Season of birth affects age of menopause

[The Straight Story]

Season of birth affects age of menopause

United Press International

Thursday, May 12, 2005

MODENA, Italy, May 11, 2005 (United Press International via COMTEX) -- Italian researchers say the season in which a woman is born is related to the age at which she reaches menopause.

The study of more than 2,800 women at university hospitals in Bologna, Ferrara, Modena and Parma, Italy, found women born during March had the earliest average age of menopause at 48 years and nine months.

Women born during October had the latest average menopausal start at 50 years and three months.

Writing in the European journal Human Reproduction, lead author Angelo Cagnacci said Wednesday the findings reinforce the idea prenatal environment affects adult life.

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_24611.html

[expatriate]

1. I was born in November, in the northern Hemisphere

(I wonder if they took into account that the seasons are reversed monthwise in the Southern Hemisphere?)

Maybe this accounts for the fact that so far, I haven't aged, and I'm 45?

It's either this or that oath I took at age 19 to never get old! :D

[Patchuli]

2. Look out m'dear!

I too was very slow to look my age so that as a result, it really does bother you when you see it finally starting to change. Stay very fit, eat well, sleep lots and that will slow it down too.

P.S. I'm 50 this year and slowly I see the changes but you know, it's cool. Cycle of life and all that!

[all.of.me]

3. why is our society SO anti-aging?

i am 51 and loving it. i don't dye my hair - it's gray in back and brown in front. i don't wear make-up to conceal wrinkles. i don't wear short sleeves to cover aging arms. THIS is natural. what most women in our society strive for is not.

i am all for eating well and exercising, but i'm not going out of my way to change the proof that i am aging.

[expatriate]

5. I was kidding around a bit in my other responses ...

Because some of what I've read and dealt with today has been disturbing and dire and I enjoyed just goofing around for a few minutes.

We've been bombarded by the media for decades - hell, centuries - with the concept that youth is good, aging is bad. Youth is vital and beautiful, age is decrepit and ugly. Even if you go back before electronic media, this is the message - even in legends, heroes and heroines are almost always young and are depicted as courageous and beautiful. Very often villains are older. Sometimes older people are depicted as wise or kind, but they're never the dynamic forces that the young heroes are.

Add to that a century of electronic media where youth equals beauty and you get an absolute aversion to aging in a society. And you get situations like my mother, who is still trying to look twenty, stays on hormone replacements that have seriously damaged her health and sent her to the doctor so many times for precancerous conditions that I have lost track, and who has destroyed what was once a beautiful head of hair through decades of hair dye and permanents. She looks like she's wearing a death mask when she has all her makeup on, and it takes hours for the process, only for her to end up looking like David Ferrie on a bad day. She is terrified of looking as if she's even half her age, which is seventy-three.

This has really affected my attitude toward doing such things. One thing I have decided against is the use of hormone replacement therapy. I have medical issues that would make that a risky proposition for me. Another would be trying to "correct" the signs of aging with makeup or hair color.

And truthfully, menopause has been much on my mind of late, because my voice has slowly but surely begun deepening with age. Right now that's great. I do a lot of singing in front of groups, and recording, and it has given me a timbre that is very unusual and attractive to listeners. However, I know it's a precursor of things to come - and when it comes, I'll look at it as another part of what has been a very interesting life.

But when my mother heard my voice start to go down, she was banging the drum for me to raise it - either by altering my speaking pitch, or by going to a doctor and getting on hormones. Very sad - but she's an absolute product of the society she grew up in, where the only "beautiful" people were young people, and when a woman who was over a certain age was considered "beautiful" it was because she looked much younger than her years.

[all.of.me]

7. i was just making a general comment or observation

it wasn't targeted at anyone. it just chaps my hide that nature is so far removed from us. or we are from it.

that the appearance of youth is more important than the wisdom of the old. it is so backwards. i'd love to find a place where all people are revered, that each phase of life is honored, where everyone has an important role to play.

[Patchuli]

9. It's not so much anti-aging

as much as it is just looking good and healthy. If you have a pretty face it is hard to adjust to it changing but that's not anti. It's just the human condition and our attempts to handle it when it's our turn.

Not to be a total bummer, but it also means you are closer to death. It's not just vanity...

[all.of.me]

10. our society is afraid of death, too

why slow down aging? bring it on!

death? it'll come when it's time, old age or not.

resisting these things just frustrates us and gives us a negative attitude. it permeates our society. we should revere the elders, aspire to be like them, not treat aging and death as taboos.

[Patchuli]

17. I totally agree, aging and death

are inevitable and just part of the cycle. Maybe this society should stop pushing these ridiculous ideas of what constitutes a worthy person? Neither men or women can look like teenagers for too long and trying to do so will just frustrate us. What exactly is wrong with age? There is beauty in all ages.

[meow2u3]

13. Because we've become a nation of children!

Disrespect of elders is the major symptom of this youth-obsessed culture. Everybody has to look and act like perpetual adolescents in order to be accepted, even if it means middle-aged Americans have to go out of their way to hide the natural aging process.

It's no accident the cosmetics industry is making a killing by marketing anti-aging snake oil to American moms, and that the entertainment industry is pushing an attitude of disrespect towards elders to young people.

[all.of.me]

15. yes, the cosmetics industry!

ugh. i get ill when i see ad after ad for getting rid of wrinkles.

and now all the reality shows about plastic surgery. we are so far removed from ourselves. (that is the collective 'we')

[expatriate]

4. I can imagine that it will be a shocker when it starts!

And I can say that not ALL of me has resisted age. My gall bladder is about 98 years old, and crotchety as can be.

I know what you mean about cycle of life - and I try to think that way. My mother was also slow to age, and she's tried desperately, into her seventies, to stay looking twenty. It has not been graceful, poor thing.

All in all, considering some of the stuff I've gotten through, I'm glad to be alive and kicking - whether looking young or old. :D

[Mad_Dem_X]

11. I'm a November baby, too!

I'm 38, but look about 10 years younger. :D

[Gloria]

6. I'm 54 and last week was asked what I was majoring in in college!!

I had a cap on and had my little sw radio as I sat waiting for my mother at the doctor's. I really laughed out loud!

[all.of.me]

8. lol - i get that, too

i have always looked younger than my age. i was carded for beer when i was 33 (and the drinking age was 18)!

no one can believe i am 51. i am getting younger with age, i think. i sure feel younger and more alive than ever!

[noonwitch]

I'm 40 and I got carded for cigarettes recently

That made me feel good. I guess all that money I've spend on Aveda skin care products has paid off.

I'm not menapousal yet, but have had some cycle changes in the last couple of years. They're not negative developments, on the whole, and my periods are shorter than when I was in my 20s. It's been a gradual thing.

[all.of.me]

14. it is very gradual

when i got my period when my second daughter was 18 months old, they were very irregular, after having been every 26 days for years. that was the start. i was 41.

at 48, they got very erratic - 2 weeks, 3 months, 26 days, whatever. then at 49 i had my first hotflash. periods got more and more erratic with sparse flow, sometimes reduces to spotting! then the hot flashes really took over. they come on hard related to stress. i kid you not.

emotions ran high for a while. it was like the worst pms ever. i never had pms until after second daughter was born.

now at 51, i have not had a period in over a year and a half, hot flashes have diminished, but are still related to stress and high carb intake.

my neighbor is 65 and has a hot flash now and then still.

i don't know when it ends, but you are considered post-menopausal after 13 full moons with no period. that's where i am now.

read susun weed's 'the menopausal years' for information on what your body is doing and how to deal with it herbally or through a regular doctor. it's the most informative book!

[DemBones DemBones]

12. Age at menarche has a correlation with age at menopause.

Early menarche generally means late menopause -- how unfair is that?

Yup, it's a man's world, alright.

You ought to repost this in the Women's World Group for more discussion. ;-)

[all.of.me]

16. i got my period at 10

and i'm done with them at 51. i love it.

[Zing Zing Zingbah]

18. What's considered early menarche?

I was 11 when I had my first period.