Drugs and Perimenopause

In further confirmation that there are physical and psychological differences between men and women the Wall Street Journal briefly explores the efforts by various drug manufacturers to alleviate the emotional  problems with perimenopause, the time before menopause.

The article states that as many as a third of females, usually in their forties, suffer from anxiety, mood swings, depression, hot flashes and night sweats as well as other symptoms during perimenopause. Efforts have been underway at major research institutions like the Center for Women's Mood Disorders at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine to address these issues.

The US National Institute of Health is coordinating research on the subject, some of which involves using drugs ordinarily used for other symptoms.

Ultimately, it must be admitted that perimenopause and menopause are not diseases but unfortunate parts of the process of a woman's life span that can't be entirely eliminated. Just as many males become bald at some point, lose sexual potency and face reduced sight and hearing ability, women undergo physical and emotional changes that are essentially normal. Using drugs to alleviate them might be advantageous but the reality is that it's an indication of an ever-increasing reliance on pharmaceuticals in every aspect of American culture. The use of ritalin and amphetamines to treat ADHD in school children is ethically dubious.

The fact that perimenopause and menopause are the subjects of intense research and study means that these processes are seen as negatives to the class of people affected by them. These people would be women. The negatives would be a loss of effective communication between the afflicted and the rest of their community, a degradation of their effectiveness in business and government, and perhaps a decline in their judgement.

Historically, the overwhelming majority of the world's societies have been patriarchal in nature.  The reason for this is often assumed to be that men are physically more powerful than females and are able to force such a state of affairs. Differing biological changes during the life span of the two sexes hasn't been discussed as much. More research on the subject needs to be done not just to make women feel better but to determine the effectiveness of their role in business and especially government, where now more women are involved in responsible positions than ever before.

  uclife.ca