Too Much Information, the women's health podcast
Jun 19, 2026 · 7 min · 2 segments
A lot of women are being told their AMH is “low” – and immediately spiralling about what that means for their fertility. But what does AMH *actually* tell you? Here to explain it is fertility doctor…
Nagla KhalifaGuest
Issy WarburtonHostNo entities detected.
A lot of comments coming from people on Instagram really concerned about low AMH particularly when it comes to potential fertility treatment outcomes.
it stands for anti-malarian hormone and it's a blood test and it basically gives a reflection of your egg reserve.
So as we know that as women, we are born with all of the eggs that we will ever have.
You know, you have the most number of eggs when you're like a four month old fetus and it drops then significantly by the time that you're born.
And again, by the time that you go into puberty and then again, you know, by the time you're in your sort of thirties and then it starts to take a more steep decline between say 35 to 37.
And by the time that you hit the menopause, you have maybe a couple of thousand sort of immature eggs remaining.
But I sometimes even take issue with it being called a fertility test because if a fertility test is a test of how likely you are to get pregnant.
You know, it has a purpose in terms of giving you an idea of the egg reserve, but it doesn't tell you about your chance of getting pregnant naturally, spontaneously.
So, you know, it's a problem that it's marketed in that way because having a high AMH doesn't reassure you that you'll be able to get pregnant with ease.
And, you know, sometimes people with PCOS have a very high... amh and again having a low amh doesn't mean i've seen people with undetectable amhs who have gotten pregnant you know spontaneously or naturally i started having a look online and searching to see what was out there and within like five minutes of looking up like AMH.
I was bombarded with videos about how to boost your AMH and these various teas that you could drink and, you know, these exercises you could do.
And I'm just, I was watching them thinking like, this is, this biologically doesn't even make any sense.
And so the fact that, you know, this is something that people are so desperately wanting, and then that is also then being coupled with like clever marketing tactics makes people very vulnerable, very perceptible to this kind of thing.
And I think probably that brings us quite neatly onto things like AMH testing and sperm testing.
I actually would say, you know, some of you know if you do an at-home sperm test and it's normal then probably that's okay but if you find an issue then that's very valuable information because you know as I say if you now need to move straight towards IVF or ICSI then you that's you don't really want to be spending 12 months trying without that information whereas AMH doesn't give you the same kind of um doesn't steer you in the same way.
So it's a problem and it's a problem because, you know, a lot of these companies have seen an opportunity to make money.
There are lots of really different ones and there are ones that have, you know, different kind of ethos and but number one you need to actually check the test is validated they're not even all validated and then beyond that you know how is this test how is this result going to be delivered to you is there is there like a health is there somebody who's trained in this who has even just a basic understanding of the science that is going to explain to you what this means with context because a lot of people are getting text messages or emails with no further support and that can it just creates a bigger problem than you had to start with.
I mean, that's terrifying because I can imagine there are a lot of women out there who are potentially taking photos of that email or sending a picture of it to ChatGPT to try and get it explained, which is...
Um, yeah, now a lot of the time it almost, you almost feel like there's three of you in a consultation.
Yeah, and I laugh about it and I ridicule it, but I also do it myself because, you know, it's quite reassuring as well, isn't it? Yeah.
So in response to the listener who said, I've had an at-home AMH test and it's low.
And unfortunately, there actually is no, the only test of fertility is trying to get pregnant.
The reality, you know, we can look at, the other important thing to say is that AMH only tells you about your egg quantity or the reserve.
It doesn't tell you about egg quality, which is far more important for your chances of getting pregnant.
You know, whether that's trying to get pregnant at you or if that's trying to get pregnant in the context of fertility treatment.
And that's really where it's the most useful because, you know, when you're looking at somebody with a high AMH, then you might be thinking that you're going to get a high proportion of eggs from one retrieval.
And it's then helping you to decide, well, what dose of medication am I going to give this person? And how many cycles are they likely to need? And that helps with your counseling.
Am I right in thinking that even though you can't improve your egg quantity or increase your egg quantity, you can improve your egg quality and your sperm quality?
You're right in saying that you can't increase your egg quantity because it's biologically implausible because you're born with all of the eggs that you're ever going to make.
We know the biggest determinant of egg quality is age and Of course, there's nothing that we can do about our age, but you know, there are some things that we can control, like definitely avoiding things like smoking and binge drinking, because that does harm egg quality and increases things like risk of miscarriage.
I spoke earlier about, there is some evidence around some supplements, like for example, CoQ10 in women with a lower reserve who are going through fertility treatment, but there isn't like a magic, you know, supplements that it's going to boost your egg quality in that sense.
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A lot of comments coming from people on Instagram really concerned about low AMH particularly when it comes to potential fertility treatment outcomes.
it stands for anti-malarian hormone and it's a blood test and it basically gives a reflection of your egg reserve.
So as we know that as women, we are born with all of the eggs that we will ever have.
You know, you have the most number of eggs when you're like a four month old fetus and it drops then significantly by the time that you're born.
And again, by the time that you go into puberty and then again, you know, by the time you're in your sort of thirties and then it starts to take a more steep decline between say 35 to 37.
And by the time that you hit the menopause, you have maybe a couple of thousand sort of immature eggs remaining.
But I sometimes even take issue with it being called a fertility test because if a fertility test is a test of how likely you are to get pregnant.
You know, it has a purpose in terms of giving you an idea of the egg reserve, but it doesn't tell you about your chance of getting pregnant naturally, spontaneously.
So, you know, it's a problem that it's marketed in that way because having a high AMH doesn't reassure you that you'll be able to get pregnant with ease.
And, you know, sometimes people with PCOS have a very high... amh and again having a low amh doesn't mean i've seen people with undetectable amhs who have gotten pregnant you know spontaneously or naturally i started having a look online and searching to see what was out there and within like five minutes of looking up like AMH.
I was bombarded with videos about how to boost your AMH and these various teas that you could drink and, you know, these exercises you could do.
And I'm just, I was watching them thinking like, this is, this biologically doesn't even make any sense.
And so the fact that, you know, this is something that people are so desperately wanting, and then that is also then being coupled with like clever marketing tactics makes people very vulnerable, very perceptible to this kind of thing.
And I think probably that brings us quite neatly onto things like AMH testing and sperm testing.
I actually would say, you know, some of you know if you do an at-home sperm test and it's normal then probably that's okay but if you find an issue then that's very valuable information because you know as I say if you now need to move straight towards IVF or ICSI then you that's you don't really want to be spending 12 months trying without that information whereas AMH doesn't give you the same kind of um doesn't steer you in the same way.
So it's a problem and it's a problem because, you know, a lot of these companies have seen an opportunity to make money.
There are lots of really different ones and there are ones that have, you know, different kind of ethos and but number one you need to actually check the test is validated they're not even all validated and then beyond that you know how is this test how is this result going to be delivered to you is there is there like a health is there somebody who's trained in this who has even just a basic understanding of the science that is going to explain to you what this means with context because a lot of people are getting text messages or emails with no further support and that can it just creates a bigger problem than you had to start with.
I mean, that's terrifying because I can imagine there are a lot of women out there who are potentially taking photos of that email or sending a picture of it to ChatGPT to try and get it explained, which is...
Um, yeah, now a lot of the time it almost, you almost feel like there's three of you in a consultation.
Yeah, and I laugh about it and I ridicule it, but I also do it myself because, you know, it's quite reassuring as well, isn't it? Yeah.
So in response to the listener who said, I've had an at-home AMH test and it's low.
And unfortunately, there actually is no, the only test of fertility is trying to get pregnant.
The reality, you know, we can look at, the other important thing to say is that AMH only tells you about your egg quantity or the reserve.
It doesn't tell you about egg quality, which is far more important for your chances of getting pregnant.
You know, whether that's trying to get pregnant at you or if that's trying to get pregnant in the context of fertility treatment.
And that's really where it's the most useful because, you know, when you're looking at somebody with a high AMH, then you might be thinking that you're going to get a high proportion of eggs from one retrieval.
And it's then helping you to decide, well, what dose of medication am I going to give this person? And how many cycles are they likely to need? And that helps with your counseling.
Am I right in thinking that even though you can't improve your egg quantity or increase your egg quantity, you can improve your egg quality and your sperm quality?
You're right in saying that you can't increase your egg quantity because it's biologically implausible because you're born with all of the eggs that you're ever going to make.
We know the biggest determinant of egg quality is age and Of course, there's nothing that we can do about our age, but you know, there are some things that we can control, like definitely avoiding things like smoking and binge drinking, because that does harm egg quality and increases things like risk of miscarriage.
I spoke earlier about, there is some evidence around some supplements, like for example, CoQ10 in women with a lower reserve who are going through fertility treatment, but there isn't like a magic, you know, supplements that it's going to boost your egg quality in that sense.