Demystifying Menopause
An estimated 40 million U.S. women will experience menopause during the next 20 years. 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.
What is 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 three to five years before the final menstrual period. This transitional phase is called the climacteric, or perimenopause.
For most women perimenopause will last two or three years, though for some it lasts as long as 10 or 12 years. Also, the physical changes experienced while going through perimenopause are usually more severe and intense than what is experienced later during menopause.
Menopause is considered complete when a woman has been without periods for one year. On average, this occurs at about age 51. But like the beginning of menstruation in adolescence, timing varies from person to person. Cigarette smokers tend to reach menopause earlier than nonsmokers.
Menopause is a normal part of life. It is one step in a long, slow process of reproductive aging. For most women this process begins silently somewhere around age 40 when periods may start to be less regular. Declining levels of the hormones estrogen and progesterone cause changes in your periods. These hormones are important for keeping the vagina and uterus healthy as well as for normal menstrual cycles and for successful pregnancy. Estrogen also helps to keep bones healthy. It helps women keep good cholesterol levels in their blood.
Some types of surgery can bring on menopause. For instance, removal of your uterus (hysterectomy) will make your periods stop. When both ovaries are removed (oophorectomy), menopause symptoms may start right away, no matter what your age.
Menopause is an individualized experience. Some women notice little difference in their bodies or moods, while others find the change extremely bothersome and disruptive. This is because estrogen and progesterone affect virtually all tissues in the body, but everyone is influenced by them differently.
Menopausal terms:
Menopause: The end of menstruation, after 12 consecutive months without a period or when ovaries are damaged or removed.
Perimenopause: The period immediately prior to menopause when changes begin, plus the year after menopause. The transitional phase may be up to six or more years.
Induced menopause: When menopause is immediate, caused by a medical or surgical procedure that removes or damages both ovaries.
Natural menopause: Also known as spontaneous menopause, occurring naturally, not as in the case of induced menopause.
Premature menopause: When menopause occurs in women younger than 40 years of age.
Postmenopause: All the years after menopause.
Menopausal transition: When menstrual cycles start to change because of hormonal changes. The average age that menopausal transition begins is 47-1/2.
Learn more about the symptoms of menopause from Dr. Patricia Dolhun, M.D., an obstetrician/gynecologist at Columbia St. Mary's
Source: The National Institutes of Health
