The content of this podcast is provided for general informational purposes only and is not intended

as, nor should it be considered a substitute for professional medical advice.

Oh, how I feel.

Bitchy, bitchy, bitchy, bitchy, bitchy, bitchy, bitchy, bitchy, bitchy and bitchy.

Hello, this is Karen Nicol family nurse practitioner, and you are listening to Itchy and Bitchie,

a podcast that provides answers to your many unanswered health questions.

Guess what?

We have a new member of the animal kingdom that experience menopause.

On October 7th, 2023, we released an episode called Grandmother's Rule Menopausal Mammals. In that episode, I stated that no other

non-human primates go through menopause. But of course, a new study was released in late October of 23,

approximately two weeks after our episode aired, that challenged that statement. Dr. Kevin

Langergerrober, yes, that's his name, a primatologist at Arizona State University and his

colleagues invested decades of observations in a

rainforest in Uganda and discovered that some chimpanzees go through menopause too.

The study included observations of older female chimpanzees as well as measurements of hormones

in their urine. Since 1995, the Ngogo community of chimpanzees in Uganda

have been observed. They noticed a number of healthy old female chimps that were not having more babies. For example,

a chimp named Garbo, who starred in the Netflix series Chimp Empire, was 67 years old at the time of the study publication.

And her last known pregnancy was at age 38.

This particular group of chimpanzees are the only ones who go into menopause.

They inhabit a protected park where park guards

successfully keep prochers out of the park, and those who observe the primates are careful to wear

...