Women may feel that they face deaths twice in life. The first death touches a woman in her midlife in the form of menopause. And there is nothing much to bother about the final death because everyone has to pass away some day and everything including desires and passion will fade away with it. But the completion of a lifecycle and living with a feeling of being "finished up", are two different aspects. Completion carries a sense of fulfillment whereas "finished up" means being left with nothing even though a need persists. This is the feeling which many women develop after attaining menopause.
And then, there is the medical world which goes on coming out with newer "consequences" or "aftereffects" of menopause. Hot flush, depression, osteoporosis risk are some of the "guests" invited by menopause. So it's not about a menopausal woman's mental health, but about her physical well-being as well. Diabetes, being a hot topic of discussion can well be linked to menopause just to add one more feather to the hat which is already laden with so many crimes.
But no, not this time. Researchers at the University of Michigan Health System have found that menopause does not increase the risk of diabetes. And this was found to hold true in case of women who underwent ovarian or uterine surgical removals and also for those who faced a natural menopause.
Researchers clarified that menopause is just an indication of the aging process and that it is not meant to invite additional health issues for a woman. They conducted the study with 1200 women, who had glucose intolerance. This denotes a high-blood-sugar-level stage prior to becoming a diabetic. The study subjects were between the ages 40 and 65.
The results indicated that for every 100 women under observation, around 11.8 women in the premenopausal phase developed diabetes in comparison to 10,5 women who had undergone menopause naturally and 12.9 women who had underwent a surgical removal of their ovaries.
Women, whose ovaries were removed via surgical procedures, also witnessed a 7 percent reduction in their body weight. This group of women was also found to exercise for a minimum of 150 minutes per week. This way, they were actually able to bring down the risk of diabetes. Every year, when 100 women from this group was observed, only 1.1 of them was found to have developed the disease.
Surprisingly, all these women, who had undergone a surgical removal of their ovaries, were on hormone replacement therapy, HRT, a medical treatment which carries several blames including the liability to cause cancer. This has led researchers to show interest to observe the effects of HRT on the risk of diabetes.
At last, it can be said that menopause cannot be blamed for anything and everything. It may mark the end of a phase of life, but it definitely cannot be cited as a something which marks the beginning of the end of the whole life. It's unavoidable and inevitable, but can still be made beautiful with loads of spirit and motivation.
