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.

This is full of falsehoods. A great deal of women who reached adulthood reached menopause, and a great deal of them would have had about half a lifetime still to live.

Men’s bodies also start to deteriorate and they heal more slowly and injure more easily. This starts from their thirties ( active men will notice it most quickly). They can also start to piss themselves due to prostrate issues btw. It’s not a female only issue. It’s just part of ageing. The first rapid decline begins mid forties for men and women.

Raising human children is very labour intensive and lasts for a very extended period of time compared to other mammals. This may be why there is an advantage to menopause. It enables females who don’t have dependents of their own, to help raise the dependents of their offspring. It also means your will have raised your own children to sexual maturity ( and therefore independence and able to form their own family) by the time you are about 60 ( if you are infertile by 45 as most women effectively are and puberty is 15). So you don’t have dependent young of your own into old age.

Well many/most of us don't "need" medication, and do perfectly well without it - including in the 21st century.
But, yes, once babies are born (in our late teens/early 20s), our job is done and our children are raised by our 40s so, biologically, there's no point to us after that.
In modern society, childbirth is greatly delayed, so mothers of very small children may be reaching menopause at what seems like the "wrong" stage in life. But that is about culture and society, not biology.

Op, the human body wasn't designed for the life we lead now, sitting at a desk all day, driving around in cars, eating processed rubbish and drinking alcohol.

Those women who didn't die in childbirth would have still been hunting/farming, keeping up with the rest of the tribe until they were physically unable. They would have taken a supportive role.

I had ds at 45, yet don't have any of those symptoms.

I'm 63, cook from scratch, eat 30 different fruit & veg a week, seldom drink, run at least 20k a week, cycle, practice martial arts, do a lot of veggie gardening.

My menopause was a couple of night sweats in my 50s. My pelvic floor is the same as it has always been, my bone density is normal, plenty of energy, everything else is normal.

I think as you get older, you have to go back to basics and support your health by keeping it simple. Which some might think is a bit boring but it is better than feeling ill.

I 100% agree. As I regularly say, we are all different. Some women do struggle, yes, but this trend to medicalise a normal stage of life is very unhelpful and misleading.

I think the pelvic floor is a by-product. I think we’re evolved to go off sex as soon as it’s no longer likely to be productive, to encourage our male partners to find another partner. It’s why our nurturing hormones also vanish. Grim but logical.

I can't speak for all women of course but I think for many, the awful symptoms are actually in perimenopause and they go back to feeling human once periods have stopped.

And yet women survive childbirth at far higher rates than they did even 100 years ago, along with a significant reduction in infant mortality. I wonder why?

And if we had our children at the age our bodies tell us we can, ie post puberty, we would be parents at 16, grandparents at 32 and if we were lucky great grandparents at 48.

It really is the case that the multi-generational child rearing is why we are still alive. We've been selected for the genes that confer longevity in order to assist with child-rearing, therefore allowing more frequent reproduction of our own female offspring.

Would you like to add a teeny but more smugness to your post....I don't think we all quite caught it..?

Nailed it.

I was about to say something very similar!

Until relatively recent times people lead brutally hard physical lives, much more dependent on the seasons and exposed to the elements. Everything would have been hard physical work. Peoples' teeth were worn down from eating hard grains and prone to untreated abscesses, decay and infection- what people could eat would have been restricted and their diets poor and even more so in the leaner months and years. Old bones now tell tales of infection, disease, badly repaired breaks.

People would have been worn out and in decline by 40 and childbirth, already very risky in those times would have become progressively more dangerous for older, worn out bodies.

The life expectancy points above are true, but a 40 year old in 1500 was a very different thing from a 40 year old in our world sofas, washing machines, freezers, ready meals and central heating.

Same here. 65, 5 natural births. Pelvic floor of cast iron xx

Same. Only one child though but it isn't inevitable.

There's nothing smug about reporting a well-functioning pelvic floor.

It certainly beats the "we're all doomed to shrivel up, crumble, and die" mantra.

Menopause only exists because we now live so long. I suspect that our original design assumes we will be dead before then!

I’m 15 years past menopause and still interested in sex. I’m childless though,and I have heard that some women go off sex once they feel their family is complete.

It selects for children who outperform other children. If a grandmother who can hold their urine gets better survival outcome for subsequent generations it might be selected for, but i bet there are more significant trains. You would also need people in the gene pool who didn't suffer with menopause. Also I suspect a horrible menopause is associated with desirable traits

Well that’s your problem then. Youre trying to shoehorn a narrative that is untrue on basic biology. Menopause is nature drawing a line under your ability to have kids when you’re too old and knackered to do so healthily. Thats it.

A lot of menopause problems are exacerbated by lifestyle factors

not widely published - probably because once you get there it’s too late and it is standard health advice - are much more likely to have an easy symptom free menopause if you are a healthy weight

and you are much more likely to be problem free if you don’t eat white carbs - if your diet is wholemeal, heavy on the fibre

you are much less likely o suffer from bone problems if you have had a life of hard physical work

modern life makes menopause much worse it seems

It’s evolution allowing us to survive past reproduction so we can pass on our knowledge. Orcas do it too and they’re one of the most intelligent species.

The menopause makes perfect evolutionary sense. Women are born with all the eggs they will ever have and those eggs have a shelf life - they don't stay fresh and healthy forever. Pregnancy and childbirth are also very physically demanding and until the advent of modern medicine (and even now sometimes) they were extremely dangerous. It benefits the family and wider society if some older women survive and hang around to cook dinner, tend a garden, help with the children, etc.

evolution doesn’t really care if our pelvic floor collapses 🤷‍♀️ by the time that happens, we’ve served our purpose. Biologically, we should start having babies around 14/15/16, so by the time we hit menopause (if we survive that long), we’ve had a pretty good kick at the childbearing ball. And that’s all evolution cares about I’m afraid.

@Firegoddess - please tell me what falsehoods you detected in my very simple, non-medical summary. Describing what happens to men is an irrelevant diversion. Yes their bodies go to shit too, but in very different ways and for different reasons.