To think the menopause makes no sense evolutionarily speaking

[CurdinHenry]

Sure maybe it makes sense that women evolve into a new phase of wisdom and a role that's different from child having and of that. But how come we all seem to run out of the basic chemicals needed to keep our pelvic floor from collapsing? How can we be evolved to be almost certain to get very unwell across time (in our longer years on this planet) if we don't take supplements that have only existed for less than 100 years????

Feel a bit stressed about it.

I imagine that menopause would have come as a relief to those women in my family tree in the 19th and early 20th centuries who were having a baby every other year from the age of 18/19.

I'm on the far side of menopause having had an early one and no HRT due to chemo & oestrogen positive cancer, and despite having osteoporosis (medicated and no fractures) don't feel that menopause is quite the total doom-laden horror that seems to be being portrayed here. I'm quite happy not having periods or the monthly hormonal roller coaster ride and after 22 years post-menopause, am not yet 'very unwell'.

Don't be stressed, it's not that bad. Also evolution doesn't always have to make sense.

Neither does our appendix but yet here we are

Both menopause and long childhoods/child rearing years are human traits but not present in most animals. The two are often believed to be linked - if a woman is fertile until the end of her lifespan she’ll die leaving young babies behind. We’re meant to raise our children for many years before they ‘fly the nest’. Menopause ensures we stop breeding before ‘old age’ and live long enough to raise our youngest children to adulthood. Added bonus of grand mothering as well, supporting child rearing and passing on wisdom etc.

It would be depressing if remotely true. We didn’t die by 50 due to old age. It was usually due to infectious diseases carried by contaminated water or food, poor hygiene and parasites- most of which modern medicine and public sanitation and food/water regulation have solved.

Nature doesn't have emotions or sentiment. All nature really wants us to do is reproduce. It will do that at the expense of the mother if necessary. Once you've replicated the species, you've done your bit.

It’s not a “hypothesis” that oestrogen is protective of the pelvic floor. It strengthens the pelvic floor muscles and connective tissues. Topical vaginal oestrogen for post-menopausal women with urogenital symptoms is very usual treatment.

We’re seeing low oestrogen causing weak pelvic floors play out with younger women who have never had children who take exogenous testosterone (transmen) where pelvic floor dysfunction is pretty much ubiquitous.

I’m astounded that people think women died at 40 a few generations ago!

Orcas and Belugas go through menopause too.

Evolution wise I think we're are supposed to die once our offspring are capable of surviving.

I can tell you one thing for free- women entering menopause are not evolutionarily designed to jump up and down right in front of the stage to their favourite band for a solid 90 minutes.

Thank God I was wearing dark coloured trousers, but it wouldn't have happened if I'd stayed home with my knitting.

I saw a video recently (on Instagram, not yet fact checked it) that said after menopause, the ovaries don’t just dry up or become useless organs, they begin to instead develop/secrete more antibodies and anti inflammatories to keep women healthy past fertile age. So possibly in evolutionary purposes then once women had procreated that was one job done, but nature still needed older women around but not producing too many children, if they were healthy then women could continue contributing to other jobs such as raising the children, hunting, gathering, caring for younger expectant mothers etc.

We were never intended to live as long as we do. Most people would have been dead by about 40 so menopause would never have been a thing.

Being overweight is a big part of it, but one of the things menopause does is make it much much easier to put on weight. In modern times that's a problem because we have access to a lot of fatty, sugary food and starvation (at least for people in the UK) isn't a big threat. So it's something that risks making you less healthy, and that exacerbates some of the other potential health issues that come with menopause.
In past times, when famine was a really big threat (and even in parts of the world today sadly) being able to keep on weight increased your chances of survival..when famine hits, usually its the old and babies who die first, then small children and active young men. Post menopausal women live the longest in those conditions.

So something which was once an evolutionary benefit becomes a health risk due to the world changing.

This really isn't true. People have as a rule been living to 60 and 70 since recorded history, and of course all the old sages of past centures were much older again.

Post-menopause for the vast majority is a major improvement on peri. You will be living the majority of your life in a post-menopausal state, where the hormones have settled to a new steady basline and where if you take care of yourself your adrenals will take over providing a certain amount of oestrogen.

The ovaries still produce some oestrogen post-menopause, they don't as people say, completely "dry up", and being a little plump as opposed to too thin means fat cells also contribute to overall healthy oestrogen levels - much the same levels at which we thrived as prepubescent girls.

i had to use google ;

Menopause evolved not as a design flaw, but to shift older females from direct reproduction to nurturing descendants the Grandmother Hypothesis. However, evolutionary lifespans originally matched this reproductive shutdown. Our bodies age with the expectation of a shorter post-reproductive life, making modern pelvic health challenges more pronounced

so it seems humans were genetically created with a use by date

not in general in medieval times

I don’t agree that women have only in the ost few generations have been living till menopause. It’s a very western way of thinking. Women have been reaching old age across the world for centuries. It’s documented.

Not in general during the Black Plague, perhaps? It is well documented going back to Ancient Greece, in the Bible, and in many ancient texts from other civilisations going further back.

Psalm 90 in the Bible, for instance, states:

"The days of our years are threescore years and ten [ie, 70]; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years [ie, 80], yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away."

Exactly what I said earlier upthread. Biologically, from an evolutionary point of view, the grandmother theory makes sense.

But I guess the trade off from the times before modern medicine would have been a shorter life expectancy, but I gusss it means less time for menopause symptoms to affect women, so swings and roundabouts in a way.

What? Most women get through menopause just fine. They don’t suddenly become incontinent has beens. But our bodies can’t keep reproducing - it’s a big toll. So menopause stops that and we then become unburdened by babies and their constant care and can move on to other responsibilities, like caring for elderly parents, helping our children with their children.

Are you saying that depletion of oestrogen does not affect the body?

Such an unusual take from that poster.

Anyone who has had a job where they had to examine female genitalia knows that there are obvious physical changes to the labia, vagina after menopause, irrespective of whether or not those women had children. They aren’t subtle changes, vulvas, urethras, vaginas in women are hormonally responsive. They function better with oestrogen.

Men with significantly low testosterone have changes to their genitals as well.

What makes you think we'd likely be dead within 10 years of menopause? I am 20 years post menopause and still here and healthy - with no medical intervention at all.

Yes. The few species that live through menopause all have strong social networks and a culture passed down by older generations. Whales for example. There are young whales in existence today who still avoid certain routes when migrating because their grandmothers and mothers "told" them of the dangers in those whaling waters.