Did Sarah Grow Old?

CEBU, Philippines - I am 100 years old. God is always a giver of life.

The biological rule of fertility was defied for the first time in Genesis when Sarah, the wife of Abraham conceived a child when she was almost a century old. But did Sarah, who became the mother of the great nation of Israel, really grow old? Or was it a pollution-free environment and healthy lifestyle that kept her young?

Each month the pituitary gland in a woman’s brain sends a signal to her ovaries to prepare an egg for ovulation. It is this intricate and wonderful process of ovulation and fertilization that make the human reproductive process complex.

What stimulates the pituitary gland to send signals are hormones called “follicle-stimulating hormone and luteinizing hormones. As a woman grows older, the pituitary glands stop secreting hormones for ovulation and hence eggs are no longer produced. It is said that after the age of 32, a woman’s fertility declines. There is a high rate of chromosomal abnormalities in older women as they age and they are more likely to have health problems and hence may interfere with fertility. Men over age 40 may be less fertile than younger men.

The traditional view of fertility is that women are born with all their eggs and these are released one by one at each ovulation. At menopause, few to no mature eggs remain in the ovaries.

In a 2006 conference on Human Reproduction, Professor Sarah L. Berga, from the Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA, established that infertility could be caused by stress and diet and undernutrition. Berga said that her work was the first to show that reducing stress through psychological intervention could restore ovulation in women whose ovarian function had previously been impaired.

In the use of acupuncture as intervention for fertility, it is claimed that acupuncture can aid in achieving a healthy state of being which can help in conception. Acupuncture helps in regulating ovulation and menstrual cycles and increasing sperm mobility which enhances fertilization. Because high stress levels can be a hindrance to conceive, acupuncture fertility treatment helps in reducing these stress levels and aids in relaxation.

The efficient functioning of the pituitary glands may not be caused by degeneration alone but by environment, lifestyle and nutrition.

These days man has found ways to tamper with fertility through fertility assisted reproductive technology by means of in-vitro fertilization, hormonal treatments, acupuncture and behavioral treatment protocols. In any case the treatment protocol depends on the cause of infertility, age and other lifestyle and social factors experienced by the couple.

While these interventions are possible under a human context, nothing is impossible with God. When Sarah conceived there was no human or scientific intervention. But then it must also be considered that during the time of Genesis, Sarah lived in peaceful and stress-free lifestyle and her diet and nutrition may have been in their fresh and organic state. Biblically, Sarah has proven science wrong that it is impossible for a 90-year old woman to give birth. Scientifically, Sarah has also proven the Bible right that while nothing is impossible with God, sin-free lifestyle and nutrition-based diet habits unlocks the many secrets of procreation. ?