Researchers in a 2022 study found that women with low AMH levels and number of retrieved eggs are more likely to experience accelerated biological aging.
In epigenetics, DNA can be chemically modified to cause specific genes to be expressed or silenced. These chemical modifications are reversible and can be influenced by our environment.
As we age, our DNA accumulates a variety of these modifications and these epigenetic changes can be measured using molecular tests known as “epigenetic clocks.” Epigenetic clocks can be used to establish our biological age and can predict our actual chronological age with high accuracy (Quach et al. 2017).
To be clear, our chronological age is how old we are since birth, while biological age is how old our cells and tissues appear to be based on epigenetics.
Our biological age may not correspond to our chronological age, and this gives rise to the concept of age acceleration or deceleration:
- Age acceleration: biological age > chronological age (our cells appear older than we are)
- Age deceleration: biological age < chronological age (our cells appear younger than we are)
Our biological age can be influenced by lifestyle choices, and generally unhealthy choices mean our cells appear older than we are (age acceleration). For example, those who smoke experience age acceleration, while those who exercise experience age deceleration (Quach et al. 2017).
🔗 Original studies are referenced in this post or within the linked Remembryo posts.
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Knight et al. (2022) investigated the relationship between the biological age of the reproductive system, ovarian reserve and IVF outcomes in 70 women at a clinic in the US between 2018 and 2020. They measured biological age in granulosa cells using the GrimAge epigenetic clock. Granulosa cells are the cells that produce the ovarian reserve marker AMH, as well as estrogen in response to FSH. These cells were isolated from follicular fluid after egg retrievals and then subjected to GrimAge to measure their biological age.
Note that there isn’t any data presented here! The study didn’t indicate specific values, instead they only used adjectives like “lower” or “higher” and statistical significances.
When they compared AMH levels with the results from GrimAge, they found that women with a lower AMH were more likely to be experiencing age acceleration. In other words, women with low AMH had granulosa cells that appeared to be older than their chronological age. Low antral follicle counts (AFC), fewer number of follicles, and lower levels of estrogen (at time of trigger) were also associated with accelerated age.
When looking at IVF outcomes, they found that women with accelerated aging had lower numbers of eggs retrieved, mature eggs, fertilized eggs and blastocysts. However the rate of mature eggs and of blastocysts wasn’t different. This suggests that accelerated aging has an impact on the number of eggs retrieved, but not on their ability to become mature or progress to blastocyst.
GrimAge clocks can be used to determine age acceleration and this correlated with low AMH levels, low AFC, low estrogen on trigger, fewer follicles and eggs retrieved. This can be a useful tool for the clinic to estimate IVF outcomes, or to be used in a variety of new studies. However this study was pretty small, and it will be interesting to see if accelerated aging has an impact on live birth rates, so more data is welcomed!
Reference
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About Embryoman
Embryoman (Sean Lauber) is a former embryologist and the founder of Remembryo, an IVF research and fertility education website. After working in an IVF lab in the US, he returned to Canada and now focuses on making fertility research more accessible. He holds a Master’s in Immunology and launched Remembryo in 2018 to help patients and professionals make sense of IVF research. Sean shares weekly study updates on Facebook, Instagram, and Reddit regularly. He also answers questions on Reddit or in his private Facebook group.
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