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Menopause: A comparative life history perspective
Author(s) -
Pavelka Mary S. M.,
Fedigan Linda Marie
Publication year - 1991
Publication title -
american journal of physical anthropology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.146
H-Index - 119
eISSN - 1096-8644
pISSN - 0002-9483
DOI - 10.1002/ajpa.1330340604
Subject(s) - menopause , perspective (graphical) , homo sapiens , senescence , evolutionary biology , demography , variation (astronomy) , gerontology , biology , history , sociology , medicine , anthropology , computer science , genetics , physics , artificial intelligence , astrophysics
Abstract As a life history characteristic of human females, menopause is universal, it occurs halfway through the maximum lifespan of the species, and it consistently occurs at approximately age 50 in different populations. Menopause is fundamentally distinct from the reproductive senescence that has been described for a very small number of very old individual alloprimates. Menopause is not a recent historical artifact. As a species universal showing little variation in occurrence across contemporary populations, it must be understood in evolutionary terms. Supporters of the “grandmother hypothesis” explain menopause as an adaptive feature in itself. Others see menopause as a byproduct of the increased lifespan of Homo sapiens . Plieotropy theory may help to explain menopause in broader mammalian terms.