Comment by a_bonobo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by a_bonobo | Hacker News Reader

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There is actually a bit of (wonky) evidence that humans and mice carry stem cells in their ovaries to indefinitely produce eggs.

See for example: http://www.nature.com/news/reproductive-biology-fertile-mind...

> in 2009, Ji Wu at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China and her colleagues reported that they had isolated from mice what she called “female germline stem cells” — not from bone marrow, but from ovarian tissue. When her team transplanted the cells into chemotherapy-treated female mice, they developed into mature oocytes, then fertilizable eggs and, the clincher, healthy pups.

>[Tilly] has since published a parade of headline-grabbing papers, culminating this year in a report2 that he had isolated the elusive stem cells from human ovaries and coaxed them to develop into bona fide oocytes. But his work has been dogged by doubt.

It's still really messy and I haven't heard anything new in 3 years, but humans may have the capability in place to create unlimited oocytes like sperm, it's just hard to tell why we don't (the OP's story is one story - there are unlimited possible stories, including simply random loss).

Thanks for that link - the subject has been on my mind for a while.

> It's still really messy and I haven't heard anything new in 3 years

There is some very good-but-old research into reproductive physiology. There is quite a gap between modern "medical science" and physiology. The core problem is that it is much more profitable for Wall Street to suppress women's difficult menstrual cycles with drugs, than to implement what was figured out long ago.

> but humans may have the capability in place to create unlimited oocytes like sperm, it's just hard to tell why we don't

Women's reproductive organs get worn out by Estrogen, which should be known as "The Cancer Hormone" or "The Heart Attack Hormone". Fundamentally, estrogen tells tissues to "swell and divide". Estrogen is balanced by Progesterone, which is Nature's anti-estrogen.

Before she met me, my girlfriend self-medicated her depression with the street pharmacy, and shut down her menstrual cycle. Some very stupid endocrinologists told her she "went through menopause", at around 28 years old. Now she thinks she can't get pregnant, because MENOPAUSE. But if her pituitary starts working right, and a proper diet and the right supplements refresh her uterus, she could release an egg at any time. She's not going to get knocked up, because I've just verified that my reversible sperm-elimination strategy has been successful, but I've met plenty of women with an infant on their hip whose doctors told them they were infertile.

> because I've just verified that my reversible sperm-elimination strategy has been successful

what? and how did you verify?

I've used my own variant of the heat method: http://www.newmalecontraception.org/heat-methods/

I verified with a microscope - the amscope 150 (iirc) was not quite $100 with some slides. I should have bought the microscope first.

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