Not Ready To Say Goobye To Fertility: Can You Delay The Menopause?

Mood swings, hot flashes, vaginal dryness, loss of libido, thinning hair, dry skin, weight gain, insomnia, night sweats — not a set of symptoms anyone is likely to look forward to, right? If you're female, it will inevitably catch up with you at some point though, that menopause. (On the upside, the severity of symptoms varies from woman to woman and you may just get off lightly, plus, well, menstruation will be a thing of the past. That's a good thing, unless of course you want to get pregnant.)

Premature Menopause

"Premature menopause" is popularly defined as "entering the menopause before age 40". However, reality is slightly more complex — what these women experience isn't simply the same menopause other women typically experience later on in life, but earlier.

Though premature ovarian insufficiency typically halts periods and leads to severely altered hormonal patterns, some ovarian functionality can absolutely be retained, and women who have primary ovarian insufficiency do indeed get pregnant sometimes. Ovarian insufficiency is, in fact, not a single condition but an umbrella of different conditions, the most severe of which is premature ovarian failure, which does cause permanent infertility along with a permanent cessation of periods.

Women under the age of 40 who are experiencing the full range of typical perimenopause symptoms (as mentioned above) should consult their healthcare providers to begin finding out what is going on — but so should those who are noticing a more limited symptomatic spectrum, including irregular periods and not infertility in those trying to conceive.

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So, what causes a premature menopause? As it turns out, a rather wide range of things. We can differentiate between induced and spontaneous causes, and these causes include:

• Undergoing a bilateral oophorectomy, an operation to remove both of the ovaries, will cause a state of menopause overnight. Such surgeries are sometimes necessary because of the confirmed presence of disease, but some women who carry the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, including famously Angelina Jolie, also opt for an elective double oophorectomy to reduce their risk of reproductive cancers. These women will stop having periods, their estrogen and estradiol levels go down rapidly, and they are very likely to begin experiencing such menopause symptoms as hot flashes and vaginal dryness rather quickly
• Pelvic radiation therapy and chemotherapy can lead to premature ovarian failure, as a result of damage to the ovaries, as well. In these cases, the process may be either gradual or more immediate.
• A premature menopause can also be the result of chromosomal abnormalities, diseases such as Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, and autoimmune diseases.
• Then, there is a strong genetic component: if your female relatives entered the menopause before age 40, you are more likely to encounter premature menopause yourself.
• Transmen who have spent a considerable time on testosterone and then cease to take it may also enter a state akin to the menopause, in which they will not have periods and experience menopause symptoms.

Is It Possible To Delay The Menopause?

Can You Predict When You'll Enter The Menopause?

While going through the perimenopause and then entering the menopause at any point after age 40 is not considered "premature menopause", a great many women in their early to mid forties would prefer to delay the menopause rather a few years, as they are hoping to have babies and just plain not ready for a new stage of life yet. Can you adequately predict when you'll enter the menopause, then?

The answer, of course, is "not quite", but a few factors give you some idea as to when you are most likely to hit this stage. These factors include:

• The age at which your female relatives, and particularly close female relatives like your mother and sisters, entered the menopause offers a great clue: you're likely to follow the same general pattern they did.
• Your ethnicity plays a role too. Hispanic and African women generally enter the menopause earlier than Caucasian women, who in turn tend to be earlier than Asian women.
• Women who underwent chemotherapy are likely to enter the menopause earlier than other women, even in cases where they were not affected by premature ovarian insufficiency or failure. This also holds true for women who underwent multiple ovarian surgeries.

What If You Want To Delay The Menopause?

So, you want to preserve your fertility and delay the menopause for as long as possible, whether we're talking about premature menopause or "regular" menopause?  You can't change your genetic lineage, or actively prevent the medical conditions that lead to an early menopause, or change your ethnicity, after all!

Saucepans (Don't) Cause Early Menopause

It was all over the news a few years back: chemicals contained in non-stick saucepans and food packaging, including saran wrap, can bring the menopause back years. Is this really true? Well, in a sense. The perfluorocarbons (PFCs) that can be found in these items were indeed linked to premature hormonal disruptions. The study in question analyzed women from the United States whose tap water could have been saturated with PFCs, however, rather than people using old saucepans.

Though experts, including those speaking on behalf of the British National Health Service, make it clear that they believe the general public is highly unlikely to be exposed to such levels of these chemicals as to bring back the menopause, those women whose quality of life isn't affected by not using non-stick saucepans are certainly free to throw them out!

Changing Your Diet

If you have been looking around for ways to delay the menopause, you'll doubtless have come across two very clear bits of advice: consume large amounts of foods with phytoestrogens (such as soy), and eat fish regularly. Because existing studies came to inconsistent conclusions, however, these bits of advice can't be claimed to be fool-proof by any stretch of the imagination.

Likewise, there is some evidence that women with higher caloric intakes (particularly those who also exercise regularly) tend to go through menopause later in life than those on low-calorie diets, but more research is needed to explore the relationship between BMI and the age at which women enter the menopause.

READ Perimenopause Problems: Depression, Bleeding and Weight Control

The Bad Stuff: Alcohol And Smoking

If you've been smoking for a long time and also drink alcohol on a regular basis, you may bring your menopause forward by as much as two years! The relationship between alcohol and smoking and the age at which you will enter menopause exists — much more clearly than the relationship between diet and menopause, or saucepans and menopause. If you want to delay the age at which you enter the menopause, not smoking and drinking alcohol in moderation or not at all represents the most proactive step you can take. On the other hand, regular tea drinkers tend to enter the menopause slightly later.