Since menopause means that a woman's body is officially beginning to enter the aging period, many people take it for granted that the later menopause, the slower the aging.
According to the survey, the average natural age of menopause in Chinese women is 48.72 years [1].
Therefore, many women who are nearly 50 years old will have the idea of delaying menopause, and even feel fortunate that their menopause is late, thinking that as long as menopause occurs later, aging can come more slowly.
This is not the case.
If the female friend has not been menopausal after the age of 55, do not think that you are aging slowly, because this situation belongs to late menopause, which is caused by the excessive function of the anterior pituitary gland, which is mostly related to the higher level of estrogen in the body.
Delayed menopause increases the risk of malignant tumors such as breast cancer and endometrial cancer.
There are information reports:
For women over the age of menopause over the age of 55, the incidence of breast cancer increases by 50% for each year of delay in the age of menopause.
People with a menstrual history of more than 40 years are 1 times more likely to develop breast cancer than those with a menstrual history of less than 30 years [2].
Therefore, if you are over 55 years old and have not yet menopause, you must go to the hospital in time to ask a doctor to do relevant examinations for yourself.
Also, women experience fluctuations or decreases in sex hormones before and after menopause.
This can lead to a range of physical and mental symptoms, including irregular menstruation, amenorrhea, hot flashes, night sweats, insomnia, dreams, irritability, agitation, dizziness, tinnitus, palpitations, osteoporosis and other symptoms similar to menopause [3].
If menopause makes you very uncomfortable, you can actually go to the hospital for help from a doctor.
Depending on the situation, the doctor will give appropriate countermeasures, such as estrogen supplementation therapy, which can effectively correct the health problems related to hormone deficiencies.
However, it is not recommended to buy estrogen to eat, especially health supplements containing estrogen, because the use of estrogen is not standardized, but it is easy to increase the risk of breast cancer.
Therefore, everyone must take medicine under the guidance of a doctor.
If you have been menopausal and have a second menstrual period, it is not "returning to youth", but may be some disease signals, such as cervical cancer, endometrial cancer, ovarian cancer, fallopian tube cancer and so on.
Postmenopausal uterine bleeding is a symptom and an early signal, and to attract sufficient attention, it is necessary to seek medical examination in time.
Menopause marks the end of a woman's reproductive phase, just as puberty marks the beginning of the fertility phase, usually occurring gradually between the ages of 45 and 55 and ending within 2 to 3 years [4].
Although menopause is a physiological process that every woman must go through in the course of life, the age of menopause is affected by genetics, geography and climate, social pressure, smoking, family and psychological factors, and there are considerable differences between individuals.
From a medical point of view, ovarian function has a period of about 30 years of exuberance, and after the age of 40, it begins to decline, so about 95% of women's menopause occurs before the age of 55 [1].
How is menopause diagnosed?
Menopause is called menopause 12 months after amenorrhea and is already at the age of menopause (over 40 years old), and if menopause is pre-ovarian failure before the age of 40.
If you are less than 40 years old, but have amenorrhea for more than 4 months, you should consider the possibility of premature ovarian failure, and it is recommended to go to the hospital for examination.
At present, there is a trend of rejuvenation in the premature ovarian failure in mainland China, and about 1% of patients have symptoms of premature ovarian failure just after puberty [5].
The occurrence of premature ovarian failure will not only affect women's fertility, but also allow women to bear various discomforts caused by premature menopause in advance.
At the same time, it will also increase the risk of osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer's disease, and tumors, causing greater harm to women's physical and mental health.
Because premature ovarian failure is irreversible, it can only be detected and controlled early, mainly using estrogen and progesterone supplementation therapy to improve symptoms, and then maintaining menopause.
Therefore, Zhimei would like to remind all girls to take good care of themselves, and menstruation is like a barometer of women's physical health.
If you find menstrual abnormalities for more than 3 months, you must seek medical attention as soon as possible to ensure your health.
Reviewer
Liu Haiphong | Deputy Chief Physician of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Huashan Hospital, Fudan University
bibliography
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Liu Wanhua, Comparative Diagnostic Imaging of Breast[M].Southeast University Press, 2017:110.
ZHANG Li. Modern Clinical Obstetrics and Gynecology Nursing[M].Jilin Science and Technology Press,2019:116.
Chen Bingfeng. Diseases and sex hormone replacement therapy in middle-aged and elderly women[M]. Beijing Medical University Press,2002:4.]
Fan Qingbo. The New 3rd Edition[M].China Women's Publishing House, 2018:236-238.
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