Estrogen, prolactin, and serotonin tend to increase each other and all three substances appear to be involved in osteoporosis:
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“The stimulation of prolactin by estrogen was first recognized almost 50 years ago, and the means by which this stimulation occurs has been investigated by many laboratories. Estrogen affects almost every conceivable aspect of prolactin production…” Control of prolactin production by estrogen in Biochemical Actions of Hormones, 1985
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“Fenfluramine causes the release of serotonin proportional to endogenous availability and in turn, serotonin stimulates the secretion of prolactin. Therefore, serum prolactin concentrations reflect endogenous serotonin.” “Castration partially reduced the serotonin/prolactin response…” “…aromatase activity correlated significantly with prolactin.” “Altogether, the data suggest that aromatase activity supports serotonin production…" Effects of aromatase inhibition and androgen activity on serotonin and behavior in male macaques, 2013
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“The transient nature of the beneficial effects of estrogens in patients with postmenopausal osteoporosis may result from steroid inhibition of the proliferation of osteorprogenitor cells. In young, cycling female rats, the rate of new bone synthesis falls periodically during the phases of ovarian activity associated with high plasma estrogen.” Endocrine Physiology by Constance R. Martin, 1985
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“Estrogen can retard growth of bone and cartilage, and girls producing too much estrogen often suffer stunting.” Endocrine Physiology by Constance R. Martin, 1985
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"Plasma prolactin concentrations undergo diurnal variations that include sleep-associated elevations. The levels also rise in response to demanding activity and some forms of stress, and sharp peaks have been observed following food ingestion. Estrogens are potent stimulants that affect dopamine turnover in the brain. In cycling females, plasma prolactin reaches its highest levels during the times of maximal estrogen secretion.” Endocrine Physiology by Constance R. Martin, 1985
Wife Swapping in the Stone Age by Nigel Barber, Part Two:
In addition to formal polyandry, many hunter-gatherer societies have informal polyandry that is superficially similar to wife swapping, or swinging, in modern societies. Wife swapping could be described as husband-swapping but that term never took off. The term seems demeaning to women because it implies that they are the property of their husbands. Yet there are two reasons that it rings true. First, sexual intercourse is widely considered a service that women provide to men, rather than vice versa (2). Second, in many societies studied by anthropologists, wives are traded like property and treated like possessions, painful though this is to modern sensibilities.
Informal Polyandry
In developed countries, polyandrous marriage is not recognized and presumably does not occur. Informal polyandry, or wife-swapping, became
fairly common in California in the 1970s when widespread use of contraceptives took the paternity problem off the table (2). Swinging was possibly motivated by a masculine desire for sexual variety in an environment that did not threaten marital stability as much as having affairs. Symons points to the irony that women actually derived much more sexual pleasure from such events (frequently by having sex with other women), whereas men quickly became fatigued. Much of the swinging disappeared due to the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
Informal polyandry is a feature of some hunter-gatherer societies, such as the Inuit of northern North America, or the Yanomamo of the Orinoco river basin in South America.
Among the Inuit, a male guest might be invited to sleep with the lady of the igloo (2). This custom might seem to take being a good host to a dangerous extreme but accepting the offer incurs an obligation to reciprocate by sharing one's own spouse's sexual favors.
There is an even more onerous potential cost because in sleeping with his host's wife, the guest incurs responsibility for her children in the event that the host dies early (1). This helps to explain a pattern whereby societies practicing informal polyandry have high male mortality.
"Are there undiagnosed cases of hypothyroidism in mental institutions? One
hopes not, but possibly there might be. In 1949, a study in Britain indicated that such cases were frequent there and that many, once their thyroid deficiency was recognized and treated, could go home." Broda Barnes, MD, PhD
Photograph from, the motion picture "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", 1975
#oneflewoverthecuckoosnest #jacknicholson #brodabarnes #hypothyroidism #thyroid #mentalhealth
Wife Swapping in the Stone Age by Nigel Barber, Part One:
Wife sharing in early human societies was more common than we used to think.
Anthropologists are all too familiar with the violence and bloodshed triggered by marital infidelity. Now they are coming to terms with a more mysterious phenomenon—consensual wife sharing. If men fly into homicidal rages when their wife cheats on them, why would they encourage another man to sleep with her?
Stone Age Polyandry
Formal polyandry in which two or more men share a spouse is defined by a marriage contract. Reasons for such marriages include an excess of males in the population (1). The thinking is that two men (often two brothers) have a better chance of paternity if they share a wife than if they remain unmarried. Exactly the same logic applies to polyandry in other species, as illustrated by birds such as jacanas where a female is typically bonded to two or more males that nest in her territory.
In agricultural societies of Tibet and elsewhere, polyandry is entered into as one method of preventing family estates from being split up. Anthropologists are finding that polyandrous marriage is much more common than previously supposed. They are also finding polyandry in many hunter-gatherer societies where it was presumed to be absent (1).
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This is significant because it suggests that this form of marriage has been around long enough to affect the evolution of pair bonding in our species. One possible implication is the remarkable flexibility of women's sexual behavior in the sense that they can accept multiple partners more easily than is true of many pair-bonded species (whether primates or non-primates). Men are generally not very comfortable with polyandrous marriage due to sexual jealousy, uncertain paternity, and conflict over paternal investment in children.
Photograph from, the motion picture "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice", 1969
