Fact check: Menopause is not 100 years old

and we didn't used to die at 50

Photo by Paolo Bendandi on Unsplash

Menopause is not 100 years old.

And we didn’t all used to die at 50..

That’s because life span and life expectancy are not the same thing.

Few people understand this. Mea culpa: I used to be one of them. It is one of those things that seems like it makes sense on the surface. But scratch that surface and it falls right apart, like the end result the one time I tried to make Nigella Lawson’s Lemon Drizzle Cake.

Life span is how long a species can reasonably be expected to live; life expectancy represents the average age of death within a population. Back in the day, more of us died younger: as babies or teens, in the jaws of wild animals, of plagues and colds, at the hands of doctors delivering babies who didn’t wash their hands after autopsies, and lots of things we didn’t have remedies for that we now do.

BUT. If our ancestors made it past those dangers, they could live to a ripe old age.

And many did.

That’s why life expectancy of 45 or 50 doesn’t mean everyone died at 50. And women have been going through menopause since the beginning of time.