The ovarian hormones estradiol and progesterone are beneficial for general health. That means natural ovulatory menstrual cycles are beneficial because ovulation is how women make those hormones.
ovulation
Ovulation is the main event of the menstrual cycle.
How Science Got It Wrong About Progesterone
Progesterone has been both ignored and mistakenly blamed for side effects it does not cause. How did that happen?
For one thing, progesterone was discovered shortly after estrogen. Thus missing out on the tidy hormone dichotomy of “testosterone for men and estrogen for women.” Also, progesterone could not (at first) be made into a medication that could be absorbed orally.
Do Women Need Periods?
With the 2019 news that women don’t need pill bleeds came the assurance that “women don’t need periods.” But is that accurate?
It’s true that women don’t need monthly pill withdrawal bleeds because they’re not periods, but women do need (or at least benefit from) monthly natural menstrual cycles because natural ovulatory cycles are how women make the hormones estradiol and progesterone.
Basic Body Literacy
Some basic body literacy:
A proper period or menstrual bleed is a bleed at the end of a natural ovulatory cycle. Any other type of bleed is either a pill bleed (a withdrawal bleed from stopping contraceptive drugs) or an anovulatory cycle (a bleed when there has been no ovulation).
A menstrual cycle is, therefore, an “ovulatory cycle,” in which ovulation is the main event.
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