loretta martinelli asked:
Women have gone a long way far in the two million-year-long evolutionary process, and have turned from food providers into front liners in the 30-year or so feminist striving to reach equal civil rights, to obtain social freedom and financial autonomy. Therefore it is not uncommon to find women in practically all spheres of the workingworld, today in the 21st century.
Yet, women are still a long way from the condition of absolute equality between sexes. Not only do cases of sexual abuse or gender discrimination in the workplace remind us of the difference, but also biology marks that divide.
For example, women’s brains are anatomically smaller than men’s, but they are more densely packed with neurons, while, physiologically, they do not respond in the same way to hormones and brain chemicals, thus making women more prone to depression and sadness than men.
Also female and male immune systems seem to respond with different intensity: women’s defences are stronger and more aggressive, which is why they are more inclined to develop self-immune diseases. These and other factors cannot be disregarded as they constitute the fundamentals of intellectual and emotional activity and govern some of the functioning of the organism.
It is now widely recognised that certain behavioural patterns or emotional responses are reflections and manifestations of underlying biological processes. For example, the way a man and a woman act, feel, think and behave is determined by the chemicals that are around the body in the bloodstream, which are produced in different levels during the different stages of life in both sexes.
The hormones in control of sexual and reproductive life are classified as sex hormones or steroids, namely the female sex hormones oestrogen and progesterone, and the male sex hormone testosterone.
Oestrogen is the hormone which has been most focused on in recent years, and decades of research have shown that it is a staple in a woman’s life: it is present in her body from the outbreak of puberty to the onset of menopause, when the levels plummet dramatically. Besides being essential for a woman’s fertility, it seems a busy body which acts on about every kind of tissue and which all organs bathed in benefit from. Therefore, the shortage of this hormone can deeply affect a woman’s brain activity and other organic functions, as well as mood and emotional responses to the outside world.
Some researchers suggest that oestrogen may provide some protection against dementia and other types of mental disorders, or even memory loss like in Alzheimer’s disease, a major ailment among post-menopausal women. Its activity would consist in encouraging neurons in the brain to grow new nerve extensions. A similar shortage doesn’t seem to occur in men, who continue to produce testosterone until late in their lives, which accounts for slower ageing and longer reproductive capacity.
Hormonal lack or imbalance can be a consistent enemy for women, whether it is the all too common miseries of PMS (Pre-Menstrual Syndrome) or the feared troubles of menopause. Both conditions can affect the quality of a woman’s life, working activity, family and social relationships. If PMS women have to cope with frustrating bouts of irritability or certain forms of depression, menopausal women are even more exposed to risks and have to face problems ranging from milder symptoms like hot flushes and night sweat to more serious ones like bone loss, increased cholesterol levels, heart disease.
Hormonal lack or imbalance can be a consistent enemy for women, whether it is the all too common miseries of PMS (Pre-Menstrual Syndrome) or the feared troubles of menopause. Both conditions can affect the quality of a woman’s life, working activity, family and social relationships. If PMS women have to cope with frustrating bouts of irritability or certain forms of depression, menopausal women are even more exposed to risks and have to face problems ranging from milder symptoms like hot flushes and night sweat to more serious ones like bone loss, increased cholesterol levels, heart disease.
According to an increasing number of researchers and medical consultants, the answer to these problems could be HRT /Hormone Replacement Therapy), which consists in replacing the reduced levels with oestrogen supplements. However, oestrogen therapies are controversial because if, on one hand, they protect against heart disease, bone thinning and other conditions, on the other they promote the growth of many breast tumours, increasing as much as 40% the risk of developing breast or uterine cancer. In particular, women with a family history of breast cancer should take these data into absolute account.
Other findings show that it is actually not oestrogen that benefits come from, but progesterone, which is helpful for a wide range of PMS and menopause-related symptoms. What’s more, it seems to protect against uterine and breast cancer and helps rebuild the bone lost in osteoporosis, a major hindrance for most women. In addition to this, it is believed that a high percentage of MPS sufferers have too much oestrogen in their bodies compared to progesterone. This might explain why MPS is experienced by many as a state of “heightened activity, intellectual clarity and feelings of well-being”, since at this stage of the menstrual cycle there is an increased production of progesterone.
These and other findings might not cast much light on this complicated and controversial issue, but sooner or later every woman will have to face the problem and evaluate the drawbacks and the advantages of hormone therapies on their life quality. Therefore, it should be the doctor’s responsibility to evaluate the woman’s physical and medical conditions as well as her family history to see if the benefits outweigh the risks.
Sean
and am 51. But still the hot flashes are awful if I go off the HRT. I have been told by my Dr. that any “natural” remedies will do the same harm. I am on the lowest dose possible already. Thanks for any info.