On Wed, 7 Feb 2001 20:54:35 -0500 Richard Geller <[log in to unmask]>
writes:
> > Ardeith wrote:
> > Menopause is the next big money maker for the drug companies....

Richard wrote:
> First of all, HRT does not necessarily enrich the drug companies.
> You can take natural progesterone, for instance, and this has no patent
on
> it and is in no way proprietary.

Ardeith writes:
Beg to differ.....the doctors are not prescribing natural
progesterone......they are prescribing "artificial" hormonal
replacements that have no place in the healthy human
female body.   The natural progesterone you cite is
no more "natural" to the healthy human female body than
is the "artificial" therapy created from mares' urine.  And
such "natural" hormonal therapies, such as wild yam,
were not available to the females of our species all over
the world....just in some areas.

Richard wrote:
> Second, I think a lot of women do need HRT in the form of natural
> hormone progesterone. It keeps them from being too moody and depressed
> (important), it prevents osteoporosis, and has a lot of other benefits
(helps
> promote healthy sleep patterns for instance).

Ardeith writes:
Read my virtual "lips".....*a healthy human female body* ....
there is nothing "un-natural" about menopause....it is not
a disease or a mal-function of the body.....it is a change
women are going to pass through with or without the aid or
approval of the medical establishment....or the drug
companies......but they are not about to let this opportunity
to cash in slip away.    They go all out of their way to
scare women into believing they must take the medicine.

Richard wrote:
> Nature never "intended" for women to be comfortable post-menopause.
> After reproductive utility is over, nature intended perhaps for women
to
> get old and die.

Todd wrote:
Humans are the only primates that experience menopause, and in
fact menopause is rare throughout the entire animal kingdom.

Ardeith writes:
Now, why on Earth shouldn't a woman be comfortable post-
menopause?   She is free of the possibility of pregnancy,
she has probably raised her children and can take on more
responsibility for her clan/tribe.....in many cultures these
older women sit on clan and tribal councils and their words
are respected.  In cultures where a female's only value
is her ability to bear children, of course they become
depressed when that time ends....they are facing a life
of no value or worth.   Wouldn't you become depressed
if your only value was your ability to impregnate females,
and then you lost that ability?

And Todd is also correct.....human females
are the only mammals that experience menopause.  The
rest of the female mammals keep going into estrus and
bearing young their whole lives......when old age creeps
up on them, they usually live long enough to raise the
last pup or calve or kit.....then perish.    It seems that
only among humans does the female have the possiblity
of living for many years past her fertility.   And that may
have evolved as a survival mechanism for our species....
for once a female's own young are raised, she is available
to put her energy into helping her daughters or other
young females raise their own young.

Yes, there are some women who experience extreme
mental/emotional turmoil during menopause....and there
are some tiny bird-boned women who develop osteoporosis
and other problems......but they are the few.....the vast
majority of women, throughout history, have successfully
made this change without artificial aids.    Just as the vast
majority of women gave birth without the modern medical
establishment.    It is the work of the doctors to convince
otherwise healthy women that they need all sorts of
medical intervention to have babies or pass through
menopause.   Yes, I know people who wouldn't be
alive today without medical intervention at their births,
but they are the rarity, not the norm.

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