Menopause, local biologies, and cultures of aging
Menopause, local biologies, and cultures of aging
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DOI：
10.1002/ajhb.1081
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发表时间：
2001-07-01
影响因子：
2.9
通讯作者：
Kaufert, P
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Lock, M;Kaufert, P
更年期标志着月经的结束，曾经被普遍认为是女性生殖生命的结束。然而，目前的医学观点认为更年期是一种病理事件，有其独特的症状和疾病。研究人员称，女性患心脏病、骨质疏松症、中风和老年痴呆症的风险急剧增加，这一切都是由于激素水平变化的影响，特别是雌激素的下降。临床文献解释了这些发现，认为无论绝经期妇女是否具有任何其他生理、社会或文化特征，都绝对有必要更换这些丢失的激素。利用在日本，加拿大和美国进行的研究，本文通过显示绝经期报告的症状和绝经后疾病概况从一个研究人群到下一个研究人群都不同，对普遍绝经的概念提出了挑战。对于医学文献中通常与更年期相关的大多数症状，日本女性的发病率远低于美国和加拿大女性，尽管它们与泰国和中国的研究报告的发病率相当。来自这些社会的死亡率和发病率数据表明，绝经后妇女患心脏病、乳腺癌或骨质疏松症的风险也不相等。该文件认为，重要的不是普遍性，而是从“地方生物学”的角度进行思考，因为“地方生物学”反映了不同社会妇女生活的非常不同的社会和物质条件。(C)2001 Wiley-Liss，Inc.
Menopause marks the end of menstruation, once generally accepted as the closure of women's reproductive lives. The current medical view of menopause, however, is as a pathological event with its own distinct set of symptoms and diseases. Researchers have described women as facing a dramatic increase in the risk of heart disease, osteoporosis, stroke, and Alzheimer's, all as the result of the impact of changing hormone levels, particularly the decline in estrogen. The clinical literature has interpreted these findings in terms of the absolute necessity of replacing these lost hormones for all women who are menopausal regardless of any other physiological, social, or cultural characteristic they might possess. Using research done in Japan, Canada, and the United States, this paper challenges the notion of a universal menopause by showing that both the symptoms reported at menopause and the post-menopause disease profiles vary from one study population to the next. For most of the symptoms commonly associated with menopause in the medical literature, rates are much lower for Japanese women than for women in the United States and Canada, although they are comparable to rates reported from studies in Thailand and China. Mortality and morbidity data from these same societies are used to show that post-menopausal women are also not equally at risk for heart disease, breast cancer, or osteoporosis. Rather than universality, the paper suggests that it is important to think in terms of "local biologies", which reflect the very different social and physical conditions of women's lives from one society to another. (C) 2001 Wiley-Liss, Inc.