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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stump Mom Never told you?

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Speaker 1: From house Stuff Works dot Com. Hey there, and welcome

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Speaker 1: to the podcast. This is Molly and I'm Kristen. Kristen.

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Speaker 1: Sometimes when we do that little introduction like that, it

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Speaker 1: makes me think we're about to launch into sort of

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Speaker 1: a cheesy women's commercial about that special time of the month,

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Speaker 1: like Aunt Flow when aunt Flow comes to visit and you,

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Speaker 1: you know, you're all cranky. You don't, you don't feel good.

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Speaker 1: You're like, hey, girlfriend, why's so down? I know it's

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Speaker 1: very and they're very sort of obscure in terms of

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Speaker 1: what they're talking about, but you don't know what it is.

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Speaker 1: You know what it is, but you don't understand, like

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Speaker 1: why the girls wearing like a whole bunch of sweaters,

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Speaker 1: especially when they're on the beach. Yeah, Like it's very

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Speaker 1: it's very sort of hidden, but you're but you know,

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Speaker 1: whatever they're talking about is bad. Yeah, yeah, I would

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Speaker 1: say that campon Max bad commercials really make it seem

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Speaker 1: very very unpleasant. But I guess they are trying to

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Speaker 1: to sell sell their wares, right, but no, you grow

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Speaker 1: up watching these commercials and you think this is something

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Speaker 1: that you only talk about in the ladies room with

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Speaker 1: your friends, and nothing will be right for a few days. Yes,

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Speaker 1: But then along came these other commercials. I don't know

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Speaker 1: if you remember these, Kristen. It was in two thousand

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Speaker 1: three when there's this commercial that showed these women, you know,

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Speaker 1: frolicking on the beach, like wearing these beautiful sun dresses

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Speaker 1: and just being like all free and in love with life.

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Speaker 1: And you know what that commercials for. Tell me. It

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Speaker 1: was for birth control that eliminated your period, so that

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Speaker 1: you only had four every year as opposed to thirteen

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Speaker 1: every year, so you get rid of all those extra

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Speaker 1: cranky days. You can wear your swimsuit whenever, whenever you

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Speaker 1: so desire, without having to worry about anything. Yeah, I've

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Speaker 1: seen I've seen commercials like that. There. There are a

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Speaker 1: number of birth controls like that on the market, and um, yeah,

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Speaker 1: they always seem to show women, uh, foot loose and

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Speaker 1: fancy free in swimsuits. Right. They make periods of this

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Speaker 1: very big lifestyle voice. You can trade in all your

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Speaker 1: bulky sweaters for your swimsuit, and you can trade away

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Speaker 1: all your monthly inconveniences for up totally awesome lifestyle at

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Speaker 1: these commercials are to be believed, right, But it's a

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Speaker 1: little controversial to get rid of a period, right, I mean,

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Speaker 1: like when your mom sits you down and tells you

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Speaker 1: what's going on with your body. She never says, hey,

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Speaker 1: there's this option of getting rid of it. You sort

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Speaker 1: of think you're stuck with it until you menopause. Right,

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Speaker 1: you don't invite and flow over. She just barges, barges

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Speaker 1: right in she is the guest you cannot kick out. Right,

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Speaker 1: Since the FDA has approved these pills, you know they

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Speaker 1: can't be too harmful for your body. But at the

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Speaker 1: same time, I think a lot of women wonder whether

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Speaker 1: or not missing a period is healthy. Yeah, so let's

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Speaker 1: explore sort of the health related things before we get

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Speaker 1: into all the sort of social complaints some people might

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Speaker 1: have about getting rid of the period. Uh. First off,

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Speaker 1: what's what is interesting to me is that we do

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Speaker 1: have a ton more periods today than any of our

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Speaker 1: ancestors ever. Did We have about four hundred and fifty

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Speaker 1: periods in our lifetime, right, that's then that's opposed to

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Speaker 1: around hundred and sixty periods over our ancestors lifetime, and

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Speaker 1: that's because we're having children later and we're living longer,

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Speaker 1: so it just prolongs the whole cycle, right, and also

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Speaker 1: having fewer children. So obviously we we probably don't need

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Speaker 1: our bodies to menstrate that often, do you think, Well, Molly,

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Speaker 1: there are some benefits to having your period. First of all,

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Speaker 1: the bleeding eliminates excess iron, so that's good for your body.

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Speaker 1: And then during your cycle, uh, women's blood pressure actually

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Speaker 1: drops a little bit, so that reduces your chance of

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Speaker 1: heart attack and strokes, so that's a plus. And there's

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Speaker 1: also a possibility that menstruation fleshes out bacteria from your

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Speaker 1: reproductive system. So you know, it's looking pretty good for periods.

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Speaker 1: Maybe we do need them, but let's clarify that those

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Speaker 1: are periods that are not regulated by birth control. That

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Speaker 1: is a natural period, there's sort of a natural flow,

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Speaker 1: I mean, the natural drop in the in the blood pressure.

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Speaker 1: But it seems like a lot of women get on

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Speaker 1: birth control to regulate their periods. But we probably should

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Speaker 1: point out, Kristen, that these are periods that aren't regulated

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Speaker 1: by birth control, not hormonally adjusted period so to speak.

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Speaker 1: So before we get into birth control, modifying your period.

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Speaker 1: I will give you the negative side of having a period.

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Speaker 1: You gave me a few positives. I have way more

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Speaker 1: negative rate on me as I'm sure you. I'm sure

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Speaker 1: you can guess from watching any sitcom. There's p MS.

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Speaker 1: I think I've heard of heard of that before. It's uh,

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Speaker 1: sort of an excuse stumped on a lot of women

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Speaker 1: when they start to get cranky, Are you having your

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Speaker 1: period soon? It's almost like sort of a joke. But

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Speaker 1: experiencing p MS, I say, is no joke. I never

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Speaker 1: experienced PMS. Molley, I find that hard to believe because

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Speaker 1: and not just that's not a personal slam on Kristen.

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Speaker 1: I find that hard to believe because a majority women

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Speaker 1: have experienced one or more premnstual symptoms to include headache, cramps, fatigue,

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Speaker 1: mood swings, depression, and insomnia. And they're often severe enough

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Speaker 1: that women are missing work, they're missing class if they

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Speaker 1: do manage to go in there, having very decreased productivity. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and some women have it so bad that they suffer

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Speaker 1: from something called uh disnnorrhea. Molly, am I pronouncing that

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Speaker 1: crasp correct? And that includes severe cramping nausea and diarrhea, right,

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Speaker 1: and if you're you're also at risk for anemia because

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Speaker 1: if you get rid of too much of that iron

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Speaker 1: that you're getting rid of in the body, that that

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Speaker 1: can put you, you know, a negative balance, endometriosis and

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Speaker 1: ovarian cysts. It's not not a good list. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: then molly um things things are about to get worse.

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Speaker 1: They're about to get real heavy in here, Kristen the

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Speaker 1: Big Sea cancer m And here's the theory on how

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Speaker 1: this happens. Basically, even though it's you know, doesn't seem

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Speaker 1: like a huge deal, the very act of releasing an

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Speaker 1: egg and having a period is very kind of violent

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Speaker 1: in the body. What happens is the immature eggs are

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Speaker 1: called follicles, and they develop, and when the follicle produces

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Speaker 1: an egg, that scars the ovary. So already got one scar. Now,

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Speaker 1: if you don't get pregnant during the time in which

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Speaker 1: the eggs sitting there, if it remains unfertilized, then your

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Speaker 1: unur in lying sheds and that's your period. So basically,

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Speaker 1: when you have a scar, your body's got to heal itself, right,

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Speaker 1: So cells are regenerating, they're trying to heal that spot.

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Speaker 1: But when cells regenerate, that's when you get cancer if

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Speaker 1: something goes wrong with that cell division process, And that's

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Speaker 1: the recipe for any cancer. So when it's happening around

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Speaker 1: where you're having you know, eggs releasing blah blah blah,

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Speaker 1: then you're talking ovariant and endometrial cancer. And basically we

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Speaker 1: know that this happens because when a woman gets pregnant,

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Speaker 1: her chances for both of those cancers go way down,

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Speaker 1: basically because she's not having a period for nine months

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Speaker 1: and so her body is spared that very violent menstruation

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Speaker 1: process for nine months. And oral contraceptives that prevent the

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Speaker 1: ovulation process from happening may also lower the chances of

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Speaker 1: developing ovarian and endometrial cancer. So that brings up Molly

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Speaker 1: birth control control because it I read an article I

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Speaker 1: was written by Malcolm Gladwell of Blink and Tipping Point fame,

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Speaker 1: but he wrote this essay a long time ago about

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Speaker 1: how um, if the founder of birth control had just

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Speaker 1: marketed this pills and anti cancer pill, then maybe you know,

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Speaker 1: organizations that have trouble with the idea of contraceptives, like

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Speaker 1: the Catholic Church would have accepted it more readily, because

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Speaker 1: who's going to turn down anti cancer pill now. Molly

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Speaker 1: John Rock, who invented birth control, was ironically a devout Catholic,

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Speaker 1: and he decided to go with the twenty eight day

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Speaker 1: pill cycle in order to mimic the woman's natural menstrual

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Speaker 1: cycle as closely as possible, because he thought that if

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Speaker 1: it seemed natural, then Catholics might be more inclined to

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Speaker 1: buy it. Yeah, it would be acceptable. I guess he

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Speaker 1: figured on figured out early on that it didn't matter

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Speaker 1: how many days passed before we started taking the PLACEBA pills.

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Speaker 1: You could wait twenty one days, you could wait forty two, etcetera, etcetera. Um.

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Speaker 1: But because you know, he was facing he really wanted

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Speaker 1: the Catholic church to accept his product. He just made

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Speaker 1: it as natural as possible. And he also he thought

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Speaker 1: that might have some marketing benefits also. And at this

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Speaker 1: time in the what the late nineteen fifties, Uh, there

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Speaker 1: was no such thing as a reliable home pregnancies test.

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Speaker 1: They couldn't just run out to the store if they

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Speaker 1: were thought they were pregnant and find out. So the

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Speaker 1: having a period every month was another way that women

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Speaker 1: could know whether or not they were pregnant, had one

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Speaker 1: in the oven. Yeah, I had a little, a little

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Speaker 1: bun in the oven. So he thought that would be

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Speaker 1: a big marketing employ But as it turned out, where

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Speaker 1: his Catholic marketing employ came into being, he he failed

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Speaker 1: there because the Catholic Church still didn't want to accept

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Speaker 1: the idea of contraceptives. But women started to really get

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Speaker 1: into it um and then they did start to get

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Speaker 1: sneaky and and figure out what he knew about about

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Speaker 1: elongating your cycle, so to speak. They figured out that

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Speaker 1: if you skip your week of placebo pills, uh, the

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Speaker 1: ineffective pills at the you know, the last week of

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Speaker 1: every pack, you could skip a period. Yeah. So if

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Speaker 1: you had, you know, a wedding coming up, and you

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Speaker 1: didn't want to have your period on your honeymoon beach trip,

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Speaker 1: beach trip, hot date done, just skip the period and

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Speaker 1: keep going. So basically, instead of just taking the three

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Speaker 1: weeks of hormone pills and then a one week of placebo,

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Speaker 1: just start your next pack of birth control. So, Molly,

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Speaker 1: if we can for taking birth control, and we can

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Speaker 1: tinker with our menstrual cycle and decide when we do

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Speaker 1: and don't want to have it. Are we really having

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Speaker 1: a real period? No, we are not. Those are fake periods.

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Speaker 1: And that's why earlier we were clarifying, um that all

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Speaker 1: those health benefits that come from you know, releasing the

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Speaker 1: iron and lowering your blood pressure, those don't come if

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Speaker 1: you're on birth control, because you're essentially having a fake period.

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Speaker 1: When you have a real period, you're un in line

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Speaker 1: a shedding because there's an egg there that needs to

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Speaker 1: get out. But when you have a period on birth control,

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Speaker 1: that line is shedding just because you're changing changing hormonal levels. Kristen,

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Speaker 1: that's our favorite word, hormone. Hormone. So a woman really

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Speaker 1: doesn't need to bleed every twenty one days. So I mean,

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Speaker 1: if that's true, then it does sort of make sense

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Speaker 1: these birth controls that just elongate the time in which

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Speaker 1: you uh aren't bleeding, basically because that sounds convenient. That's

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Speaker 1: why all those girls and those commercials were wearing their

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Speaker 1: bikinis all the time or in those long flowing dresses.

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Speaker 1: They hadn't a care in the world. They had all

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Speaker 1: that extra money from not buying tampons, and you know,

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Speaker 1: doctors and f d A have given it the stamp

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Speaker 1: of approval. But not everyone is on the skipping period boat. No.

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Speaker 1: I think the most prominent UH person speaking out against

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Speaker 1: US I found was a doctor named Susan Rico who

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Speaker 1: called menstrual suppression, which is the act of you know,

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Speaker 1: not having a period. Listen to this Christian, the largest

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Speaker 1: uncontrolled experiment in the history of medical science. Whoare we go?

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Speaker 1: That is some pretty strong language. Well, Rigo Rego did

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Speaker 1: have a point mulling. I mean, that's kind of an

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Speaker 1: extreme statement to make, but she and other doctors were

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Speaker 1: opposed to menstrual suppression because of how it affected women's

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Speaker 1: hormone levels. When you're taking oral contraceptives, it maintains a

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Speaker 1: higher level of estrogen in your body so that you

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Speaker 1: don't have a period. Now at the same time, that

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Speaker 1: drops your natural levels of testosterone, and that can lower

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Speaker 1: your libido, reduce your the strength of your bones, and

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Speaker 1: we can heart health. So those are the health reasons

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Speaker 1: behind this argument against menstrual suppression, right. And additionally, people

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Speaker 1: who are just on you know, a twenty one day

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Speaker 1: cycle birth control may have heard about the risk of

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Speaker 1: estrogen causing breast cancer. So there's the possibility that with

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Speaker 1: that increase in estrogen in your body, you might be

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Speaker 1: more at risk for breast cancer. But again that's very

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Speaker 1: sort of circumspect um, you know, observation. No, no scientific

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Speaker 1: says linking breast cancer and estrogen yet. Yeah, and and

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Speaker 1: we we we do have to say though that the

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Speaker 1: jury is still out on whether or not there are

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Speaker 1: long term effects for menstrual suppression. Their studies going on

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Speaker 1: right now, but a lot of the testing on whether

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Speaker 1: or not they're safe are performed on people who are

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Speaker 1: older than eighteens. So we don't know if girls start

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Speaker 1: getting on this birth control when they start having their periods, say,

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Speaker 1: you know, twelve thirteen years old, doctors aren't exactly sure

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Speaker 1: whether or not down the road that's going to how

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Speaker 1: that's going to affect their bodies, right, and there might

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Speaker 1: just be other consequences for women who are of age.

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Speaker 1: We don't know how to affect future fertility if you're

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Speaker 1: on it for something like twenty years. And there are

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Speaker 1: people who, just like with regular breath control, shouldn't take it.

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Speaker 1: And those are women who smoke and are over the

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Speaker 1: age of thirty five. And you know, there are side effects.

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Speaker 1: It's not all white dresses and bikinis. The number one,

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Speaker 1: probably least convenient side effect of taking these mentual suppressing

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Speaker 1: contraceptives is breakthrough bleeding. Since you only have your period,

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Speaker 1: I think four times a year with a lot of these,

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Speaker 1: there's a good chance that you will spot when you're

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Speaker 1: not supposed to. And I think that it's so severe

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Speaker 1: that in the clinical studies at least women were dropping

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Speaker 1: out just because it was so inconvenient massive It wasn't

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Speaker 1: the care for your lifestyle they've been promised, and there's

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Speaker 1: still a social stigma attached to it. Some women are

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Speaker 1: just uncomfortable with the idea of stopping their period. Feels

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Speaker 1: like they're kind of playing god a little bit playing god,

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Speaker 1: and you know, it seems unnatural. You know, they're sort

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Speaker 1: of the argument, if if we're meant to have it,

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Speaker 1: we should just go ahead and have it. And also,

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Speaker 1: you know, I think it also kind of depends on

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Speaker 1: how uh, your mother explains it to you. Is it

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Speaker 1: a rite of passage, is it what makes you a woman?

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Speaker 1: Or is it, you know, something to be ashamed of

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Speaker 1: and something you just have to kind of grit and

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Speaker 1: bear well. I think the good thing about all of this, Molly,

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Speaker 1: is the FDA has approved it. It's a safe option,

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Speaker 1: and it all comes down to choice and hormones and hormones. Well, Chris,

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Speaker 1: you're starting to send a little bit like one of

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Speaker 1: those cheesy tampon commercials. Wah wah wam, where's sweater? But

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Speaker 1: if you want sort of a no nonsense look at

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Speaker 1: menstrual suppression with no cheesy red bouncing balls or lumpy sweaters,

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Speaker 1: there might be a couple of bikinis, though there might be.

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Speaker 1: Then you should check out the article do you really

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Speaker 1: need to have a period every month? At how stuff

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Speaker 1: works dot com And if you have any questions, comments,

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Speaker 1: or suggestions you'd like to shoot to me or Molly,

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Speaker 1: you can email us at mom stuff at how stuff

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Speaker 1: works dot com for moral thiss and thousands of other topics.

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Speaker 1: Does it? How stuff works dot com brought to you

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