A new study from McMaster University suggests that men's general preference for younger women is the cause of menopause, CBC News reported.

The research team said that a lack of reproduction among older women over tens of thousands of years has led to an evolutionary natural selection of sorts. In other words, because so many generations of women were giving birth earlier in life, the chance of reproduction later life became less possible, the study said.

"We are saying somewhere along the line, men began to change their preference in mating," said evolutionary biologist Rama Singh, co-author of the study published in the current issue of the journal PLOS Computational Biology. "Menopause will occur if there is a preferential mating with younger women and older women are not reproducing."

Singh said he and his team used computer modeling to determine that more and more women were having children between the ages of 15 and 30. This led them to believe menopause to be a genetic mutation hand down through the generations.

"It's a very simple theory. What it does is it demystifies menopause," he said. "It becomes a simple age-related disease, if you can call it that."

According to the study's hypothesis, the mutation just became harmful to female fertility over time.

"That's just like all the mutations that affect our aging - white hair, weak muscles, this and that," Singh said. "These are mutations which affect fertility."

The hypothesis challenges a popular theory about female reproduction called "the grandmother theory", which states women become infertile later in life to assist in raising their grandchildren.

Kristin Hawkes, an anthropologist at the University of Salt Lake City, Utah, is a leading advocate of the grandmother theory. She said other primates, like chimpanzees, prefer older females.

"My guess about that has been it's a consequence of our life history - something selection would favour after - not before - our grandmothering life history evolved ... when women continue to be healthy and competent beyond their fertility," Hawkes said.

Singh hopes his team's study will help doctors diagnose menopause and ultimately aid in lessening the symptoms.

"Until now, [menopause] has been something that you could not do anything about except (deal with) the symptoms," he said.