Men's Preference for Younger Women Reason behind Menopause

Men's preference for younger women explains why women hit menopause, according to a new study.

The latest study explains why women lose fertility at an older age while men continue to be fertile. Researchers said that menopause is the negative effect of natural selection, where women lost fertility due to men choosing younger female partners.

"In a sense it is like aging, but it is different because it is an all-or-nothing process that has been accelerated because of preferential mating," said Rama Singh, a professor in Department of Biology at McMaster University and one of the study authors.

There are many animals, where both males and females continue to remain fertile in old age. But in humans, women attain menopause after reaching a certain age. Nobody has been yet able to explain why this unique phenomenon takes place in women.

One theory is that menopause prevents women from giving birth. However, the latest study argues that it is the lack of reproduction that gave rise to menopause. 

A recent study had said that menopause was nature's way of keeping women from competing with their new daughters-in-law and helping them take care of the next generation of babies in the family.

In the new study, researchers argue that over time, men of all ages began preferring younger women, and so there were very few choices left for the older women.

"This theory says that natural selection doesn't have to do anything," Singh said in a news release. "If women were reproducing all along, and there were no preference against older women, women would be reproducing like men are for their whole lives."

Menopause doesn't just affect women's fertility, but also brings about many diseases and conditions due to a change in the hormonal balance of the body.

Singh said that one of the benefits of the current study is that it shows that if menopause is indeed the result of natural selection, then it could be reversed.

The study was based on computer models developed by Jonathan Stone and Richard Morton, also from Mc Master University. The study is published in the journal PLOS Computational Biology.