Menopause and Perimenopause - Cause
Natural and expected hormone changes cause perimenopause, menopause, and postmenopause.
Perimenopause
As you age, your body begins the natural sequence of changes that eventually bring an end to your menstrual cycle (menopause). The number and quality of your eggs decline, hormone levels fluctuate, and your menstrual cycle becomes less predictable. This time of unpredictable change is called perimenopause.
Hormone Therapy for Menopause and Perimenopause
By Francesca ColtreraYour need-to-know guide to today's hormone therapy -- what's safe, what's new, what's right for you Not long ago, a friend told me about a coffee date she’d had with a 50-something former office mate, Susan. As the two women were sipping their lattes and catching up on each other’s lives, Susan nervously glanced around the coffee shop, then leaned across the table and confided in a low voice, “I’m taking estrogen.” So it’s come to this. Whereas women once chatted openly...
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Menopause and postmenopause
After a few years of fluctuating hormones, your estrogen and progesterone levels begin to decline. When your estrogen drops past a certain point, your menstrual cycle and your ability to become pregnant end. After 1 year with no menstrual bleeding, you reach menopause and begin postmenopause.
A year or more into postmenopause, estrogen levels typically even out at a low level. Since estrogen also plays a role in other functions of your body, its decline has far-reaching effects, including faster bone loss and drying and thinning of the skin and the vaginal and urinary tracts.
Menopause can be caused suddenly and prematurely by surgical removal of the ovaries (oophorectomy), by chemotherapy, or by radiation therapy to the abdomen or pelvis.
Causes of early menopause
Your body has its own time line for when menopause will start and how long it will last. In fact, it's likely that your time line will be much like your mother's was. But certain lifestyle choices and medical treatments can cause or are linked to an earlier menopause, including:
- Smoking. On average, women who smoke reach menopause 1½ years earlier than those who don't. The longer you have smoked and the more you smoke, the stronger this effect is likely to be.2
- Radiation therapy to or removal of the pituitary gland.
- Chemotherapy.
- Radiation therapy or other treatment to the abdomen or pelvis that damages the ovaries so that they no longer function.
- Genetic and autoimmune diseases.
- Removal of both ovaries (oophorectomy), which causes sudden menopause.
- Living at high altitudes.2
- A vegetarian diet.2
- Low body fat (body mass index of 25 or less).
WebMD Medical Reference from Healthwise
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