"What we’re seeing is an incredible emergence of a for-profit industry associated with menopause"

[GoodOldEmmaNess]

Not sure why we need researchers to tell us this, since it should be flaming obvious to anyone how the menopause has been pushed and pushed to us all over the last few years as some sort of glitch in femaleness that makes us ALL go faulty in middle age.

It is so flaming regressive. Some women are ill as a result of menopause, and need proper medical help and support, but the menopause itself is not an illness.

Until just a few years ago, we fought against the idea that 'women of a certain age' were defined by their transition to a post-reproductive phase in their life. That was part of feminism. Now we are being sold a false narrative that seems to regard pathologising the menopause as a form of empowerment.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/mar/05/companies-portray-menopause-as-medical-problem-and-push-women-towards-ineffective-treatments-papers-find

This is just what capitalism does, it identifies organic or beneficial trends or ideas, then twists it for a profit making agenda. The existence of the sharks shouldn't distract from the legit reasons to grow awareness and action where it's needed.

If anything it probably suggests there might be some need for additional regulation of certain areas of health where dishonesty is still used to fleece people of their money

The wellness industry wants to get its fingers in everywhere.

But we've also changed the definition of health care a lot over the years, so that normal bodily functions can now be seen as a problem. Once we cross that line and people start thinking that is what healthcare is, it should be no surprise that it begins to be applied more generally.

on the subject of evolution/the menopause/raising our grandchildren/generally being a repository of wisdom...
it just occurred to me that (IIRC) lactation can be maintained post reproduction if suckling is maintained, ie if older women occasionally feed babies, maybe their grandchildren, and I wonder if that mitigates some of the ill effects of menopause???

otherwise, yes, capitalism will find a way to profit from anything eventually

I'm glad that menopause is being taken seriously. Obviously there will be people who want to make money out of it. That's fine. There are people who want to make money out of everything.

Looking at the impact that menopause has on women's long term health, earning power and quality of life, at population level menopause is a significant and specific phenomenon. You see it in earnings, employment engagement, suicide rates. These are material measurable impacts and it's in all of our interests to address it.

Yes menopause skincare ranges etc are a bit annoying. But this is something that has an actual tangible impact on half the population. It's not enough to talk about how we "need to just get on with it" and it isn't a sign of weakness to acknowledge challenges that people face and build in support/assistance/awareness to try and minimise or at least alleviate negative impacts.

I wish that GP's had better knowledge of menopause/peri menopause and the effect it has on women mentally as well as physically.

I unfortunately started peri in my late 30's and was fobbed off. Told I was being silly, all in my head, probably just depressed etc etc.
I thought I was losing my mind!

This bit made me laugh though,

“A normal event that affects everyone has been turned into a disease – a hormone deficiency disease, which requires diagnosis and treatment,”

Sounds just like what the genderists did with puberty.

I think GPs are generally phenomenally crap at anything related to the female reproductive system. They’re terrible with issues around puberty, period pain, heavy bleeding, etc. They get to side step contraception and abortion care if they want and they’re often fairly clueless on menopause. It’s like training is a couple of half hearted lectures and then swept under the rug.

I agree that the 'Wellness Industry' is a massive business.

But at the same time women have suffered unnecesarily for centuries during the menopause. A friend of mine just 10 years older was persuaded to take medical retirement from her job. She's now certain it was severe menopause symptoms. The highest rate of suicide among women is 48-52. I have no doubt that if men were loosing cognitive function, sweating profusely in business meetings, loosing their sex drive, suffering severe insomnia, that HRT would be free.

I'm sure HRT won't suit everyone but at least now women are at least having the chance to rry it. And there are proven significant long term health benefits.

It’s like training is a couple of half hearted lectures and then swept under the rug.

Yes. The very fact that "women's health" is a discrete medical specialism is indicative of this. As though it's a sub-branch of medicine like cardiology or pulmonology, something you can study in isolation and just tack it onto what you know about the human male default model. We're not men with a couple of slightly different add-ons. Our bodies and the whole body responses we have to hormones are fundamentally different than those which men experience.

We finally got some way towards getting rid of the "women are unreliable and flaky one week once a month" idea and now "women are unreliable and flaky once they pass 50"
It's all part of the narrative that men are the norm and women are substandard men. It's appalling.

Actually I think we have done ourselves a great disservice by trying to pretend that we are unaffected by hormone fluctuations. That things are just fine for that one week a month throughout our reproductive years, fine during pregnancy and post-partum and breastfeeding and fine during the up to ten years of peri/meno/post-menopause stage. Stiff upper lip and keep on keeping on isn't doing us any favours here.

Because we are affected. All of us, to some degree or other , at some stage or other. That doesn't mean there's something wrong with us. It's just how our bodies work. And given that that's our natural state, how do we best address that? By pretending it doesn't happen? Or by being vocal in requiring that, if we are to fully participate in the society that we give our time and labour to, that society recognises and builds in measures to take account of the challenges that a clear 51% of its members face?

I don’t think women have been pretending that we are unaffected. And feminism in general certainly hasn’t. The focus has been on not having massive generalizations applied to women as a population - since the impact is different on different women - and on having women included in medical testing so that when hormones are an issue it can be picked up before something is rolled out across the population.

Wow, that's really not how it looks to me.

I've consistently heard about how women are "as good as" men - and that this is proved by women saying they are unaffected by periods, menopause ( "I just get on with it"), even pregnancy ("it's not an illness") - I've heard this all my life tbh. The whole backlash against menopause awareness is just another aspect of it.

Many times it's seemed to me the message is that the only way we can prove we are equal to men is to deny that what is happening in our bodies affects us. Which is crazy. It is perfectly possible to be equal to men but be different from them. To have different bodies from men that have different requirements from the requirements that men do, but be equal because we are humans participating in society.

No one is saying that women aren’t different from men. We’re saying that women are not men by default and GPs ought to be as au fait with women’s bodies as they are with men’s. But ALSO the female reproductive system is not massively debilitating by default.

The backlash against menopause awareness is because it’s painted as an affliction for all women. Whereas it’s not. It’s a process we go through that some women need significant help with and more need some help with and plenty just go through without it really affecting much more than their immediate family.

That’s the same as when many women say they aren’t really affected by their periods, or that pregnancy was a bit inconvenient and required some accommodation but not really something that got in the way of most of the rest of their life.

Men have their own hormonal and other medical issues that may get attention (male suicide, for instance) but don’t get the same sort of overdone “concern” resulting in workplaces being shy of employing them and THAT is what we’d like to avoid for women.

(Or at least, that’s my take).

Yes, suddenly we are all defective and broken just because we have reached a certain stage of life.

its like teenage acne. Almost all people deal with it during puberty. Mostly some simple over-the-counter remedies can help make the natural phase of life a bit more manageable. A small percentage of teens will have extreme cases and need to see a dermatologist for a prescription to prevent infections and lifelong scarring. That doesn’t mean every teenager needs prescription pimple cream, but the way HRT is being talked about lately, it feels like telling a teenager as soon as they get their first pimple, they need to call the doctor.

Tried loads, loads worked but only for a while.

The mainstay is magnesium. 4 years and still using it. For me the best way is magnesium flakes (and *Dead Sea salt) in the bath or footbath. But the fizzy tablets worked well for a while.
Beetroot powder (I put it in yoghurt) worked for months.
Black cohosh, (spl)
Basically anything I saw on some blog or YouTube, if it was available and cheap enough I gave it a go. All this on top of HRT, sometimes replacing hrt because I couldn't afford it.

• Dead Sea salt currently because when I looked for a 25k sack of magnesium, one of the reviews said they used in conjunction with Dead Sea salt. So for a fiver I figured it was worth a try. So my plan is to use both, when the salt runs out, see if I feel worse for not using it.

When I first started using the flakes, I did it every two days, slowly felt better and now use about once in three weeks. Hence buying 25k sacks. Its sold in smaller packs in home bargains and the range and of course Amazon. I wouldn't buy a massive sack until you tried it.

Lots of really interesting posts. I'm struck by how many people regard the current situation as being a 'new awareness' of the difficulties some women have during the menopause.
That's not been my experience at all. HRT was huge several decades ago and prescribed with a frequency that led to some concern. Then there was a bit of rebalancing, and in the period since there has been continual discussion of the issue.

What is new today is the relentless bandwagoning around menopause.

This bandwagoning is partly because we are now in a climate where drug companies do seem to be able to lobby more effectively to skew clinical prescribing practices and ramp up patient demand. See how they created the opioid crisis in the US with their cynical messaging around pain.

But I think there are several other trends at play too. Politicians play it for votes, of course, and media outlets are so hungry for content (and so lacking in appetite for investigation and and analysis) that they lap up any press releases that pharma chooses to game them with.

I hope you are advising reducing ( or stopping) alcohol and daily exercise for women with midlife low mood ? My understanding is that is where the smart money ( research) is however it doesn't line the drug companies pockets.....

I'm really sorry you have had such a bad experience - I have had so much menopause training compared to men's health (GP trainee nearly at end of training here) so I hope the tide is turning.

Surely it's all a bit true - that some women sail through menopause and need no help, whilst others feel like they are going totally insane, so having an awareness of the menopause to explain it, plus meds that help, is very comforting? That awareness is good, whilst industry bandwagoning is inevitable and is another pendulum that will swing. That understanding some women may need additional help (or at least the windows open) is not admitting that women as a sex class are by definition fragile or secondary.

I am 47 and menopause is nearly done for me - I have hot flushes but otherwise been OK, other than terrible sleep. So not needed HRT - windows open, sleep podcasts and a lot of exercise do it for me. But other women have very different experiences and I prescribe HRT in a heartbeat (if desired, if apropriate). The industry side of it can be ignored, just like weddings, childbirth, and any other commercial exploitation of natural human needs.

I am the same - menopause at 50 (I'm now 70) - didn't want HRT as, like you, apart form hot flushes and a bit of weight gain I was OK. (I still get an occasional hot flush BTW).

I have recently been described Estriol cream for vaginal dryness*, and it has been very helpful. I hope you manage to see your GP soon and get it sorted.

I dont think thats a very good comparison. HRT has some preventative actions for things that might be to come, such as bone thinnning or protection against dementia (some evidence of this I believe). Its too late if you get to that point and havent prevented it or taken actions to minimise it

Im not on HRT yet but Im not counting it out. I plan to start having DEXA scans, will have to get these privately, this will inform me whether Im already vulnerable to thinning

Ive got the pessaries for vaginal atrophy but I admit Im not great at remembering them, they need to be used consistently for best effect.

What is new today is the relentless bandwagoning around menopause.

God forbid we have a fucking minute to talk about the effects of a lack of hormones on the female body, whilst forcing women to work until they drop.

By the way, the wellness industry is not new at all, dont people know their history??!!!

Read any paper or magazine/pamphlet from the 1700s onward and you'll see adverts for all sorts of ills from all sorts of quacks!

Hi. I haven't read the article but tend to agree that any'condition' is a target for the pharmaceutical industry. Has there been any research done on why there seems to be so many more problems around the menopause. Could there be a link with long term taking of the birth pill which has a. direct effect on hormone levels. Most women of child bearing age have taken the pill at one time.

I bet it hasn't been examined @graysonperry and may correlate with worse symptoms in richer countries

Neither has the impact of society on how women experience the issue - and that's super sensitive as no one likes to think there is a mental aspect to their physical symptoms ( as though mental issues like age are somehow shameful )

What I found most interesting was how HRT overall helping health was actually proven for much less than people claim is proven and if pharmaceutical companies are the ones paying for most research it has to be treated with a large pinch of salt

Yes women who undergo early menopause are mental and that's why they are in excruciating pain.

Listen to yourselves.

You sound like a pack of Mens rights activists.

Why shouldn't we have access to drugs that can save our lives?