Cessation of reproduction: an analytic view of menopause.
While there is evidence for genetic control of ovarian and follicular development, only recently have reports appeared on genetic components involved in ovarian failure. Unlike predictions of a stable population, age at menarche is decreasing, while female life span is increasing. This leads to examination of genotype-environment interactions. Evolution of the large human brain size has been accompanied by a reduction in size of the gastrointestinal tract. Consequences, in terms of altered diet and effects on menarche/menstruation/menopause were discussed. In the earliest days of human evolution, genotoxic agents and marginal diets could have produced heritable changes in cessation of menstruation. Toxic alterations may still be apparent, such as epidemiological studies on the effects of smoking on age at menopause. Attempts to reconstruct some of the recent past history, from coprolites to findings in frozen human specimens, have to be extended still further into the past.
Division of Nuclear Medicine, Department of Diagnostic Imaging and Therapeutics, University of Connecticut Health Center, Farmington, 06030-2804, USA. rspencer@adp.uchc.edu
Richard P
RP
Spencer
D004777:Environment; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008593:Menopause / Q000502:physiology*; D012098:Reproduction / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*