from Physicians' Guides to Healing: Treating Gynecological Conditions 

Note: The information on this website is not a substitute for the advice of & treatment by a qualified professional.

Commonly called the “change of life” (the correct term for the period before cessation of menstruation is perimenopause or climacteric), menopause refers to the time in a woman’s life when the ovaries begin to produce smaller amounts of the female hormones, estrogen and progesterone, resulting in physical and emotional changes. Menopause is not a disease or even a dysfunction, but rather a part of the natural aging process. Because it is usually accompanied by uncomfortable “signals,” it is most often looked upon as a problem instead of a process.

Depending on their diet, health, and country of origin, women become menopausal at different ages. Medically, menopause is said to have occurred when the ovaries stop producing eggs and menstruation ceases for at least one year. While this can occur anywhere between the ages of thirty-five and sixty, natural menopause occurs among 50 percent of women between the ages of forty-seven and fifty-two, most frequently between forty-five and fifty-four. Women who smoke generally go through menopause a few years earlier than nonsmokers, as smoking causes a decrease in ovarian estrogen. Early menopause also occurs when both ovaries are removed surgically.

From the book "Women's Health Alert" by Sydney Wolfe, M.D., Rhoda Donkin Jones and the Public Citizen Health Research Group:

… About half of all women are on a diet, far more than the number who are overweight.

… 13 million American women are using the birth control pill with more than 100,000 getting a pill which is too strong. Millions are unaware of the new studies linking long term use of the pill to an increased risk of breast cancer in women under the age of 45.

… At least 10 million postmenopausal American women have been prescribed long term hormone replacement therapy to prevent osteoporosis or heart disease, even though many of these women are not at high risk for either of these diseases. Many women are unaware of the increasingly clear evidence that long term use of these drugs causes a 50-100 percent increase in breast cancer.

… 20 million American women have had a hysterectomy, with 600,000 new ones each year. At that rate, one in three women will lose their uteruses by age 60 with more than a quarter of these operations unnecessary.