Two other common health problems can start to happen at menopause, and you might not even notice.
* Osteoporosis. Day in and day out your body is busy breaking down old bone and replacing it with new healthy bone. Estrogen helps control bone loss. So losing estrogen around the time of menopause causes women to begin to lose more bone than is replaced. In time, bones can become weak and break easily. This condition is called osteoporosis.
* Heart disease. After menopause, women are more likely to have heart disease. Changes in estrogen levels may be part of the cause. But, so is getting older. As you age, you may develop other problems, like high blood pressure or weight gain, which put you at greater risk for heart disease.
Source: Office on Women’s Health in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Menopause is only one of several stages in the reproductive life of a woman. The whole menopause transition is divided into four main stages known as:
1. Premenopause — refers to the entirety of a woman’s life from her first to her last regular menstrual period. It is best defined as a time of “normal” reproductive function in a woman.
2. Perimenopause — means “around menopause” and is a transitional stage of two to ten years before complete cessation of the menstrual period and is usually experienced by women from 35 to 50 years of age. This stage of menopause is characterized by hormone fluctuations, which cause the typical menopause symptoms, such as hot flashes.
3. Menopause — represents the end stage of a natural transition in a woman’s reproductive life. Menopause is the point at which estrogen and progesterone production decreases permanently to very low levels. The ovaries stop producing eggs and a woman is no longer able to get pregnant naturally.
4. Postmenopause — refers to a woman’s time of life after menopause has occurred. It is generally believed that the postmenopausal phase begins when 12 full months have passed since the last menstrual period. From here a woman will be postmenopausal for the rest of her life.
Some women go through menopause before the age of 40. This is called premature menopause. It can happen naturally or as a result of certain medical treatments.
Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
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