Menopause and the transmission of women's knowledge: African American and white women's perspectives

Recent menopause literature does not sufficiently explore women's attitudes on the transmission of knowledge about menopause from sources other than biomedical providers. Analysis of 70 interviews with African American and Euro-American women shows that their perceptions of the intergenerational transfer of knowledge about menopause from their mothers shaped their attitudes toward menopause and the health-care technologies surrounding it. African American women who grew up in the segregated South frequently expressed that their mothers provided them with the knowledge and power to negotiate difficulties during the menopausal process, while many middle-class Euro-American women expressed that their mothers did not. Drawing on literature that examines the effects of race, class, and kinship on mother/daughter relationships, this article explores the reasons for this divergence.     

Women's fishing in Oceania

Women's fishing in Oceania has been overlooked in most subsistence studies in the region and, as a consequence, there are few quantitative data available upon which to base an assessment of its importance. However, in the present study, the few data available on women's fishing in Oceania are examined, and these show that women contribute significantly to marine food yields in the region. Also, it is suggested that the highly regular nature of women's fishing makes women more reliable, and therefore more effective than men as suppliers of protein for subsistence. The implications of these findings for future development policies in the region are then discussed.     

Women's attractiveness is linked to expected age at menopause

A great number of studies have shown that features linked to immediate fertility explain a large part of the variance in female attractiveness. This is consistent with an evolutionary perspective, as men are expected to prefer females at the age at which fertility peaks (at least for short‐term relationships) in order to increase their reproductive success. However, for long‐term relationships, a high residual reproductive value (the expected future reproductive output, linked to age at menopause) becomes relevant as well. In that case, young age and late menopause are expected to be preferred by men. However, the extent to which facial features provide cues to the likely age at menopause has never been investigated so far. Here, we show that expected age at menopause is linked to facial attractiveness of young women. As age at menopause is heritable, we used the mother's age at menopause as a proxy for her daughter's expected age of menopause. We found that men judged faces of women with a later expected age at menopause as more attractive than those of women with an earlier expected age at menopause. This result holds when age, cues of immediate fertility and facial ageing were controlled for. Additionally, we found that the expected age at menopause was not correlated with any of the other variables considered (including immediate fertility cues and facial ageing). Our results show the existence of a new correlate of women's facial attractiveness, expected age at menopause, which is independent of immediate fertility cues and facial ageing.     

Comparison of the urinary metabolites of prostacyclin and thromboxane of the 2- and 3-series in a Japanese fishing and a Japanese farming village

We measured PGI2-, PGI3-, and TXA2/3-M (the main urinary metabolites of prostacyclin and thromboxane of the two and three series) in 24-hour urine in a fishing village (21 participants) and a farming village (19 participants) in Japan, expecting to find more PGI3-M in the fishing village than in the farming village. The food consumption for three consecutive days prior to a blood collection was recorded and analyzed for eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) content. Urine was collected for 24 hours prior to the blood sampling. When our studies were performed (April, 1985), catches of fish were the lowest on record around the fishing village, and the consumption of EPA in the fishing village was less than half of that in the farming village. EPA levels in red cell membrane phospholipids were higher in the fishing village than in the farming village. PGI2-, PGI3-, and TXA2/3-M levels were higher in the farming village than in the fishing village. There was a significant correlation between PGI2- and PGI3-M (r=0.80, n=40) and between PGI3-M and the EPA consumption during the day of urine collection (r=0.52, n=40). We conclude that PGI3 production is probably dependent less on the levels of EPA in tissues estimated by the EPA levels in red cell membranes than on the EPA consumption at the moment.     

Women's status and infant mortality in rural Colombia

This paper investigates the effects of maternal demographic characteristics and social and economic statuses on infant mortality in rural Colombia. Demographic characteristics include the age of the mother, parity and length of preceding interbirth interval, and sex of infant. Measures of women's status at the time of birth include education, wage labor and occupation, economic stratum, place of residence, and whether the mother is living with a husband. The life history data for the study (involving 4,928 births) were collected in 1986 from a representative sample of two cohorts of women resident in rural central Colombia. Overall differentials in infant mortality by measures of women's status are small and are in good part associated with the differing reproductive behaviors of the women and variations in breastfeeding practices. The sharp declines in infant mortality recorded in rural Colombia in recent years appear less related to improved status of women than to reductions in fertility that enhance infant survivorship and to public health interventions shared by all segments of the population.     

Cardiovascular risk factors in a tourist town: association with job-related factors

Previous studies have shown that mortality from cardiovascular diseases in fishing villages was lower than that in farming villages. In contrast, few reports on the population living in a tourist village have appeared. Then, we report here the characteristic features of a tourist town, and that in fishing and farming towns. The rural farming town in Gunma prefecture had a population of 15,100. The population working in the primary industry was 17.1%, and the farming population was 17.0%. The fishing town in Shizuoka prefecture had a population of 11,700. The population working in the primary industry was 11.0%, and the fishing population was 10.2%. The rural tourist town in Shizuoka prefecture had a population of 17,800. The population working in the tertiary industry was 60.2%, and the wholesaling or retailing population was 16.6%. Standardized mortality ratios of cardiovascular diseases in the tourist town reported by Shizuoka health officials were higher than the fishing town. The rate of participation at ages of 50-59 years for the basic health examination in the tourist town was lower than the fishing and the farming towns. From the results of the health examination of residents at ages of 50-59 years, the high prevalence of obesity and hypertension in men and high prevalence of hypertension in women were found in the tourist town. In the tourist town, self-employed women at ages of 50-59 years had irregular time of meals and insufficient care of diet in comparison with employed women. Furthermore, the prevalence of hypertension in self-employed women was also higher than that of employed women. We could suggest that health status in communities might be associated with job-related factors.     

Marital coitus across the life course

It remains unclear whether the frequency of marital coitus does in fact decline universally across the life course, what shape that decay normally takes, and what best accounts for it: increasing marriage duration, women's age or age of their partners. Using cross-sectional Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data of 91,744 non-abstaining women in their first marriage, a generalized linear model is used to determine if there is a consistent pattern in the life course pattern of degradation in the frequency of marital coitus. Datasets were drawn from nineteen countries in Asia, Africa and the Americas. Use of very large samples allows proper disentangling of the effects of women's age, husband's age and marital duration, and use of samples from multiple countries allows consideration of the influence of varied prevailing fertility regimes and fertility-related practices on life course trajectories. It is found that declining coital frequency over time seems a shared demographic feature of human populations, but whether marriage duration, wife's age or husband's age is most responsible for that decline varies by country. In many cases, coital frequency actually increases with women's age into their thirties, once husband's age and marriage duration are taken into account, but in most cases coital frequency declines with husband's age and marital duration.     

Cognitive changes across the menopause transition: A longitudinal evaluation of the impact of age and ovarian status on spatial memory

Cognitive changes that occur during mid-life and beyond are linked to both aging and the menopause transition. Studies in women suggest that the age at menopause onset can impact cognitive status later in life; yet, little is known about memory changes that occur during the transitional period to the postmenopausal state. The 4-vinylcyclohexene diepoxide (VCD) model simulates transitional menopause in rodents by depleting the immature ovarian follicle reserve and allowing animals to retain their follicle-deplete ovarian tissue, resulting in a profile similar to the majority of perimenopausal women. Here, Vehicle or VCD treatment was administered to ovary-intact adult and middle-aged Fischer-344 rats to assess the trajectory of cognitive change across time with normal aging and aging with transitional menopause via VCD-induced follicular depletion, as well as to evaluate whether age at the onset of follicular depletion plays a role in cognitive outcomes. Animals experiencing the onset of menopause at a younger age exhibited impaired spatial memory early in the transition to a follicle-deplete state. Additionally, at the mid- and post- follicular depletion time points, VCD-induced follicular depletion amplified an age effect on memory. Overall, these findings suggest that age at the onset of menopause is a critical parameter to consider when evaluating learning and memory across the transition to reproductive senescence. From a translational perspective, this study illustrates how age at menopause onset might impact cognition in menopausal women, and provides insight into time points to explore for the window of opportunity for hormone therapy during the menopause transition period. Hormone therapy during this critical juncture might be especially efficacious at attenuating age- and menopause- related cognitive decline, producing healthy brain aging profiles in women who retain their ovaries throughout their lifespan.     

Kneading life: women and the celebration of the dead in the Ecuadorian Andes

This article analyses the celebration of the dead in the Quichua village of Pesillo, in the Northern Andes of Ecuador. My aim is to present a view of these celebrations from the viewpoint of the women participating in them. Unlike classical approaches to death in the Andes, my analysis presents the commemoration of the dead 'from the kitchen', in order to make room for women's elaborations of death and the deceased that previous analyses have neglected. My focus is therefore not on agriculture but on conviviality and everyday practice.  

Résumé

L'auteur analyse la commémoration des morts dans le village quechua de Pesillo, dans le nord des Andes équatoriennes. Son but est de décrire les célébrations du point de vue des femmes qui y participent. À la différence des approches classiques de la mort dans les Andes, l'analyse de l'auteur présente la commémoration des morts « vue de la cuisine >>, pour faire place à l'élaboration de la mort et des défunts par les femmes, que les analyses antérieures ont négligée. L'attention se porte ici non pas sur l'agriculture, mais sur la convivialité et les pratiques quotidiennes.     

The preference for an additional child among married women in Seoul, Korea

South Korea reported a total fertility rate (TFR) of 1.08 in 2005. This is the lowest level of all nations in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Recently, the decline in the fertility rate has been a dominant phenomenon in Korea's major cities. This study investigated the relationship between social environmental factors and fertility intentions for married women in Seoul, the capital of Korea, using a sample of 2211 married women who responded to the Seoul Citizens Health and Social Indicators Survey, 2005. Here, the effects of selected social environmental characteristics on fertility intentions are explored using multivariate logistic regression models. The relationships among a woman's age, number of living children, job type, housing type, and social group participation were strong indicators of the intention to have additional children. Younger women living with fewer children generally have a higher intention to have additional children. Among women's job types, blue-collar workers have a lower preference for additional children than white-collar workers and housewives. Married women participating in social groups have a lower preference for additional children than non-participants. Women's participation in social activities appears to have various benefits, both individually and socially. However, whereas women's participation in economic activities has been linked to questions of fertility in previous studies, the relationship between fertility and social activities has been downplayed. Women's participation in social activities has increased over the past several decades, and the trend continues to grow. Therefore, women's participation in social activities must be accepted as the status quo, and compatibility between women's participation in social activities and childrearing needs to be increased. Consequently, a strong foundation for a fertility-friendly environment is needed, focusing on blue-collar workers and participation in social activities by married women.     

Assessing changes in numbers and distribution of large whale entanglements in Newfoundland and Labrador,Canada1

Entanglements of large whales in commercial fisheries in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, have been consistently recorded since 1979, as part of a program aimed at releasing captured animals and reducing costs to fishermen. This data set represented an opportunity to identify fisheries posing particular entanglement risks to local whale populations. Data were assessed over the periods 1979–1992 and 1993–2008, corresponding to distinct phases in fisheries distribution and intensity. Between 1979 and 2008, 1,209 large whale entanglements were recorded in Newfoundland and Labrador. These were mostly humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae; 80%) and minke whales (Balaenoptera acutorostrata; 15%). Dramatic declines in reported inshore whale entanglement rates were observed following the 1992 moratorium on Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) fisheries. Recently, more entanglements have been reported further offshore, largely due to expansion of fisheries targeting snow crab (Chionoecetes opilio). For all whale species, entanglement rates and associated mortality rates varied considerably in different fishing gear. Fractions of humpback and minke whales found dead in different fishing gear differed substantially, with minke whales far more likely to be found dead than humpback whales.     

Antes and Hoy DÍa: Plant knowledge and categorization as adaptations to life in Panama in the Twenty-First Century

Ethnobotanical studies often assume plant knowledge is shared by all members of an arbitrarily bounded human group. By describing the uses and local categorization of plants in one village in rural Panama in a heteroglossic approach, the different knowledges within a village are presented in one article. Plants used in the daily work of women and men, and the work of village spe-cialists are described. Villagers negotiate changing realities by adapting plant use and knowl-edge; this is reflected in local categorization of plant names into antes and hoy dia. Unlike the established ethnobotanical assumption that bounded units of plant knowledge are dying, the younger generations of villagers, who work both within and outside the village, know more plants useful to their changing economic opportunities. Subsistence agriculturalists possess the adaptive plant knowledge skills to be stewards of the environment.     

Epidemiological transitions, reproductive health, and the Flexible Response Model

In concert with improving standards of living since the mid-19th century, chronic and non-infectious diseases replaced infectious diseases as the major causes of mortality in more developed countries. Thus, economic development has been seen as one strategy to improve women's reproductive health. However, rates of two of the major contributors to women's illness, maternal mortality and breast cancer, do not correspond well with the level of economic development. Drawing upon our longitudinal study of reproductive functioning among rural Bolivians (Project Reproduction and Ecology in Provincia Aroma (REPA)), we propose an evolutionary model to explain variation in certain aspects of women's reproductive health. Our findings suggest new avenues of inquiry into the determinants of reproductive health and have implications for improving the well-being of women worldwide.     

Fragile X Premutations Are Not a Major Cause of Early Menopause

Fragile X syndrome is an X-linked mental retardation condition that usually is due to a trinucleotide-repeat expansion in the FMR1 gene. Whereas full-mutation alleles (> 230 repeats) lead to fragile X syndrome, premutation alleles (approximately 60-200 repeats) are apparently non-penetrant. However, previous studies have suggested that female premutation carriers may have an increased incidence of premature menopause. To test this possible association, we screened for premutation alleles among 216 women with early menopause (at age < 47 years), 33 of whom had premature menopause (at age < 40 years), as well as among 107 control women, all of whom were ascertained solely on the basis of age at menopause. No full-mutation alleles were found; and only one premutation allele was found, but, it was in a member of the control group. These results are consistent with what would be expected on the basis of chance only. Our sample size was sufficient to rule out a > or = 3-fold increased risk of early menopause and a > or = 9-fold increased risk of premature menopause due to an FMR1 premutation, under a model considering the risk of both sporadic and familial early menopause. Likewise, our results rule out a > or = 4-fold increased risk of familial early menopause and a > or = 26-fold increased risk of familial premature menopause, under a less probable model in which only familial early menopause is considered. These results indicate that the fragile X premutation is not a major risk factor for early menopause and suggest that the risk of premature menopause to fragile X-premutation carriers may not be as great as that reported elsewhere.     

"Part and Parcel of Being a Woman": Female Urinary Incontinence and Constructions of Control

This article draws on extensive interviews with middle-aged Australian women experiencing urinary incontinence. Our discussion derives from the difficulties women face in seeking advice on the management of incontinence, as a consequence of their perception that the condition is an inevitability, a "normal" part of being female. Women do not, on the whole, support a single cause for incontinence but, rather, explain its incidence in terms of personal history, which may include childbearing and parturition, menopause and aging, and early socialization. In addition, women link their own continence problems with perceived personal failings (e.g., lack of exercise, being overweight) and, hence, see the condition as a symbol of their lack of moral worth. Following this, women's understandings of the relationship of incontinence to their social membership extend far beyond the difficulties of disguising their physical problems.     

Interventions during pregnancy to lower the chances of postnatal depression among women from the Asian subcontinent

Postnatal depression (PND) is a major psychiatric challenge to women's mental health worldwide. Particularly speaking of the Asian subcontinent i.e. India and Pakistan (Indo-Pak), many women suffer through PND but remain undiagnosed, which may be due to lack of knowledge and awareness about alteration in mood and thoughts during pregnancy and after delivery. Certain factors like low socio-economic status, a history of marital violence and depression entail a higher risk of PND. In addition, one factor which remains neglected is the husband's knowledge about PND and his behaviour toward the woman suffering from PND. The husband's poor knowledge of PND and his attitude toward the mother play a vital role in the initiation of PND. Pre-delivery interventions focusing on a couple's knowledge of PND, the couple's mutual understanding/relationship and identification of the potential stressors for a depressive episode may be one way to reduce the incidence of PND among both women and men.     

Relative importance of human activities and climate driving common murre population trends in the Northwest Atlantic

Seabird populations are affected by environmental and anthropogenic influences on a global scale. Many population-level responses to climate change have been shown, yet few studies have addressed the additive and/or relative impact of environmental and anthropogenic influences on seabird populations. Using a mixed model approach, we analyzed the trends in plot counts of common murres (Uria aalge) from a Low Arctic colony at Cape St. Mary’s, Newfoundland, across 26 years (1980–2006). We tested for associations between population change and various environmental and anthropogenic covariates: water temperature, winter North Atlantic Oscillation, hunting mortality, oil pollution, by-catch in fishing gear, and visitor disturbance. The number of murres occupying central plots decreased from 1980 to 1989 and increased from 1990 to 2006. Annual changes in the population were negatively associated with the estimated number of murres killed in the Newfoundland murre hunt and the high numbers killed in the early 1980s likely caused the observed population decline. The large number of gillnets set in Newfoundland waters during the 1980s, and associated incidence of drowning through by-catch, probably also contributed to the observed decline. Though a centennially significant cold-water perturbation in 1991 forced a regime shift in pelagic food webs, the effect of ocean climate variability on the population was not obvious. We conclude that management efforts should focus on assessing and mitigating the effects of human-induced influences and consider the potential additive effects of climate change.     

A Reinterpretation of Davenport's Game Theory Analysis: Brief Communication

Davenport's classic application to anthropology of game theory is reinterpreted so as to separate the mathematics of his model from the criticized game theory interpretation of that mathematics. The reinterpretation implies that the fishing pattern of a certain Jamaican fishing village may be the one that produces the steadiest average net income for the village as a whole.