Menopause
Natalie Angier, author of Women: An Intimate Biography, points out that the condition of menopause is unique to humans.48 In all other species, the female is fecund throughout her life, able to give birth until the time of death; but human females enjoy a long period in later life in which they are freed from the role of child-bearer.
Actually, menopause occurs in human females for a very practical reason. Human mothers in foraging societies can care for one infant, but because human children develop slowly, they are not able to provide food for themselves and their children when a second child is born. Assistance comes from grandmothers and aunts who no longer bear children and are thus freed up to aid in the nourishment of the younger generation.
Humans differ from other animals in the complexity of their nervous systems, complexity that requires many years to develop. If human females did not experience the cessation of fertility that allows them to assist in providing for growing children, the human race could not exist. Yet modern medicine treats menopause as a disease requiring treatment with powerful drugs.
The drugs used to "treat" menopause are estrogens, derived from mares' urine (as in Premarin); plant foods (such as soy); or even "natural" estrogens extracted from human urine. They are prescribed to millions of women with the promise of prolonged youth, protection against osteoporosis, relief from vaginal dryness and freedom from hot flashes. According to the popular press, "Estrogen helps keep skin thicker and less wrinkled by slowing the breakdown of collagen."49 How can any forty-ish woman resist such claims?
But the search for the fountain of youth through Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) carries considerable risk. According to the patient insert that comes with Wayerst Laboratories drug Premarin, side effects include nausea and vomiting, breast tenderness or enlargement, enlargement of benign tumors of the uterus, retention of excess fluid that may worsen certain conditions such as asthma, epilepsy, migraine, heart disease or kidney disease, and "a spotty darkening of the skin, particularly on the face." More serious side effects include cancer of the uterus and breast, gallbladder disease and abnormal blood clotting, according to the insert. When these dangers are cited in magazines and newspapers, the most common response is the claim that HRT reduces the risk of heart disease, so much so that this reduction more than compensates for the "slight increase in risk" for breast or uterine cancer. But a 1998 study reported 24 percent more deaths from heart disease in a group of women taking HRT than those taking a placebo.50 These results were not statistically significant but they do suggest that HRT is not protective against heart disease.
To counteract the effects of estrogen therapy, some practitioners are recommending progesterone as an antidote-either in synthetic form or as a "natural" ingredient of various rub-on creams. Because the "natural" progesterones come from plant sources, they are assumed to be safe. But these "natural" progesterones must undergo several synthetic chemical conversions. The soybean product is derived from a sterol compound called stigmasterol, which is then synthesized to progesterone. The yam product is derived from diogenine. Whether rubbed on or taken by mouth, progesterones, like estrogens, can interfere with the body's natural cycle of hormone production. The long-term effects are largely unknown and it is easy to overdose. The amount of progesterone in a cream may vary greatly from one product to another and there is no way of telling how much reaches the bloodstream.51
Not to be outdone in the hormone-meddling activities foisted on the American woman, some clinicians now recommend the addition of androgens-male hormones-to the estrogen cocktail. They cite evidence that these male hormones may improve a woman's energy and mood, reduce breast pain, energize waning libido and protect against osteoporosis, citing "a direct, positive correlation between post menopausal circulating levels of androgens and protection from vertebral crush fractures."52
The truth is that every woman in the world experiences a decline in the level of female hormones and a rise in the level of male hormones at menopause. This is nature's way of equipping the female sex for her new role as forager, worker and sage. Like the male youth of eighteen, she experiences hotbloodedness, signalized by hot flashes, as she prepares for a lustier life than the cloistered one she led as a mother of small children. If she falls for the promises of the estrogen-peddlers, she inhibits the forces that push her into the role of activist and extrovert and throws cold water on the fire that her hormones have set to pry her out of her nest and into the brave new world of adventure and challenge.
Androgens may be given to counteract estrogen-induced mood swings, tender breasts, waning libido and softening bones (claims that estrogens prevent bone loss notwithstanding) but the real question is this: why bother emasculating ourselves with estrogens in the first place? Why second guess our glands by flooding the bloodstream with estrogens at a time when the body doesn't want them? Why not let our own bodies make the sex hormones they need, when they need them and in the quantities that work most efficiently. For the vast majority of women, production of sex hormones is best left to the body's exquisitely tuned endocrine system. Any woman will stay young for a long time if she eats properly and launches herself into a project worthy of her enthusiasm and love.That means, of course, that women must make wise dietary choices so that the endocrine system is properly fed. It means avoiding processed foods and consuming only foods that are dense with nutrients. Modern women must forage just as their ancestors did-forage for nourishing foods in a forest of junk and forage for the truth about nutrition in a briar patch of lies. Like the brave heroines of the fairy tales, women who come to the age of menopause find happiness not by tending the hearth but by venturing into the world to outwit dragons and discover hidden treasures that can be shared with their offspring and their communities. Hormone Replacement Therapy is a tender trap that keeps potential heroines from enjoying the adventures that await them outside their castle walls.
Wise Choices, Healthy BodiesIn primitive societies, women's roles and women's diets were dictated by the tribal culture and did not require the individual woman to exercise her decision-making powers. By contrast, modern society gives us unlimited freedom. Every trip to the grocery store, every visit to the refrigerator presents the opportunity for wise or foolish choices about our diet.
So, too, with how we spend our time. The modern woman has been told that she can do everything-work full time, raise a family, provide meals, keep a household that runs smoothly and peacefully and remain appealing and young. Nature tells us something different. By conferring on women the gift of menopause, nature informs us that mothers of small children need help. They cannot do it all, not in primitive societies, much less in the modern age. The pressures for young women to be both wage-earner and mother can place enormous stress on our bodies at just the stage when our strength is needed for the production and care of healthy children. That stress often leads to disease.
Feminists need not cringe. This is not a summons for women to give over newly won political freedoms or withdraw from the workplace but rather a plea for common sense. The future of both ourselves and our children is best served when full-time careers are delayed until after the childbearing years. And when young mothers are obliged to work full-time, older female relatives-aunts, grandmothers, childless siblings-should be ready to pitch in and help with child-rearing duties. In every family unit, at least one person needs to have the time to prepare nutritious meals, whether mother, father, relative or housekeeper.
Likewise, when children are grown, the wise mother will step back from the mothering role and launch herself into a career or project that takes her out of the home. Then the advice and help she proffers to her daughters and daughters-in-law can be that of friend and sage rather than of interfering nag with too much time on her hands.
The choices women make determine the health of the entire nation. Wise choices in what a woman eats and how she spends her time sustain healthy bodies, healthy children, healthy spouses, healthy households and healthy careers.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: www.westonaprice.org
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