Ovarian hormones estrogen and progesterone are beneficial for health. That means natural ovulatory menstrual cycles are beneficial for health because ovulation is how women make hormones.
Does that surprise you? Men make testosterone every day, so you might think women do something similar, but we don’t. Instead, women make hormones as a surge of estradiol leading up to ovulation and an even bigger surge of progesterone after ovulation.
It’s an elegant system that sometimes results in a baby. Even when ovulation does not result in a baby, it’s still worth doing because regular ovulation delivers the beneficial hormones that the body absolutely expects to have.
Benefits of ovulation
Every monthly dose of estradiol promotes muscle gain, insulin sensitivity, and the long-term health of bones, brain, and the cardiovascular system.
Every monthly dose of progesterone reduces inflammation, regulates immune function, and supports thyroid, brain, bones, and breast tissue.
The benefits of ovarian hormones are both short-term by making women stronger and long-term by building metabolic reserve and health.
According to Canadian endocrinology professor Jerilynn Prior, “Women benefit from 35 to 40 years of ovulatory cycles, not just for fertility but also to prevent osteoporosis, stroke, dementia, heart disease, and breast cancer.” In that sense, every ovulation is like a monthly deposit into the bank account of long-term health.
For Professor Prior, ovulatory cycles are a “creator of good health.” They’re also an “indicator of good health” because when we’re healthy, ovulation arrives smoothly and regularly. When we’re unhealthy in some way, the lack of ovulation can tell the story.
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) agrees. In December 2015, together with the American Academy of Pediatrics, they quietly issued a groundbreaking statement called Menstruation in Girls and Adolescents: Using the Menstrual Cycle as a Vital Sign. In it, they state that doctors should always ask patients about menstruation and advise girls to chart their cycles. By doing so, they say, “doctors will demonstrate to patients that menstruation is an important reflection of their overall health.”
Learning to observe, chart, and interpret an ovulatory cycle is called body literacy, a term coined by menstrual activist Laura Wershler.
I invite you to think of ovulation as a valuable, health-giving event. I would go so far as to say that if you’re not thinking about ovulation, you’re not thinking about health.
Obstacles to ovulation
Hormonal birth control
Hormonal birth control stops ovulation, which is, of course, its purpose. It switches off ovarian hormones and replaces them with contraceptive drugs like ethinylestradiol and levonorgestrel, which can cause hair loss and other side effects.
💡Tip: There’s no progesterone in any type of birth control.
The physiological difference between our actual hormones and the contraceptive drugs of birth control affects every system in the body. Compared to women who cycle, women who take contraceptive drugs have altered brain structure and a greater risk of depression and autoimmune disease.
Undereating and undereating carbs
Losing ovulation and periods because of undereating is called hypothalamic amenorrhea. It’s not a disorder but rather a smart, adaptive decision by the brain to pause reproduction when there’s not enough food to safely make a baby. Read Are you eating enough to get a period?
Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS)
The hormonal state of excess androgens or testosterone can cause anovulatory cycles (cycles with no ovulation) and is usually associated with insulin resistance. Reversing insulin resistance with diet, exercise, and natural supplements such as inositol can help to restore ovulation.
💡Tip: Before you embark on any kind of calorie-restricted or carb-restricted diet for PCOS, take care that your diagnosis was not based solely on an ultrasound or an AMH blood test. Those tests are not reliable and may have resulted in you being told you have PCOS when you actually have hypothalamic amenorrhea. Read PCOS cannot be diagnosed by ultrasound.
In conclusion, regular ovulation is important for women. And not just to make a baby.
Gloria Steinem said that if men could menstruate, menstruation “would become an enviable, worthy, masculine event: Men would brag about how long and how much.” I would take it a step further and say that if men had to ovulate to make testosterone, they would never stop talking about it.
