Do women have to have menopause?

Don’t let it hit too early! I see it in my office every day. A woman in her early 50s comes in, complaining of hot flashes, brain fog, memory loss, fatigue and low sex drive. The cause is most likely menopause. Everything looks pretty straightforward, so I shouldn’t have any further questions. Except one: does she really need to suffer? Does she really have to have menopause and its miserable symptoms? According to the mainstream point of view, yes. A woman has to have a menopause. There’s even an explanation out there; it’s called the grandmother hypothesis. According to this theory, a postmenopausal woman is supposed to help her daughters with their kids. And childcare help can best be given if a postmenopausal woman is not fertile; there’s no risk of her having more of her own children to care for. That sounds logical. But there are still a lot of unanswered questions. An old wives’ tale? The first question is: if a postmenopausal grandmother is supposed to help nurture kids, she would need to be in good health. But the health of postmenopausal women often deteriorates. They are more likely to have high blood pressure, heart disease and cancer than premenopausal women.  Moreover, they’re not supposed to suffer from postmenopausal symptoms—but they do. The second question is:  if a woman is supposed to lose her fertility at about age 50, then a man should have the same problem too. In fact, men's andropause (male menopause) usually starts later and is much...
Source: Doctor Kalitenko antiaging blog - Category: Physicians With Health Advice Authors: Source Type: blogs