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Sep 21, 2022Liked by Sarah Constantin

David Pépin has done some interesting research on AMH (also known as MIS), a hormone that blocks activation of ovarian follicles. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1620729114

I think this has some promise in preventing loss of oocytes over time. (I am a PhD student studying ovarian biology, oogenesis, and stem cells.)

You are also correct in thinking that the MSC exosome paper is bullshit.

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Why do women need to stay fertile longer? Why not just bring in immigrants from high fertility countries to maintain population stability here? There's literally no non-racist justification for not doing this instead of desperately finding ways for "western" (i.e. white) women to keep having "western" babies, and the increased racial diversity is empirically shown to increase abundance more than literally any other policy or intervention.

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author

1.) individual women often want to have children later in life.

2.) In the long run, "high fertility" countries are on track to become low-fertility as well, thanks to global economic growth

I'm mostly motivated by the benefits of reproductive longevity to individuals who want it. I do not care about racial demographics.

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Have you looked at mtDNA in this regard?

I’m T1a1 and even though my mother’s mother died of early onset breast cancer, likely BRCA1/2 related, T1a1 seems to provide some protection against BRCA mediated cancer.

Also IIRC, T1a1 “leaks” heat, so this may be the mechanism it uses.

As you may know in Europe, T1a1 is associated with both Ashkenazi Jews, Scandinavians and Romanians.

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> A few mammals, including rabbits and cats, are induced ovulators, who have no estrus cycle, but rather release eggs in response to the act of copulation.

OK, terminology question -- what do you call the cycle that cats do have, then? Because they do cyclically go into heat, right?

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it's not cyclic! they can have sex at any time, and when they do, they ovulate.

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I'm so confused! Basically I started out assuming the common usage is correct, but since apparently it's wrong I'm now trying to figure out what is correct about it / what it refers to, since presumably it points to some real thing. Does the way it's used just mean "this particular female cat is horny, but there isn't actually any cycle to it"?

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