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Women don’t suffer in this way - our voices just get deeper.’ ‘Male and female voices lower with age, and from about 65, the cartilage in the male larynx gets very thin and male voices become higher, reedy and tremulous. The larynx drops significantly with age, too, extending the length of the vocal tract and changing the sound we make. Glands are where mucus is produced when it decreases, this impacts on the voice and can make it sound crackly. The number of glands in our body decreases with age, including those around the larynx and vocal folds. Our lung capacity diminishes dramatically, dropping by 50 per cent between the ages of 20 and 80, which naturally affects the power of the voice.’ Rubin’s colleague, Dr Ruth Epstein, explains: ‘We’re up against a lack of elasticity throughout our bodies as we age. It’s far better for your voice to keep a few extra pounds on board.’Īs someone who has struggled with weight gain for ten years, I am punching the air at this news.īut it’s not just our vocal folds that age our voice. ‘The good news is that the best source of oestrogen after the menopause is found in fat cells, so don’t go on any drastic diets. It’s believed that HRT can help, although there isn’t a lot of research to back this up. But I don’t as there can be side-effects, and any vitamins for voice should be given only under the supervision of a GP. ‘Some of my colleagues recommend vitamins such as magnesium, zinc and calcium for menopausal women. Sound remedy: Lynne Wallis sought natural ways to rejuvenate her voice ‘The vocal folds need to have just the right amount of moisture to work properly,’ Mr Rubin reveals. This is known as menopausal voice syndrome. It is around my age, 51, that levels of oestrogen drop dramatically, causing the vocal folds to dry out. Hormones are a big influence on it, too.Ī woman’s voice can change so much just before her period, when there are large amounts of progesterone in her body, that opera singers are given time off at this point in their cycle, when their voices lower noticeably. Other factors which can affect the voice range from diet, alcohol and stress to how much we weigh. But the larynx gets progressively lower as we age, and, as this happens, our voices deepen. We are born with our larynx high up in the throat so that our chances of choking are less - there is a smaller distance between where food enters our bodies and where it is swallowed. Our vocal cords, or ‘vocal folds’ as Mr Rubin prefers to call them, are part of the larynx, a structure made of muscle and cartilage located at the top of the trachea, or windpipe. ‘We’ve noticed an increase in people with issues relating to an ageing voice, and we believe this is due to an ageing population who work for longer and are reliant on their voice to keep working.’ ‘We live in a society where people want to appear young and, now, to sound young as well,’ Mr Rubin told me. I made an appointment at the Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital in London with the celebrated specialist and voice consultant to the stars (ever-discreet, he won’t mention who) John Rubin.