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| Menopause is the result of
chemical changes and hormone imbalance. Your body requires a
full complement of essential elements to gracefully go through
this transition. Commercial Farming and natural erosion has
depleted global farmlands of most essential elements therefore it
is not wise to assume that your diet contains enough of these
elements for normal body function and maintenance. See
Senate Document 264.
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Menopause
| I
wasn't sure what to expect with menopause, although I certainly
looked forward to not having my period anymore. I have to admit,
I'm concerned about how my body will change. My mother never
talked about menopause. She says her mother never did either,
probably because then it was linked to old age and poor health.
Now, you hear about it all the time. The "baby boom"
generation is making menopause a big issue because of their
sheer numbers, and because they'll live with it much longer than
their grandmothers did. Back then, menopause did come near the
end of life. Now I'm going through it, but I feel like I still
have my whole life ahead of me. |
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More than
one third of the women in the United States, about 36 million,
have been through menopause. With a life expectancy of about 81
years, a 50-year-old woman can expect to live more than one
third of her life after menopause. Scientific research is just
beginning to address some of the unanswered questions about
these years and about the poorly understood biology of
menopause.
Menopause is the point in a woman's life when
menstruation stops permanently, signifying the end of her
ability to have children. Known as the "change of
life," menopause is the last stage of a gradual biological
process in which the ovaries reduce their production of female
sex hormones--a process which begins about 3 to 5 years before
the final menstrual period. This transitional phase is called
the climacteric, or perimenopause. Menopause is considered
complete when a woman has been without periods for 1 year. On
average, this occurs at about age 50. But like the beginning of
menstruation in adolescence, timing varies from person to
person. Cigarette smokers tend to reach menopause earlier than
nonsmokers.
| The
Female Reproductive System |
| Before
menopause (left): The detail of the ovary shows
the release of the egg into the fallopian tube. |
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After
menopause (right): Notice thinning and shrinking
of tissues from decreased estrogen and progesterone
production. |
| Source:
W.Utian and R.Jacobowitz, Managing Your Menopause, New
York: Prentice Hall Press/Simon & Shuster, 1990,
p.26.
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The
Whole Story