Can We Antiage Our Ovaries?

Some promising evidence points to yesand it could help more than your fertility.

- Kelly Mickle

The first time I saw ovaries was in a middle school health class. The gym teacher awkwardly pointed at a diagram on a projector screen as he informed us that women were born with all the eggs they were ever going to have in life. I remember thinking it was fitting that the female anatomy looked like the top of an hourglass, the ovaries steadily releasing eggs into the uterus like grains of sand, my fertile window slowly ticking closed with each passing period.

But it turns out our ovaries aren't just keeping time on our fertility. Scientists now believe the ovaries play a key role in female longevity, helping to regulate the systems that keep our heart, bones, and brain healthy. "I'm on a campaign to stop calling them reproductive organs, because that's just one piece of what they do," says Jennifer Garrison, PhD, an assistant professor at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging in Novato, California. "They are the endocrine organ that acts as the architect of health for female bodies, full stop."

Once the ovaries stop releasing eggs for 12 consecutive months, typically between ages 45 and 55 (aka menopause), women may see a dramatic increase in their risk of cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, dementia, depression, autoimmune disease-the list goes on and on. "Aging is the number one risk factor for chronic disease in the modern world, and the ovaries are the fastest-aging organ-aging at least two times the rate of other tissues in the body," Garrison says. "If we are interested in extending healthy longevity, we have to understand how and why ovaries are aging so much faster."