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.

It’s not relevant to the discussion though, is it? I’m sure we’re all aware that not ALL women suffer pelvic floor weakness, but the majority do. What does it contribute to the thread for someone to pipe up ‘I’m all right, Jack!’? What is everyone else supposed to say other than ‘That’s nice dear’? It’s not like we can pick up any tips as the poster hasn’t given any.

It's important for younger women to know pelvic floor dysfunction is not an inevitable part of ageing.

They should be made aware of what can be done, at any stage in life: such as pelvic floor exercises (there are websites by qualified professionals explaining how to do these simple exercises).

Women in menopause or postmenopause should be made aware of how effective topical vaginal estrogen cream can be for not just the vagina but the entire region, and that it can improve urinary frequency and prevent recurrance of UTIs also.

Statistically many children didn’t survive childhood, so that meant the average life expectancy was lower. More women died in childbirth or from abortion complications, so that brought the average life expectancy for women down. If women had survived childhood and childbearing years, they could expect to live beyond menopause.

I can’t take HRT and somehow survive.

This is so wrong.

Yes - the grandmother hypothesis.

Somehow women past the age of reproducing have ensured that their still being alive makes it more likely that their children and grandchildren survive long enough to reproduce too.
Wisdom, support, extra foraging, extra childcare, whatever.
All is means is there's some positive benefit to having old ladies around. Even despite the weak pelvic floor and crispy vagina.

Pelvic floor weakness is much more common in the uk than France

many organisations are happy to medicalise rather than stop the problem occurring and an underfunded nhs can’t fix it

Most women didn't live to be menopausal, we were designed to have plenty of babies and then die. It's only recently we have been defying nature and living longer.

In less ‘evolved’ societies where women eat whole foods, are not subject to so much environmental toxin, exercise throughout life (work in garden / fields) menopause is not so catastrophic or hard. Even PMS is quite a modern / western thing. I remember learning about it at uni in the 90s

That’s absolute bollocks people suffer with all sorts of reproductive issues in the less developed countries. They just die rather than go to the doctor about them.

if women got through childhood and their first birth they tended to Iive a long life - at least until the shift to factory work when you start to see a huge divide with women in towns dying young whereas those in the country would live till their 80s - wander round old urban and rural graveyards for proof

menopause is deigned into humans and whales on the expectation that it’s useful and that the wisdom of the older women is important to the success of the infants

it is possible that it occurs so granny can focus on the grandkids more effectively without having her own babies

it is possible that it occurs to give women more energy for those tasks - menopause as a disabler is possibly just lifestyle -

Yes, all good advice- none of which was offered by that poster. She just announced that her pelvic floor was great, which was what made the post sound smug rather than helpful.

It wasn’t called PMS until 1953, but there are writings from Ancient Greece about physical and psychological symptoms associated with menstruation. “Premenstrual tension” was described in 1931, but there is evidence from other cultures going back to BCE that discusses treatments for women’s gynae symptoms before menstruation.

Some poeple
may not be aware that how they have lived their lives - the types of exercise they do - and have a great impact on how your body copes

this is the aspect of menopause that’s ignored in all the “let’s talk about menopause “ that’s so fashionable these days / what does someone in their 20s need to know if they don’t want to fall apart

instead we are sold humans nappies as though that’s normal

I think each tena pad advert should come with the health notice- to prevent you ever needing these please go to our website for key advice and exercise

Exactly !!!
menopause is evolutionary the slippery slope into the grave -
the body has done its job / served its purpose -

we have over- ridden evolution by extending our life expectancy!!

Menopause itself is over in one day, the day you have not had a menstrual period for twelve months. Postmenopause is a wonderful vibrant freeing stage of life for many women.

There is so much misinformation on this thread about humans in general and women in particular it is mindboggling.

we have not over written evolution by extending life

look at whales / have they artificially extended their lives too? No grandma helps train the young there too. Without collapsed pelvic floors

the extension HELPS evolution especially because humans have unusually large brains and thus the education stage is long

it’s our almost unique human advantage of large brains and lots of information pass on that makes menopause a good idea

its our society , crap life choices and lack of crucial information that means loads of women suffer shockingly bad menopause systems

well natural selection would disagree.
a lineage where the family survive long enough to raise offspring and help those offspring bring forth more life successfully will survive longer than a lineage where the mother dies at 25 leaving 3 infants behind, having herself lost her mother and aunts and siblings at a young age.

and you can have babies up to menopause so the lineage that keeps reproducing up until menopause and then lives to raise those kids will have more offspring than the lineage where everyone dies before menopause

she has a plan , does mother nature.

What I find very interesting is how only 5 other animals have a menopause.

That’s because we’re fatter and because French women are conditioned by society to deny the ageing process is even happening. That’s why they all spurn HRT but use something called “Heavy leg gel”. Of course it’s menopause, but they’ll never admit it.

that would only be true is menopause was fatal - so on the day you hot menopause, you die. which has never been the case so there's no overriding anything.

unless men choose partners based on how their prospective partners mothers / grandmothers experience menopause, there's no natural selection for it.

It can still be genetic and acted upon by natural selection, just indirectly - if granny has menopause in group A and because of that help, more of her grandkids survive or are able to have more healthy kids themselves, then the "menopause" gene she transmitted to them via her own children years ago is gradually increasing in the population as compared to in group B, where granny died (or was busy with an extra baby of her own, which unfortunately didn't make it to adulthood) and the grandkids struggled more.

Presumably it is at an equilibrium point between the benefit of having an extra child yourself and helping the next generation, like the trade-off between big-headed babies and surviving childbirth.

If it never “made sense,” evolutionarily, it wouldn’t have happened.

what's fascinating is it isn't the ones you'd expect either. I had to Google it, I assumed it would be all ape species cos, evolution. but it's orcas, whales and narwals!!

I think it is because their health system links them with a physiotherapist who teaches them pelvic floor exercises, post-childbirth.