Good morning. Menopause is having a moment – more on that below, along with your mpox questions and the refugee crisis in Sudan. But first:
Today’s headlines
- Ontario will close 10 supervised consumption sites and ban other locations under new rules
- Barack and Michelle Obama endorse Kamala Harris at the DNC
- Inflation eases in July, paving the way for another Bank of Canada rate cut
A grandma helping the neighbourhood kids in Kitchener, Ont.Alicia Wynter/The Globe and Mail
Health
Redefining how women age
Here’s an exchange that won’t help vice-presidential candidate J.D. Vance beat the weird charges. In a recently resurfaced podcast he did with Eric Weinstein, who managed the hedge fund of billionaire-slash-Vance-bankroller Peter Thiel, the pair spoke enthusiastically about the value of grandparents helping to raise their grandchildren. In fact, Weinstein ventured, that’s the “whole purpose of the postmenopausal female.” He could barely get out the sentence before Vance broke in with: “Yes.”
Of course, my guess is that these men know next to nothing about menopause – beginning with the fact that, biologically speaking, it’s super rare. Birds, lizards, fish, lemurs: They all churn out offspring until they die. When it comes to living beyond our reproductive years, humans are in limited company. Just five species of whales and a single population of chimpanzees do it too.
Menopause is a puzzle, and it’s only starting to get the scientific attention it deserves. (I mean, up until a few years ago, scientists understood far more about rats’ brains than women’s.) How come a woman’s ovaries tap out so much sooner than the rest of her? Great question! Hard to say! Long-standing sex bias in clinical research means we don’t have a fantastic sense of what goes on in biologically female bodies. Hormones such as estrogen and progesterone do play critical roles in the neurological, circulatory and digestive systems – that’s why the symptoms of menopause can seem so disconnected and so vast. And it’s also why researchers are now exploring new drugs to extend the working life of ovaries. If we could delay menopause, they wonder, what other health benefits might be unlocked?
Prolonging the inevitable
Back in the 1960s, the Chilean government decided to build an international airport on Easter Island (stay with me here). Two Canadian physicians, Stanley Skoryna and Georges Nogrady, figured this would be an excellent opportunity to study the isolated residents of the island, also known as Rapa Nui, before and after the outside world encroached. They conducted physical exams and, for good measure, collected some soil samples. Academically, it didn’t amount to much. But in 1972, in a Montreal lab, a colleague managed to isolate a new antifungal compound in the soil. He called it rapamycin, in honour of the island’s Polynesian name.
I have big plans to stick around as long as this guy.MARION GIRALDO/Reuters
Turns out rapamycin is remarkably effective in preventing the rejection of donated organs. Then, in 2009, one study found the drug extended the life of geriatric mice by up to 14 per cent, while a 2014 paper linked low doses in humans to a more robust immune system. Faster than you can say “longevity bros,” leading figures in the life-extending movement began pushing rapamycin on their podcasts and adding it to their biohacking routines. To be clear, the evidence supporting rapamycin as an anti-aging cure-all is still preliminary. But another mouse study showed that rapamycin not only restored normal function in mice with ovarian failure, it also extended the lifespan of ovaries in healthy mice.
That was good enough for reproductive scientists at Columbia University, who set up a clinical trial to investigate whether low-dose rapamycin can delay ovarian aging in women. (More than 100 people enrolled on the first day.) The two-year study, which will include at least 1,000 women and wrap in 2025, is the first to actually look at the root of menopause and try to stall its progress – other studies have just targeted its symptoms. And the early results are promising. After three months of 5 mg of rapamycin a week, the women’s ovaries slowed down and released fewer eggs. The researchers estimated this reduces aging by as much as 20 per cent.
The greater good
In practical terms, a 20-per-cent decrease in ovarian aging might extend a woman’s fertility by a full five years. That’s excellent news for people who want or need more time to have kids. But it’s equally excellent news for women in general, since menopause isn’t just a fertility matter – it’s also an issue of overall health. Estrogen helps maintain bone density, repair muscles, lower blood pressure and protect the brain (for starters!). Its absence corresponds to an increased risk for conditions like heart disease, diabetes, osteoporosis and dementia. The earlier a woman enters menopause, the higher her risk for these illnesses, and the shorter her life is likely to be. By pushing off menopause, then, rapamycin could make a major difference in a person’s life and health spans. Already, the women in the Columbia trial reported improvements in their energy levels and memory (and, not for nothing, in the quality of their skin and hair).
It’s not clear yet whether rapamycin could, or should, delay menopause altogether – which brings us back to the whole question of “the postmenopausal female” and what on Earth she’s for. Perhaps unwittingly, J.D. Vance seems to subscribe to the “grandmother hypothesis,” a scientific theory that humans have menopause because we’re social creatures who take on specialized roles within our society, and older women are handy for helping raise their children’s kids. But I might point Vance to academic Cat Bohannon’s book Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution, which includes a digression on – what else – transient orca pods. These killer whales are the only nonhuman social mammals that have confirmed menopause. But the research suggests they don’t spend more time caring for young offspring after they stop giving birth.
Instead, Bohannon writes, “what the grandmothers are responsible for is teaching the pod in times of crisis.” They’re the ones who lead the way to better feeding grounds when food is scarce, and they’re the ones who demonstrate how to get that food when challenges arise. “What grandmothers do, in other words, is remember,” she continues. “Old people can be valuable because they’re wise.” It’s something for Vance and his pro-natalist cabal to keep in mind. Come November’s election, those women may well remember all the weird stuff he said about their worth.
The Shot
‘The war turned everything upside-down.’
Fatou Mohammed, a 20-year-old from North Darfur, with her cousin after crossing the border into Chad.Robert Bociaga/The Globe and Mail
More than 10 million people have been forced from their homes since war erupted in Sudan in April, 2023, and hundreds of refugees are still fleeing across the border to Chad every day. Read more about the world’s worst displacement crisis here.
The Wrap
What else we’re following
At home: Customs lines moved at a snail’s pace at major airports across the country yesterday, after a systems outage hit the Canadian Border Services Agency.
Abroad: Mass vaccinations against mpox could begin as soon as next week in the Congo, where more than 90 per cent of Africa’s cases have occurred. Do you have a question about mpox for The Globe’s health columnist André Picard? Submit it this morning here.
Shopping: If Quebec’s retail giant Couche-Tard wants to be successful in its bid for 7-Eleven, it needs to understand Japan’s deep-rooted love for convenience stores.
Sculpting: In order to make their jawlines look sharper, teen boys are walking around with their tongues flattened to the roof of their mouths. It’s called “mewing,” it doesn’t work, but teachers and parents are concerned.