A Clear Signal on Estrogen

摘要

At the turn of the century a newborn girl in the United States had a life expectancy of 51 years. Since that was just a few years longer than her ovaries would function, things worked out pretty neatly: just when their production of estrogen gave out, the rest of her body did, too. But today a woman of 52, the average age of menopause, can expect to live to 82, so her ovaries' estrogen shutdown does matter. A lot. The drop in estrogen can make her skin dry; her pelvic floor may atrophy enough to make her incontinent; her vaginal walls could become thin and her moods swing like an amusement-park ride.