Hope For Fertility Hormone

A single injection of the hormone kisspeptin can kick-start fertility, a conference was told yesterday.

The research conducted at Imperial College, London, was reported to the conference of the Society for Endocrinology in Harrogate, Yorkshire.

The hormone was tested on ten infertile women and led to a massive increase in production of two key fertility hormones, luteinising hormone and follicle stimulating hormone.

Researcher Dr Waljit Dhillo said: "Infertility is a devastating condition that affects millions of couples worldwide. This research shows that kisspeptin offers huge promise as a treatment for infertility.

"From our previous results, we know that kisspeptin can stimulate release of reproductive hormones in healthy women. We have now extended this research to show that kisspeptin treatment has the same effect in women with infertility."

He added: "This is a very exciting result and suggests that kisspeptin treatment could restore reproductive function in women with low sex hormone levels."