mocking 'Joe Average' or the media for
what you perceive to be their ignorance.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigenetics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigenetics)

~~~
Declanomous
Is this a smurf account? Why is this your first comment on a two day old
account?

My dismissal of the article was calculated, rather than casual. I read the
Wikipedia page before commenting. That article, like many articles on
Wikipedia, provides a great overview of the topic. However, it isn't a
substitute for an actual education in the field. I stand by my claim that
being able to read Wikipedia puts you on about the same level as the average
media correspondent.

I'd appreciate if you didn't insult me. You and the other comment I replied to
are clearly over-estimating your knowledge, especially regarding terminology.
Nowhere did I simplify anything for clarity or readability. I deliberately
chose not to use jargon for readability, however my comment would have been
clear and unambiguous to another biologist.

Both of your comments were based on a pedantic reading of my comment that a
trained biologist never would have made. Yes, the parts that make the
epigenome are coded in DNA. However, the epigenome is not part of the genome.
If I say "epigentic code" I'm specifically referring to the part of gene
expression controlled by the epigenome. I'm not referring to the bits that end
up making the epigenome (such as histones, etc) that end up making the parts
of the epigenome. You each chose an incorrect interpretation in each case,
when the alternative was perfectly obvious and correct.

~~~
photogrammetry
I refuse to offer a reasonable response to an ad-hominem attack.

------
epistasis
>The findings were presented at the European Society of Human Reproduction and
Embryology annual conference in July and are described in a journal paper that
is in review.

WTF why is the Guardian reporting on this now? It would make more sense to
report on the conference presentation, or to wait for the publication to be in
general circulation. But reporting during the paper review is not timely, and
if it doesn't pass peer-review you're going to be stuck with your pants down.

------
thr328982
> _would raise the prospect of new treatments to allow older women to
> conceive_

This is a bit of ethical problem. Pregnancy at older age brings many risks to
mother and child.

~~~
danjoc
Yet, women who give birth later, live longer.

[http://time.com/2922235/mothers-birth-pregnancy-
aging/](http://time.com/2922235/mothers-birth-pregnancy-aging/)

~~~
heydenberk
From your article: "The natural ability to have a child at an older age likely
indicates that a woman’s reproductive system is aging slowly, and therefore so
is the rest of her body."

