Tighten My Vagina

13 June 2013
Last updated at 21:47 ET

By Caroline Parkinson
Health editor, BBC News website

Younger women ‘chosen over older ones’

Hot flushes, night sweats, mood swings – menopause and its side effects can all be blamed on men, experts suggest.

Evolutionary geneticists from Canada’s McMaster University say men’s tendency to choose younger mates meant fertility became pointless for older women.

In PLOS Computational Biology, they say this eventually led to the menopause.

But a UK expert said that was the “wrong way round” and men chose younger women because older women were less fertile.

‘Preferential mating’

Researchers have long been puzzled as to why it appears that human are the only species where females cannot reproduce throughout their lives.

Previous theories had proposed a “grandmother effect”. This suggests that women lose their fertility at an age where they might not live to see a child grow, and instead are available to care for younger women’s children.

The menopause was therefore seen as the block to older women from continuing to reproduce.

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

I think it makes more sense to see the human male preference for younger females largely as an evolved response to the menopause”

End Quote
Dr Maxwell Burton-Chellew
University of Oxford

But this latest theory suggests things work the other way around, and that it is the lack of reproduction that has given rise to menopause.

Using computer modelling, the team from McMaster’s concluded “preferential mating” was the evolutionary answer – men of all ages choosing younger women as partners.

That meant there was “no purpose” in older women continuing to be fertile.

Prof Rama Singh, an evolutionary geneticist who led the study, said men choosing younger mates were “stacking the odds” against continued fertility.

He told the BBC: “There is evidence in human history; there was always a preference for younger women.”

Prof Singh stressed they were looking at human development many thousands of years ago – rather than current social patterns,

‘Evolved response’

In the UK, the average age for women to go through the menopause is now 52 even though the average woman goes on to live for another 30 years.

Prof Singh said this extended longevity – plus later childbirth – could potentially alter the timing of the menopause, over a significant period of time.

“The social system is changing. There are women who are starting families later, because of education or a career.”

He suggested this trend would mean those women would have a later menopause, and those genes would be passed on to their daughters “with the possibility of menopausal age being delayed”.

However Dr Maxwell Burton-Chellew, an evolutionary biologist in the department of zoology at the University of Oxford, challenged the theory.

“The authors argue that the menopause exists in humans because males have a strong preference for younger females.

“However, this is probably the wrong way round – the human male preference for younger females is likely to be because older females are less fertile.

“I think it makes more sense to see the human male preference for younger females largely as an evolved response to the menopause, and to assume that ancestral males would have been wise to mate with any females that could produce offspring.”

He added: “Evolutionarily-speaking, older females faced an interesting ‘choice’: have a child that may not reach adulthood before your own death, or stop reproducing and instead focus on helping your younger relatives reproduce.”

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Main Category: Menopause
Also Included In: Complementary Medicine / Alternative Medicine
Article Date: 23 Jan 2012 – 8:00 PST

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Women who took pomegranate seed oil pills to relieve symptoms of the menopause, such as hot flashes, were found to receive no significantly better benefits than those who were given a placebo pill which contained sunflower oil, researchers from the Medical University of Vienna wrote in the journal Menopause. The authors added that theirs is the first (albeit small) proper clinical trial to test pomegranate seed oil for the symptoms of menopause.

The researchers explained that more than four in every five females experience hot flashes during the menopause.

Hot flashes refers to a sudden wave of body heat rushes of hormonal changes that occur in a woman – her levels of various hormones, particularly estrogen, decrease. These flashes can occur at any time of day, and can go on from just a few seconds to about thirty minutes. They occur because the blood vessels dilate and constrict. The woman has a sensation of warmth (flushing), which spreads to various parts of her body – it is usually followed by sweating, an accelerated heartbeat, and a feeling of anxiety. These symptoms usually appear when the female is in her forties, and may come and go for up to ten years. As time goes by, they occur less frequently. Experts say hot flashes are due to fluctuating hormone levels, rather than simply low hormone levels.

Lead researcher, Leo Auerbach, said that over a 12-week period pomegranate seed oil does not seem to make any significant difference to menopausal symptoms. However, in order to determine what the long-term effects and/or benefits might be, further studies are required.

Auerbach and colleagues set out to determine what impact pomegranate oil seed might have on 81 females aged between 45 and 60 years; they were all postmenopausal. They had all been experiencing at least five hot flashes per day for over 12 months since their final menstruation.

They were randomly divided into two groups:

• The pomegranate seed oil group – they took two 30-milligram pomegranate seed oil capsules per day for 12 weeks
• The placebo group – they took two identically-looking capsules per day during the 12 weeks. However, the capsules were dummy ones (they had no active ingredient in them)

All the participants’ hormone levels were tested at the beginning and end of the study.

The following findings were reported in the journal:

• The pomegranate seed oil group
  The women had an average of 11.1 hot flashes per day at the start of the 12 weeks
  They had an average of 6.8 hot flashes per day at the end of the 12 weeks – a 39% drop
• The placebo group
  The women had an average of 9.9 hot flashes at the start of the 12 weeks
  They had an average of 7.3 hot flashes per day at the end of the 12 weeks – a 26% drop

Menopausal symptoms tend to respond well to placebos anyway, the authors wrote. They had expected to see a drop in symptoms in both groups (a placebo effect was expected).

They explained that the difference between the two groups does not represent a significant benefit, i.e. a 13% difference is too small.

Hormone levels at the beginning and end of the 12-week period were not statistically different between the two groups, the researchers said.

However, those in the pomegranate group did report considerably better quality sleep.

In an Abstract in the journal, the authors concluded:

“In postmenopausal women, PGS does not significantly reduce hot flashes within a 12-week observation period, but further studies are needed to investigate the long-term effect.”

PEKANA, a German herbal supplement maker and marketer, funded the study and provided the supplements.

The US FDA (Food and Drug Administration) has only approved hormone therapy for the treatment of hot flashes.

Written by Christian Nordqvist

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Originally posted 2012-01-23 18:18:10. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Source: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/240638.php

Did Men’s Yen for Younger Women Cause Menopause?

By Barbara Bronson Gray

HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, June 13 (HealthDay News) — Can women blame men for menopause?

They may have a case, according to new research that suggests it was men’s interest in mating with younger females that gave evolutionary rise to menopause by sidelining older women from reproduction.

Menopause — when a woman stops getting menstrual periods and can’t become pregnant — is unique to humans and its cause is still unknown, explained study author and evolutionary biologist Rama Singh. “We accept as a given the idea that older women tend to be unable to reproduce,” but Singh said this is actually an “evolutionary puzzle.”

It has long been thought that menopause is what causes women, primarily in their early 50s, to stop being able to get pregnant, but the researchers found evidence that things could actually have occurred the other way around. In other words, infertility may have been the cause, not the effect, of menopause in early humans.

There are at least 10 theories of why menopause occurs, according to the researchers, including ideas based on the fact that women are living longer and depleting the number of eggs in their ovaries, to what is called the “grandmother hypothesis.” That idea holds that menopause allows older women to provide childcare that contributes to the survival of their grandchildren, making them more fit or valuable to the human tribe.

But Singh’s research, published online June 13 in the journal PLOS Computational Biology, suggests something altogether new.

“This paper is saying that men have played the major or dominant part in choosing mates,” said Singh, who is a professor of population genetics and evolution at McMaster University, in Canada. “Somewhere along the line in our evolutionary history, males did not mate randomly but preferred young women because they are more attractive.”

Going way back in human history, people reproduced all their lives, explained Singh. While it’s possible that some women may have experienced menopause 30,000 years ago, now 100 percent of women experience it. “Menopause is an evolutionary phenomenon,” he said.

The scientists found that the development of menopause seems to have done nothing to improve the chances of human survival over time, but rather occurred because women of a certain age weren’t finding mates, and thus reproductive ability was unnecessary for them.

Yet Singh pointed out that if women long ago had been the ones choosing younger mates, older men would have been the ones losing their fertility, not women.

The process of natural selection favors the most fit, so women who are most likely to reproduce are protected, explained Singh. Natural selection is the gradual, non-random process through which biological traits become either more or less common, due to the way reproduction occurs, Singh explained.

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• Related Blogs on Did Men’s Yen for Younger Women Cause Menopause?

13 June 2013
Last updated at 21:47 ET

By Caroline Parkinson
Health editor, BBC News website

Younger women ‘chosen over older ones’

Hot flushes, night sweats, mood swings – menopause and its side effects can all be blamed on men, experts suggest.

Evolutionary geneticists from Canada’s McMaster University say men’s tendency to choose younger mates meant fertility became pointless for older women.

In PLOS Computational Biology, they say this eventually led to the menopause.

But a UK expert said that was the “wrong way round” and men chose younger women because older women were less fertile.

‘Preferential mating’

Researchers have long been puzzled as to why it appears that human are the only species where females cannot reproduce throughout their lives.

Previous theories had proposed a “grandmother effect”. This suggests that women lose their fertility at an age where they might not live to see a child grow, and instead are available to care for younger women’s children.

The menopause was therefore seen as the block to older women from continuing to reproduce.

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

I think it makes more sense to see the human male preference for younger females largely as an evolved response to the menopause”

End Quote
Dr Maxwell Burton-Chellew
University of Oxford

But this latest theory suggests things work the other way around, and that it is the lack of reproduction that has given rise to menopause.

Using computer modelling, the team from McMaster’s concluded “preferential mating” was the evolutionary answer – men of all ages choosing younger women as partners.

That meant there was “no purpose” in older women continuing to be fertile.

Prof Rama Singh, an evolutionary geneticist who led the study, said men choosing younger mates were “stacking the odds” against continued fertility.

He told the BBC: “There is evidence in human history; there was always a preference for younger women.”

Prof Singh stressed they were looking at human development many thousands of years ago – rather than current social patterns,

‘Evolved response’

In the UK, the average age for women to go through the menopause is now 52 even though the average woman goes on to live for another 30 years.

Prof Singh said this extended longevity – plus later childbirth – could potentially alter the timing of the menopause, over a significant period of time.

“The social system is changing. There are women who are starting families later, because of education or a career.”

He suggested this trend would mean those women would have a later menopause, and those genes would be passed on to their daughters “with the possibility of menopausal age being delayed”.

However Dr Maxwell Burton-Chellew, an evolutionary biologist in the department of zoology at the University of Oxford, challenged the theory.

“The authors argue that the menopause exists in humans because males have a strong preference for younger females.

“However, this is probably the wrong way round – the human male preference for younger females is likely to be because older females are less fertile.

“I think it makes more sense to see the human male preference for younger females largely as an evolved response to the menopause, and to assume that ancestral males would have been wise to mate with any females that could produce offspring.”

He added: “Evolutionarily-speaking, older females faced an interesting ‘choice’: have a child that may not reach adulthood before your own death, or stop reproducing and instead focus on helping your younger relatives reproduce.”

Main Category: Menopause
Also Included In: Endocrinology
Article Date: 31 May 2012 – 0:00 PDT

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A great deal has been learned in the decade since the first results from the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) were published on July 9, 2002. The WHI was the largest and longest trial of postmenopausal women using hormone therapy (HT). The 27,000 women were prescribed estrogen-alone therapy, estrogen-progestogen therapy, or a placebo for 5 to 7 years, respectively.

Researchers expected to find that hormones prevented chronic conditions of aging in women, including heart disease. Instead, they found that hormones produced a mix of risks and benefits. The subsequent data from the WHI suggest that the risks of HT vary with a woman’s age (safer if started soon after menopause).

To commemorate the 10th anniversary of this landmark trial and its voluminous reporting, the June 2012 issue of Menopause will publish an editorial by JoAnn E. Manson, MD, DrPH, NCMP (NAMS President) and Lubna Pal, MBBS, MRCOG, MSc, NCMP, entitled “The Women’s Health Initiative: An Unforgettable Decade,” along with several other timely articles:

• “Evolution of Postmenopausal Hormone Therapy Between 2002 and 2009″ by Bruce Ettinger, MD, Sharon M. Wang, PharmD, MS, R. Scott Leslie, MPH, et al.
• “A Decade of Postmenopausal Hormone Therapy Prescribing in the United States: Long-Term Effects of the WHI” by Amy Steinkellner, PharmD, Shannon Denison, MA, Sandra Eldridge, PharmD, et al.
• “Hormone Therapy Prescribing Trends in the Decade After the Women’s Health Initiative: How Patients and Providers Have Found a Way to Sleep Better at Night” by Jennifer Corbelli, MD, Rachel Hess, MD, MS (editorial)

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Originally posted 2012-05-31 14:35:30. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Source: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/245982.php

Main Category: Menopause
Also Included In: Sexual Health / STDs
Article Date: 07 Jun 2013 – 0:00 PDT

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A satisfying sex life is an important contributor to older adults’ quality of life, but the sexual pain that can come after menopause can rob women and their partners of that satisfaction. Treatment can help restore it, shows a global survey including some 1,000 middle-aged North American men and women, published online in Menopause, the journal of The North American Menopause Society (NAMS).

Sexual pain at this stage in a woman’s life is usually the result of the typical drying and thinning of tissues in and around the vagina after menopause, called vulvovaginal atrophy (VVA), coupled with a decrease in sexual activity. Vaginal lubricants and moisturizers, vaginal estrogen, and ospemifene, a recently approved oral drug that is a selective estrogen receptor modulator (SERM), can all be used to treat it.

Known as Clarifying Vaginal Atrophy’s Impact on Sex and Relationships (CLOSER), the survey was commissioned by Novo Nordisk, the maker of a vaginal estrogen treatment. It included postmenopausal women volunteers age 55 to 65 who had VVA and their male partners. This part of CLOSER looked at how treatment with vaginal estrogen affected their sex lives.

Before treatment, a majority of these women (58%) said they had been avoiding intimacy because of the pain, and 68% said they had lost their desire because of it. An even higher percentage of the men (78%) thought their partner’s vaginal discomfort caused them to avoid intimacy. About a third of the men and women had stopped having sex altogether.

After treatment, a majority of women and men reported sex was less painful for them and their partner, and more than 40% of the women and men said sex was more satisfying. Twenty-nine percent of the women and 34% of the men said their sex life had improved. Treatment also had a positive impact on the women’s self esteem. About a third felt more optimistic about the future of their sex life, and a similar number felt more connected to their partners.

“There is no need for a woman’s quality of life to decline because of VVA,” said NAMS Executive Director Margery L.S. Gass, MD.

Many women get relief with vaginal lubricants and moisturizers and regular sexual activity or the use of vaginal dilators. Vaginal estrogen, in the form of creams, tablets, or rings, is a common therapy and is appealing for women who cannot or choose not to take oral hormones, since absorption into the bloodstream is minimal. Women who have had breast or uterine cancer are encouraged to discuss the pros and cons of different treatments with their oncologist. The SERM offers an alternative for women who choose not to use any oral or vaginal hormone therapy.

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Source: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/261504.php

Main Category: Menopause
Also Included In: Genetics;  Breast Cancer
Article Date: 24 Jan 2012 – 2:00 PST

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An international team of researchers has discovered 13 new regions of the genome associated with the timing of menopause. These genes shed light on the biological pathways involved in reproductive lifespan and will provide insights into conditions connected to menopause, such as breast cancer and heart disease.

Menopause is a major hormonal change that affects most women when they are in their early 50s. The timing of menopause can have a huge impact on fertility, as well as influencing the risk of a range of common diseases such as breast cancer. It has been known for some time that genetic factors influenced the onset of menopause, however until recently very few genes had been identified.

In the new study, published in the journal Nature Genetics, Dr Anna Murray, University of Exeter, Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry (PCMD) Dr John Perry, PCMD and WTCHG, University of Oxford, and dozens of international collaborators, examined the genomes of over 50,000 women. They identified 13 novel gene regions associated with menopause onset, and confirmed four previously identified. Most of the 17 regions include genes related to DNA damage/repair or the immune system, whilst others are linked to hormonal regulation.

Dr Perry said: “The new findings highlight biological pathways not previously associated with reproductive lifespan, and may provide insights into the other conditions connected with menopause age, such as cardiovascular disease and breast cancer.”

The association with breast cancer is related to the length of time a woman menstruates in total and is thought to be related to oestrogen exposure over a lifetime – in fact earlier menopause is protective for breast cancer. Cardiovascular risk is increased in post-menopausal women compared to pre-menopausal and reduced oestrogen is thought to be a key component of this increased risk. Genetic studies will be beneficial in working out exactly what the relationships are between these conditions.

Dr. Murray added: “Menopause is a process most women go through, yet we know very little about what governs the timing of this key event in a woman’s life. By finding out which genes control the timing of menopause we hope to be able understand why this happens very early to some women, reducing their chances of having children naturally.”

The authors said they expected further research will identify additional genes, and also assess the impact of these genetic regions on related reproductive disorders. The research team are currently investigating women who had very early menopause, before 45 years, to determine whether the new menopause genes play a role in this clinically important condition which affects over five per cent of women.

Besides Dr Murray and Dr Perry, senior authors on the study include Professor Kathryn Lunetta and Dr Joanne Murabito at the Boston University schools of Public Health and Medicine, and Jenny A. Visser, a scientist at Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam (Netherlands).

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Originally posted 2012-01-24 18:25:11. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Source: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/240660.php

Main Category: Menopause
Also Included In: Neurology / Neuroscience;  Psychology / Psychiatry
Article Date: 28 May 2013 – 1:00 PDT

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Don’t doubt it when a woman harried by hot flashes says she’s having a hard time remembering things. A new study published online in Menopause, the journal of The North American Menopause Society (NAMS), helps confirm with objective tests that what these women say about their memory is true.

In the past, some studies showed that hot flashes were related to memory problems, and some didn’t. Other studies showed that, even though there was a relationship between hot flashes and what women said about memory problems, objective tests didn’t confirm it.

That’s why researchers from the University of Illinois and Northwestern University in Chicago gave a battery of eight tests of attention and recall to 68 women age 44 to 62 who had at least 35 hot flashes a week. The women also completed questionnaires about their menopause symptoms, mood, and memory. Women who said they had trouble with memory really did. Also, those who had more trouble with hot flashes did worse on the tests, and women with more hot flashes struggled longer with memory problems than women who had fewer hot flashes. In addition, women who reported more negative emotions did worse on the tests than women who had fewer.

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Source: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/261046.php