2023年经济学人 荷尔蒙测试无法正确检测女性生育能力(1)

 

    More evidence that hormone¹ testing for women's fertility does not work.

    更多证据表明，检测女性生育能力的荷尔蒙测试并不奏效。

    Women seeking to defer² motherhood are often encouraged to check their fertility.

    人们通常会鼓励希望推迟生育时间的女性检测自己的生育能力。

    Though fecundity³ is tied to age, the effect of time's passage varies.

    虽然生育能力与年龄有关，但其对不同人的影响不同。

    Some 35-year-olds find they cannot get pregnant.

    一些人35岁发现自己无法怀孕。

    Others manage at the first attempt.

    还有人第一次尝试就能成功。

    The main causes of fertility's reduction with advancing years are declines in the number and quality of the eggs in a woman's ovaries.

    生育能力随着年龄增长而下降的主要原因是，女性年龄越大，卵巢中卵子的数量越少，质量越低。

    Unlike men, who manufacture sperm⁴ throughout their post-pubertal lives, albeit⁵ in ever-decreasing quantities, all of a woman's potential eggs develop while she is still a fetus⁶.

    而男性则不同。虽然男性制造精子的数量会不断减少，但他们在青春期后始终都在制造精子；而女性的所有卵子都是在胎儿时期开始发育的。

    A newborn girl has over 1m of them.

    一个刚出生的女孩有100多万个卵子。

    By puberty, she is left with about 400,000.

    到了青春期，就只剩下大约40万。

    When the menopause arrives, that has been whittled⁷ down below 1,000, which are likely to be duds.

    到了更年期，卵子数量会低于1000，并且很可能质量很低。

    But fertility tests currently on offer neither count the number of eggs remaining nor assess their quality.

    但目前为女性提供的生育测试既不计算其剩余的卵子数量，也不评估卵子的质量。

    Rather, they rely on an indirect approach - sampling what are hoped to be relevant hormones⁸.

    这些测试依赖于一种间接的方法——对可能与女性生育能力相关的荷尔蒙进行采样。

    Hormone tests do have some value in estimating the timing⁹ of menopause and the success of harvesting eggs for in vitro fertilisation.

    荷尔蒙测试在预测更年期的时间和预测采集卵子进行体外受精的成功率方面确实有一定的价值。

    But forecasting pregnancy¹⁰?

    但在预测怀孕方面呢？

    The evidence suggests that they can't.

    证据表明，荷尔蒙测试在这方面没有效果。

    One test-sceptic is Anne Steiner of the Duke Fertility Centre, in North Carolina.

    北卡罗来纳州杜克生育中心的安妮·斯坦纳就对测试持怀疑态度。

    She suspects hormone tests do indicate how many eggs are left to a woman, but that this is not what matters - rather, it is the eggs' quality which is crucial.

    她认为荷尔蒙测试确实能检测一个女人还剩下多少卵子，但这并不是问题的关键——卵子的质量才是关键。

    Between 2008 and 2016 Dr. Steiner and her colleagues ran the Time to Conceive study.

    2008至2016年，斯坦纳博士和她的同事们进行了“怀孕时间”研究。

    Its purpose was to determine whether hormone levels could indeed assess a woman's fertility, independent of her age.

    目的是在不考虑年龄的情况下，确定荷尔蒙水平是否能够评估女性的生育能力。

    The team found then that those levels had no value in predicting pregnancy in the year subsequent to testing.

    研究小组随后发现，荷尔蒙水平测试无法预测一年内是否能够怀孕。

    Now, in a follow up to the original investigation¹¹, just published in Fertility and Sterility¹², Dr. Steiner has shown that they have no longer-term predictive power, either.

    现在，在刚刚发表在《生育与不育》期刊上的后续研究中，斯坦纳博士表明，荷尔蒙水平也无法用于更长期的预测。

1 hormone   

n.荷尔蒙，激素，内分泌

参考例句：

• Hormone implants are used as growth boosters.激素植入物被用作生长辅助剂。
• This hormone interacts closely with other hormones in the body.这种荷尔蒙与体內其他荷尔蒙紧密地相互作用。

2 defer   

vt.推迟，拖延；vi.(to)遵从，听从，服从

参考例句：

• We wish to defer our decision until next week.我们希望推迟到下星期再作出决定。
• We will defer to whatever the committee decides.我们遵从委员会作出的任何决定。

3 fecundity   

n.生产力；丰富

参考例句：

• The probability of survival is the reciprocal of fecundity.生存的概率是生殖力的倒数。
• The boy's fecundity of imagination amazed his teacher.男孩想像力的丰富使教师感到惊异。

4 sperm   

n.精子，精液

参考例句：

• Only one sperm fertilises an egg.只有一个精子使卵子受精。
• In human reproduction,one female egg is usually fertilized by one sperm.在人体生殖过程中，一个精子使一个卵子受精。

5 albeit   

conj.即使；纵使；虽然

参考例句：

• Albeit fictional,she seemed to have resolved the problem.虽然是虚构的，但是在她看来好象是解决了问题。
• Albeit he has failed twice,he is not discouraged.虽然失败了两次，但他并没有气馁。

6 fetus   

n.胎，胎儿

参考例句：

• In the fetus,blood cells are formed in different sites at different ages.胎儿的血细胞在不同时期生成在不同的部位。
• No one knows why a fetus is not automatically rejected by the mother's immune system. 没有人知道为什么母亲的免疫系统不会自动排斥胎儿。

7 whittled   

v.切，削（木头），使逐渐变小( whittle的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He whittled a simple toy from the piece of wood. 他把那块木头削成了一个简易的玩具。
• The government's majority has been whittled down to eight. 政府多数票减少到了八票。

8 hormones   

n. 荷尔蒙，激素 名词hormone的复数形式

参考例句：

• This hormone interacts closely with other hormones in the body. 这种荷尔蒙与体內其他荷尔蒙紧密地相互作用。
• The adrenals produce a large per cent of a man's sex hormones. 肾上腺分泌人体的大部分性激素。

9 timing   

n.时间安排，时间选择

参考例句：

• The timing of the meeting is not convenient.会议的时间安排不合适。
• The timing of our statement is very opportune.我们发表声明选择的时机很恰当。

10 pregnancy   

n.怀孕，怀孕期

参考例句：

• Early pregnancy is often accompanied by nausea.怀孕早期常有恶心的现象。
• Smoking during pregnancy increases the risk of miscarriage.怀孕期吸烟会增加流产的危险。

11 investigation   

n.调查，调查研究

参考例句：

• In an investigation,a new fact became known, which told against him.在调查中新发现了一件对他不利的事实。
• He drew the conclusion by building on his own investigation.他根据自己的调查研究作出结论。

12 sterility   

n.不生育，不结果，贫瘠，消毒，无菌

参考例句：

• A major barrier to interspecific hybridization is sterility in the F1 progeny.种间杂交的主要障碍是F1代的不育性。
• Sterility is some permanent factor preventing procreation.不育是阻碍生殖的一种永久性因素。