Doctors could one day use a blood test to predict decades in advance when women will go into menopause, scientists say. In research to be presented on Monday at a European fertility conference in Rome, Iranian experts say their preliminary study could be a first step toward developing a tool to help women decide when they want to have children.

The test does not predict when women will lose their fertility — which typically occurs about a decade before menopause — but if doctors know when women will go into menopause, they can calculate roughly when they will run out of eggs. Scientists say the test could be especially helpful in identifying women who might go into menopause early — in their late 40s or earlier instead of their mid-50s.

At the moment, there are few clues for doctors to tell which young women may be headed for early menopause. Blood tests and ovary scans only give women a few years’ advance notice.

A University of Arizona report warns that reusable grocery bags are great for the environment, but could make users sick.

The food safety report says 97 percent of consumers do not wash their reusable bags.

Health experts said the bags can be a breeding ground for dangerous germs, including deadly E. coli bacteria, especially when different kinds of raw meats come into contact with other foods in the bag.

“If you put your raw chicken, your ground beef — the juices off of that that we all are concerned about — it’s in your bag,” said Top Foods Store Manger Robyn Tickner.

Top Foods is so concerned about it, they offer a reusable bag that’s made using an antibacterial agent derived from crushed crab shells. Even those bags need to be washed every couple of weeks.

Many sufferers’ fear that lovemaking will get them over excited and put them back in hospital, or even kill them, was misguided, experts said.

The American Heart Association’s conference, in Washington DC, was told that it was safe to resume sex as soon as the patient feels better and can handle moderate exercise.

Doctors, the conference heard, should encourage heart attack patients that sex after an attack was minimal.

A study presented at the conference found men and women were 1.3 to 1.4 times more likely to cut down on sex after a heart attack.