Menopause Blood Test

Simple blood test may predict when women will reach menopause.
The Los Angeles Times (6/27, Stein) "Booster Shots" blog reported, "Predicting when women will reach menopause has never been an accurate science, but a new study suggests it could become considerably more precise." In fact, scientists in Iran have "found that concentrations of a specific hormone can be assessed in a blood test, providing a fairly precise forecast."
Although the "test does not predict when women will lose their fertility -- which typically occurs about a decade before menopause," the researchers said that "if doctors know when women will go into menopause, they can calculate roughly when they will run out of eggs," the AP (6/28, Cheng) reports. "Scientists say the test could be especially helpful in identifying women who might go into menopause early -- in their late 40s or earlier instead of their mid-50s."
The work centers on the anti-Mullerian hormone, levels of which were measured in 266 women, Reuters (6/27, Kelland) reported. The women underwent testing three times during a nine-year period, and investigators also recorded data regarding their reproductive and socioeconomic history. Lead investigator Ramezani Tehrani further explained, "We developed a statistical model for estimating the age at menopause from a single measurement of AMH concentration." By "using this model, we estimated mean average ages at menopause for women at different time points in their reproductive life span."
Thus far, "only 63 of the 266 women in the study reached menopause during the 12-year follow-up period," CNN (6/27, Gardner) reported. "Still, for these women, the test results accurately predicted menopause, give or take an average of about four months, with a maximum margin of error of three to four years (the greatest amount the test was 'off')." Notably, "on average, the women in the study experienced menopause at age 52."