Men and women can get periods now?

[PlanterGents]

I’m shocked. I didn’t think official NHS advice would say this.

Men can’t get periods. Why confuse matters? This is medical advice.

"Do you mean for women who have unexpectedly stopped menstruating or who are menopausal?"
Women who are post-menopausal, or are on a form of contraception which stops their periods long term, or have had a hysterectomy etc. Women who are not regularly loosing iron in menstrual fluid, therefore will not have that as a cause of iron deficiency anaemia.

As well as listing various forms of bleeding in the stomach and intestines, the screenshot also says "Any other conditions or actions that cause blood loss could also lead to iron deficiency anaemia." So repeatedly using blood-letting or leeches as a home remedy, or (if one is a character in a YA novel) letting a vampire feed from you, or... um... chronic and unusually productive nosebleeds could also possibly cause IDA.

I don't think they're suggesting that having anaemia would cause your periods to stop.

I read it like the OP.

These days they really need to be clear. And think about using commas

It does imply that women who are pre-menopausal have don't really have a problem with bleeding from the intestines.

There is nothing about periods that would make intestinal bleeding less likely - it is just that periods are a bigger cause of anaemia.

Although reading further, you would suppose they could be at more risk from taking ibuprofen for said periods.

PlanterGents was this the same site that you were reading? It is a bit clearer when you have just read the paragraph above.

I agree with a PP that it would be clearer if they had said "For women whose periods have stopped, and for men, [...]"

Perhaps the person writing this entry has not been fully trained up on the "men can get periods" idea so it hadn't even occurred to them that anyone could possibly interpret it that way!

There is nothing about periods that would make intestinal bleeding less likely - it is just that periods are a bigger cause of anaemia.

No, it's just that the most common form of iron deficiency anaemia for pre-menopausal women would be periods. That's presumably already covered above? This is a page about iron deficiency, right?

Ah, thanks, Bergamotte.

Yes, they've phrased it like that with "For men" first in contrast to the previous paragraphs about pregnancy and periods. That's the largest non-period non-pregnancy group, followed by post-menopausal women.

I think we've had a thread about an almost identical NHS page before.

Still, this shows how jumpy the trans-activist-led verbal waffle is making us.

Whenever we see one of these "blah or blah or blah" constructions, we have to figure out what they really mean and whether they're just trying to avoid saying "woman". You often seem to have to know what they mean and work backwards to see how their phrasing covers it in Woke-speak.

In this case it is actually standard English - it just looks like Woke.

It is ambiguous, but I read it as meaning that for women who have periods, those periods are the top cause of anaemia, while for everyone else it's stomach bleeds.

Actually it's good they say women and not people who have periods.

Commas!
But also, as pps have said, just write clear, precise English. (You'd be astonished how rare that is in 6th form students, even the A grade ones)

Commas!

Grammar pedantry time. Isn't a comma after men technically incorrect? You might pause there in speech, but nothing in the text requires it.

"For (noun) and for (noun phrase), statement."

Adding the comma would make "and for women whose..." a subordinate clause, an afterthought, making the women less important than men. Surely we wouldn't want that?

Or is this an Oxford comma-like thing? That avoids ambiguity with 3 or more items, so maybe it can be extended to cover this case when the second item is a noun phrase.

I'm from Cambridge though, so can't be having with Oxford anything.

I yield to the next grammar pedant.

@lonel

Of course it would have been clearer if they had put women first ...but that would mean putting men second. At least they wrote "whose" and not "who's"!

Not really. What they are describing applies to all men and some women. I don't see an objection to putting the larger group first.

But does it really not apply to any other women at all? Even if it's less common.

I think that with the second ‘for’ there, a comma is not needed, as the meaning is clear and relatively unambiguous (to me at least). For men (ie all men) and for women whose periods have stopped (ie only women whose periods have stopped).

And it’s fine/better to put men first here because it applies to all men but only some women.

Never in my life have I agreed with a SPaG thread but I do with this one. Literacy and correct use of punctuation is really, really important.

The lack of it in that notice would have certain people hopping about in delight.

This is a situation where "people with periods" type language makes everything clearer.

"For people who don't have periods, intestinal bleeding is the most common cause of IDA."

Girls before puberty, women with some types of coil, Pg women etc don't have periods.

And even then it would be people who have periods and men who have penises or similar

I mean similar wording not similar to penises!

I wouldn't be surprised at this, but it could be that they have omitted to put a comma after 'men'. Punctuation doesn't seem important to most people nowadays, although one might think the person responsible for putting out this stuff would check, or have it proofread (still no guarantee though).

@NiceGerbil

But does it really not apply to any other women at all? Even if it's less common.

I don't think they're saying it (intestinal bleeding) doesn't apply?

"Heavy periods and pregnancy are very common causes of iron deficiency anaemia."
They don't say "In women who menstruate, anaemia is caused by heavy periods."

A woman could get her period every month but just average flow/ duration- not excessively heavy. She might get a stomach ulcer, then develop IDA. In her case, her IDA would be caused by blood loss from her stomach ulcer, not by heavy periods. She is still a woman who hasn't stopped having periods.

I read it as “men” one set of people and for women whose periods have stopped, which is another set of people. 2 sets of people, not men and women as one set.

It’s still correct. Gastrointestinal bleeding can be a cause of anaemia in women who have periods, it’s just not the main cause (which is having periods).

At a population level, that is. Not necessarily at the level of the individual woman.

@NiceGerbil

Girls before puberty, women with some types of coil, Pg women etc don't have periods.

And even then it would be people who have periods and men who have penises or similar

To be fair, they don't talk about causes for IDA in either pre-pubertal girls or boys.

For women with a coil that stops their period, they could be thought of as "women whose periods have stopped [for a long period of time, including the present, but not necessarily forever]." The important thing is that the blood loss of heavy periods is not going to make them deficient in iron (at the present time).

They addressed pregnant women's most frequent cause: "In pregnancy, iron deficiency anaemia is most often caused by a lack of iron in your diet."

They might just be trying to give some basic information for some of the most common causes, and hope that people will get an explanation for their own specific situation from their doctor.

And I'm sorry if it sounds like I'm arguing with anyone- I don't think the page is an example of the best, clearest information ever! I just don't think it is trying to be woke (as NiceGerbil says, it would then read something like "in people who have periods IDA is commonly caused by heavy periods. In people who don't have periods IDA is caused by [...]" which is quite the mouthful.

But it does show how important it is that medical information (which is often needed by people who feel ill, tired, or in pain) should be clear and easy to understand.