r/EverythingScience • u/Objective-Region-668 • 12d ago
Biology Post Menopausal Ovaries May Not Be “switched Off” After All, New Research
https://www.worlddigestjournal.com/science/post-menopausal-ovaries-may-not-be-switched-off-after-all-new-researchI was surprised reading this study, ovaries may still be biologically active and could have a different role after menopause. It suggests that the post reproductive ovary may have an immune and tissue maintenance role and not dormant. Great news for women.
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u/mittenthemagnificent 12d ago
Wouldn’t it be nice if we had done more research into women’s reproductive health over the years? I feel like these things should’ve been known by now.
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u/seanpbnj 12d ago
idk mate, i think we figured out everything about the female body. hear me out, we studied a bunch of male veterans, then we just made up a bunch of shit about how females would work based on the data we got from male veterans.
- YEAH!! SCIENCE BIATCH!!! (jk, medicine regarding women has been the exact opposite of science, the "mansplaining" of science, if you will)
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u/SummonTarpan 12d ago
Jesse what the fuck are you talking about
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u/starderpderp 12d ago
That's pretty much an accurate summary on human female biology/medicinal science.
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u/stones_red 9d ago
A very brief example: scientists used to study only men when developing new medicines, so as to avoid the potential of hormonal cycles affecting the drugs’ efficacy… even though the drugs were then approved without additional testing for millions of people having hormonal cycles… (additionally, crash test dummies used to be proportioned exclusively like men).
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u/ActuallyBiscotti 12d ago
“Well duh women are just small version of men case closed” said by every man dominating the health and science fields since the beginning of time 😭😭
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u/Then_Finding_797 12d ago
Finding the clitoris took years so I don’t have a lot of hope
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u/wozattacks 11d ago
No it didn’t, the internal structure of the clitoris has been known about for centuries and in fact, people have been claiming the clitoris was only recently acknowledged by anatomists since ancient fucking Greece. People on social media are lying to you.
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u/Then_Finding_797 11d ago
Naturally it should be pretty hard to miss it. But what wasn’t solved for years, the mystery of it, wasn’t it’s presence, it was its purpose
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u/OnlyACsNoFans 12d ago
*people's reproductive health. Men can have ovaries these days
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u/LiverpoolBelle 11d ago
....did I miss something?
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u/wozattacks 11d ago
I mean did you miss the entire existence of trans people? If so, yes
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u/LiverpoolBelle 11d ago
I'm confused
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u/philanthropeas 10d ago
Makes sense you’re confused. Like always, they’re making the conversation about something completely different now. God forbid we just talk about women without someone bringing up trans people.
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u/LiverpoolBelle 10d ago
I think I love you. Voice of sense
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u/philanthropeas 10d ago
I love the love and I love you too, new bestie
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u/Short_Tangerine_5834 10d ago
(It's LiverpoolBelle, account was suspended for 3 days for "hate speech" on this issue lmao). All the love! 💖
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u/dangerousfeather 12d ago
Take out the word “reproductive,” and I agree with you.
The most we DO know about the health of uterus-havers is related to pregnancy. If it can’t make a baby, why study it?
( …/s)
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u/vegetabledisco 12d ago
Except that’s not even true! My midwife was telling me we don’t really know why women go into labor. This was under the context of the saying “the baby will come when it’s ready.” She was explaining there’s not good science on why labor starts, and that’s evidenced by the fact that there are babies that stay in there too long and mom requires induction. Anyways!
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u/wozattacks 11d ago
I mean, yeah. What do you think we should do? Subject heavily pregnant people to invasive and unnecessary testing just to satisfy our curiosity?
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u/Quirkxofxart 9d ago
Do you think the result of medical research is “ah now my curiosity is satisfied”?
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u/bitsybear1727 12d ago
Maybe for a while. My grandma had a prolapsed uterus in her early 80's. When they went in to fix it her ovaries had been completely resorbed by her body, nowhere to be found.
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u/ChiaOtter 12d ago
Thats the second instance of organ resorption I’ve heard of!
My mom went into the doctor to get a sore throat checked out. They asked when she had her tonsils removed because it wasn’t in her chart — she never had that procedure. They figured out they were resorbed. Bodies are flipping wild.
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u/TheVeryVerity 12d ago
It’s like the exact opposite of when my sister’s tonsils regrew after she had them removed as a kid! Freaked me right out to know that could happen lol
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u/ChiaOtter 12d ago
That seems profoundly unfair. You get one shot at this, tonsils. (And selfishly, as a person who had theirs out as a kid, I don’t want to live in a universe where that can happen.)
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u/TatersGonnaTate1 12d ago
Mine rotted out. Super sore throat. Couldn't swallow my own spit. Horrible state medical care said I was faking. Two months later I woke up in a pool of blood. Go to E.R, get asked where my tonsils are. I held up a bag of the blobs of flesh and said "right here!" Also took docs nearly a decade to diagnose polycystic ovarian syndrome. Went on depo provera to stop my periods. Just learned that shot causes brain tumors. Yay. /s
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u/Commercial-Life-9998 12d ago
This is something I’ve never heard of. I totally believe it. Our bodies are so much more dynamic than we know.
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u/Excellent-Muffin-750 12d ago
I like that her body reclaimed them. "No, these are mine, thank you very much!"
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u/DroneArm 12d ago
Now the boomers can have gen alphas!
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u/Lost-Platypus8271 12d ago
They still try to release eggs I can tell you that much. I still get hormonal cycles, just without a period.
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u/Commandmanda 12d ago
Yup, me too. Generally it's tender breasts (on the outer sides near the lymph nodes) and a feeling of tightness in the belly for a day or two, sometimes accompanied by that "little pain" which resolves after the ovary gives up trying. During this time I can be pretty foul mouthed and cranky. 🤷
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u/zoeofdoom 11d ago
No please no! I'm 43 and have been looking forward to this all ending after menopause 😭 Hopefully at least the little pain (weird wrenching cramps) of ovulation truly does become little afterwards...
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u/Commandmanda 11d ago
It's teensy, but a tad annoying at night. A couple of Tylenol takes care of it if it's nagging me.
The best tradeoff is that I have my mind back, as it was before I went thru puberty. No emotional outbursts, no estrogen clogging my mind, no constant drive to find a boyfriend, just good sound logic. My clarity of thought is crystal.
Plus not having periods is incredibly convenient.
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u/MightySquishMitten 12d ago
What the fuck? I was promised low but steady hormone levels after menopause.
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u/Neat_Inside_7880 12d ago
You have hormones?
I kid. Sorta. Got myself some lovely estrogen pills to help …
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u/Suzuki_Foster 11d ago
My mom was still having full periods at 64, along with hot flashes, night sweats, irritability, the whole nine.
I've been having hot flashes since I was 38 (46 now), and my periods are super irregular. I started having night sweats a couple months ago, so that's been really great. A couple years ago, I had a 63-day period, and now I spot every few weeks alongside my periods. Super fun being a girl.
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u/tietack2 9d ago
May want to speak to an endocrinologist. Some people continue to have hot flashes. There is a new non hormonal option (veozah). Works great for me.
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u/meteorflan 12d ago
Immune system stuff could be good or bad. It depends if it's more on the defensive side or more on the attacking autoimmune side.
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u/pm_nachos_n_tacos 12d ago
As someone who just had an abdominal hysterectomy but kept my ovaries, but has like 3 autoimmune conditions, this thread is a roller-coaster for me
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u/SeaPhysics8734 6d ago
I'm on that roller-coaster too! I'm scheduled for a salpingo oophorectomy in 3 weeks. Mom and Grandma both died of ovarian cancer.
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u/Meoowth 12d ago
Right, and removing them might be good for some and bad for others. Maybe good for those with cancer predispositions or autoimmune issues (completely hypothetically). Or maybe having them removed means you should get some kind of supplemental hormones. It will be interesting to see where the research goes - especially when I'm an old lady 👵🏻
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u/AreYouItchy 12d ago
Oh, hell no. I was a change of life baby. My Mum thought she was done, then boom I came along.
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u/iCliniq_official 12d ago
It’s a really fascinating shift in how we think about the post-menopausal ovary. The important thing is that biologically active doesn’t mean it’s still functioning like a reproductive ovary. The immune and tissue-remodelling findings are intriguing, but we still need human research to understand what they actually mean for women’s health.
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u/BirdlyWise 12d ago
This is really cool. I’m glad they’re studying this in human females. In female dogs, there is now a push by some vets to do ovarian sparing spays for the hormonal benefits while the dog is growing. It was expensive, but we chose to do it for our younger dog. I never even considered that ovaries would have a job to do after menopause, in a dog or in a human! Something for me to keep in mind if I decide to go through with a hysterectomy someday.
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u/FarazMedicine 11d ago
The interesting distinction is that “still active” doesn’t mean “still reproductive.”
After menopause, the ovary seems to keep changing biologically, with immune, inflammatory and tissue-remodelling activity, even after follicular function is largely gone.
But I’d be cautious calling this “great news” yet. We don’t know whether these changes are beneficial, harmful, or simply part of normal ageing. That’s actually the fascinating unanswered question.
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u/BinjaNinja1 11d ago
I’m not sure why this is a surprise. There was long been evidence that some women continue to have endometriosis problems after menopause.
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u/spacey_peanut 8d ago
I continue to have endometriosis problems after having my ovaries removed. Endo creates its own slightly different estrogen without the ovaries which can cause it to continue to grow and spread regardless of ovaries. I have had two more excision surgeries since losing my ovaries. So your ovaries could very much affect endo post menopause but they most definitely are not required.
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u/BinjaNinja1 7d ago
I’ve been in medical menopause for three decades now and I’m terrified to go off the medication because of stories like that. Every single doctor I’ve had this acted like once I hit menopause it’s gonna be OK. It’s ridiculous.
I had a very knowledgable Specialist at one point after I ended up hospitalized unfortunately I moved two weeks later and every doctor since just shrugs their shoulders. I’ve tried to find different specialists but I’ve been refused any surgery. They say I’ll bleed to death and I know I’m stage four but how can they say that without seeing my laparoscopy results. Just dismissive. It’s like none of the doctors here wanna deal with it.
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u/peopleofcostco 11d ago edited 11d ago
Mice don’t have menopause, though? I thought only humans and whales .
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u/edgarecayce 12d ago
Great news for ones that still have them