Unless your wife has major health problems already or a history of female complaints, I can't imagine getting all worked up about it in advance. I suspect but don't know that women with the worst symtpoms have tried to go really low-fat dieting. There is a cottage industry out there working up hysteria over a natural process. You're getting older; this is what happens. As they say on the t-shirt, put on your big girl panties and deal with it. This is not to minimize the serious problems some women have; they are real and requires medical and nutritional advice. But I hope that future generations will revert to the notion that it can be handled somewhat discretely...mg