Menopause is self-inflicted

[Tessa K]

Who knew?

TRUE TRUE TRUE

Menopause isn't some internal, age related, predestined shedding of all things fertile & good.

It's a response to a lifetime of bad diet choices, toxic habits & big medicine drug accumulation that's producing symptoms, that get called MENOPAUSE

https://twitter.com/RogerBezanis/status ... 5408827393

His profile says:

Whole Food Raw Foodism Founder, Diagnostic Face Reading* & Health Expert, Author, Educator, I'm not a doctor, I teach them & define the rules of health today

So how does he account for menopause in pre-industrial societies both now and for almost all of human history?

And as a woman of a certain age, I say f.ck the f.ck off, you patriarchal bully. Or is that just my crazy hormones talking?

Yes, he's just one nutter among very many but menopause is still a taboo subject for most people, woman have long been taught to hide it from men and this sort of shite really doesn't help.

*WTAF?

[Boustrophedon]

I bet it was a man who gave it its name.

[Grumble]

Anything bad that happens to anyone is their own fault, but especially women.

[Martin_B]

Anything bad that happens to anyone is their own fault, but especially women.

Slight correction: "Anything bad which happens to them is their own own fault, but especially women; anything bad which happens to me is someone else's fault, most probably women's."

[jimbob]

Who knew?

TRUE TRUE TRUE

Menopause isn't some internal, age related, predestined shedding of all things fertile & good.

It's a response to a lifetime of bad diet choices, toxic habits & big medicine drug accumulation that's producing symptoms, that get called MENOPAUSE

https://twitter.com/RogerBezanis/status ... 5408827393

His profile says:

Whole Food Raw Foodism Founder, Diagnostic Face Reading* & Health Expert, Author, Educator, I'm not a doctor, I teach them & define the rules of health today

So how does he account for menopause in pre-industrial societies both now and for almost all of human history?

And as a woman of a certain age, I say f.ck the f.ck off, you patriarchal bully. Or is that just my crazy hormones talking?

Yes, he's just one nutter among very many but menopause is still a taboo subject for most people, woman have long been taught to hide it from men and this sort of shite really doesn't help.

*WTAF?

His entire Twitter timeline is full of multiple dangerous misinformation. Mostly medical but leavened with some MAGA nuttery for added "joy".

And he has 400k followers.

[FlammableFlower]

Wow... that is just something else.

[Tessa K]

I also fumed at 'all things fertile and good'. This is part of the view that non-reproductive women are redundant.

If we didn't have menopause, we'd be fertile all our lives. Having a baby at 40 is demanding enough physically, but getting pregnant at 80?

Meanwhile, incel-related violence is increasing. The two things aren't unrelated - hatred and bullying of women.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyl ... eat-canada

It is causing me physical pain to type this. I cut my finger on one of my flatmate's beer cans as I was putting it out for recycling. Men are evil.

[Blackcountryboy]

What would people be believing if we hadn't had 140 years compulsory free education?

[Tessa K]

Any volunteers?

In 1930s people started describing it as a deficiency disease. Consequently, various replenishment therapies were advocated eg. testicular juice, crushed ovaries of animals.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15981376/

[Grumble]

Any volunteers?

In 1930s people started describing it as a deficiency disease. Consequently, various replenishment therapies were advocated eg. testicular juice, crushed ovaries of animals.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15981376/

I’m not sure it’s a good cause, but I’m flattered to be asked to donate testicular juice.

[Tessa K]

Any volunteers?

In 1930s people started describing it as a deficiency disease. Consequently, various replenishment therapies were advocated eg. testicular juice, crushed ovaries of animals.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15981376/

I’m not sure it’s a good cause, but I’m flattered to be asked to donate testicular juice.

... which is produced in the same way as grape juice, by crushing ...

[malbui]

Any volunteers?

In 1930s people started describing it as a deficiency disease. Consequently, various replenishment therapies were advocated eg. testicular juice, crushed ovaries of animals.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15981376/

I’m not sure it’s a good cause, but I’m flattered to be asked to donate testicular juice.

For most of my life, my offers to donate testicular juice have been met by refusal, revulsion, or restraining orders.

[Martin Y]

... which is produced in the same way as grape juice, by crushing ...

<pause> Still, it's nice to be asked.

[Tessa K]

One of the arguments for the redundancy of post menopausal women in the modern era is that in the olden days we didn't live that long. By chance today I saw this excellent piece on the myth of short life expectancy in the mediaeval period. I know that's not so long ago in evolutionary terms but it does explain the current thinking by some people that older women just shouldn't be here. It's also a very entertaining read with bonus dancing skeleton pics.

https://going-medieval.com/2021/03/04/o ... mplacency/

[Fishnut]

One of the arguments for the redundancy of post menopausal women in the modern era is that in the olden days we didn't live that long. By chance today I saw this excellent piece on the myth of short life expectancy in the mediaeval period. I know that's not so long ago in evolutionary terms but it does explain the current thinking by some people that older women just shouldn't be here. It's also a very entertaining read with bonus dancing skeleton pics.

https://going-medieval.com/2021/03/04/o ... mplacency/

I love Going Medieval, such a great blog.

The misunderstanding over "average life expectancy" is so pervasive I can't help but think we need another way of measuring it.

[jimbob]

One of the arguments for the redundancy of post menopausal women in the modern era is that in the olden days we didn't live that long. By chance today I saw this excellent piece on the myth of short life expectancy in the mediaeval period. I know that's not so long ago in evolutionary terms but it does explain the current thinking by some people that older women just shouldn't be here. It's also a very entertaining read with bonus dancing skeleton pics.


https://going-medieval.com/2021/03/04/o ... mplacency/

https://www.pnas.org/content/116/52/26669

Significance
Why humans and some species of whales go through menopause remains an evolutionary puzzle. In humans, postreproductive females gain genetic benefits by helping family members—particularly increasing their number of surviving grandoffspring. The extent to which these grandmother benefits are important in the evolution of menopause in whales remains unclear. Here, we test the grandmother effect in resident killer whales, where females can live for decades after their last reproductive event. We show that grandmothers increase the survival of their grandoffspring, and these effects are greatest when grandmothers are no longer reproducing. These findings can help explain why killer whales have evolved the longest postreproductive life span of all nonhuman animals.

Given that knowledge is important to killer whale reproductive success, it makes sense to me that it could be better for grandmothers to help their daughters with their children rather than splitting resources on their own children - especially if the effects of mortality means that children from such an age would be unlikely to survive anyway. I guess it's basically if having children at that age are less than half as likely to survive to reproduce compared to a grandchild with additional help from grandmothers.

[jimbob]

I love Going Medieval, such a great blog.

The misunderstanding over "average life expectancy" is so pervasive I can't help but think we need another way of measuring it.

Testify.

As you know, I've been spending some time on Covid, and so many idiots don't understand the idea of life-expectancy at birth vs life-expectancy at 80.

[shpalman]

Life Expectancy at 65

[Woodchopper]

One of the arguments for the redundancy of post menopausal women in the modern era is that in the olden days we didn't live that long. By chance today I saw this excellent piece on the myth of short life expectancy in the mediaeval period. I know that's not so long ago in evolutionary terms but it does explain the current thinking by some people that older women just shouldn't be here. It's also a very entertaining read with bonus dancing skeleton pics.

https://going-medieval.com/2021/03/04/o ... mplacency/

I don't have time to look up links, but as far as I remember life expectancy of prehistoric humans was longer than in later periods people settle din towns and villages. As far as I remember, hunter gatherers suffer far less contagious disease than farmers.

[jimbob]

One of the arguments for the redundancy of post menopausal women in the modern era is that in the olden days we didn't live that long. By chance today I saw this excellent piece on the myth of short life expectancy in the mediaeval period. I know that's not so long ago in evolutionary terms but it does explain the current thinking by some people that older women just shouldn't be here. It's also a very entertaining read with bonus dancing skeleton pics.

https://going-medieval.com/2021/03/04/o ... mplacency/

I don't have time to look up links, but as far as I remember life expectancy of prehistoric humans was longer than in later periods people settle din towns and villages. As far as I remember, hunter gatherers suffer far less contagious disease than farmers.

less disease but more accidents (IIRC) so a highish death rate that's less dependent on age

[Blackcountryboy]

In the industrial areas during the 1800s conditions were grim and life expectancy low. In 1852 the government sent a public health inspector to Dudley because of the high death rate. After giving information of the age of death in other places including, Sheffield 22 and Liverpool 20 he reported that the average age of death in Dudley was 16; the worst in the country and stated;

“Seven out of every ten persons under 20 years of age died annually...and two thirds of the population died under five years of age and as far as the duration of life, therefore, is concerned, Dudley is the most unhealthy place in the country.”

[Tessa K]

One of the arguments for the redundancy of post menopausal women in the modern era is that in the olden days we didn't live that long. By chance today I saw this excellent piece on the myth of short life expectancy in the mediaeval period. I know that's not so long ago in evolutionary terms but it does explain the current thinking by some people that older women just shouldn't be here. It's also a very entertaining read with bonus dancing skeleton pics.

https://going-medieval.com/2021/03/04/o ... mplacency/

I don't have time to look up links, but as far as I remember life expectancy of prehistoric humans was longer than in later periods people settle din towns and villages. As far as I remember, hunter gatherers suffer far less contagious disease than farmers.

less disease but more accidents (IIRC) so a highish death rate that's less dependent on age

Hunter gatherers had a more diverse diet than early agriculturalists and didn't live in close proximity to animals or middens or poo so they were generally healthier and less disease-prone. Early settlements were disease playgrounds and early cities even more so, right up to fairly recent times. Early industrial cities must really have been dark satanic mills with all the pollution, proximity, lack of sanitation, hygiene etc. It wasn't much better for the urban wealthy. Rural people did hard physical labour but had access to better food, less pollution and less proximity. They were more likely to wear out from hard work.

Of course, maternal death rates were high everywhere so if you were female it was best to be a nun and avoid childbirth altogether.

[bagpuss]

Well, he can just go and f.ck off, can't he?

But yes, on the subject of average life-expectancy, it really is poorly understood. Even though I know this stuff and very much understand about averages and also about the fact that anyone who survived to have a child is well past the whole child mortality thing, and that means that anyone who is a direct ancestor of mine is by definition not going to have died as a child and therefore the average life expectancy among my direct ancestors will be considerably higher than the overall population at any given time, I still experience a hint of surprise every time I find an ancestor who lived more than around 75 years. Even though I know all of that stuff, the idea of people not living to be old in the past is so prevalent that it clearly still affects my judgement to some extent. So it's hardly surprising that for people who don't understand all of that stuff, they're going to have much more firmly held ideas of people not being old in times past.

We definitely need a different way of measuring it. Even if we don't care at all about the attitudes it creates among people, a simple single mean figure just doesn't give a good understanding of what is going on across the population. The distribution matters, not just the mean (or median, or mode)

[jimbob]

Well, he can just go and f.ck off, can't he?

But yes, on the subject of average life-expectancy, it really is poorly understood. Even though I know this stuff and very much understand about averages and also about the fact that anyone who survived to have a child is well past the whole child mortality thing, and that means that anyone who is a direct ancestor of mine is by definition not going to have died as a child and therefore the average life expectancy among my direct ancestors will be considerably higher than the overall population at any given time, I still experience a hint of surprise every time I find an ancestor who lived more than around 75 years. Even though I know all of that stuff, the idea of people not living to be old in the past is so prevalent that it clearly still affects my judgement to some extent. So it's hardly surprising that for people who don't understand all of that stuff, they're going to have much more firmly held ideas of people not being old in times past.

We definitely need a different way of measuring it. Even if we don't care at all about the attitudes it creates among people, a simple single mean figure just doesn't give a good understanding of what is going on across the population. The distribution matters, not just the mean (or median, or mode)

When I want a single number at work and I want something comparable, I often use deciles or quartiles. The 75th centile would probably be surprisingly high throughout much of history.

[bagpuss]

Well, he can just go and f.ck off, can't he?

But yes, on the subject of average life-expectancy, it really is poorly understood. Even though I know this stuff and very much understand about averages and also about the fact that anyone who survived to have a child is well past the whole child mortality thing, and that means that anyone who is a direct ancestor of mine is by definition not going to have died as a child and therefore the average life expectancy among my direct ancestors will be considerably higher than the overall population at any given time, I still experience a hint of surprise every time I find an ancestor who lived more than around 75 years. Even though I know all of that stuff, the idea of people not living to be old in the past is so prevalent that it clearly still affects my judgement to some extent. So it's hardly surprising that for people who don't understand all of that stuff, they're going to have much more firmly held ideas of people not being old in times past.

We definitely need a different way of measuring it. Even if we don't care at all about the attitudes it creates among people, a simple single mean figure just doesn't give a good understanding of what is going on across the population. The distribution matters, not just the mean (or median, or mode)

When I want a single number at work and I want something comparable, I often use deciles or quartiles. The 75th centile would probably be surprisingly high throughout much of history.

Yes, I was thinking something like a 75th or 80th or even 90th centile would give a better idea.

I need to go through and "kill off" (ie, find dates of death and/or burial of) all of my ancestors' siblings so I can do some analysis to see how the age at death distribution has changed over time. I've got enough branches back far enough that there'd be a big enough data set to do something with. I mean, it wouldn't be representative of the whole population, as my ancestors were all rural - the biggest places any of them lived were small market towns - and there wouldn't be many people in the data set in the 20th century, but it would still be interesting. And since I'm not getting anywhere much with going any further back on my direct branches, it's something to do