‘The New Menopause’: Educating and empowering women
Menopause is gaining momentum, thanks in large part to a doctor from Galveston, Texas, whose mission is to educate and empower women.
Austin, Texas – Menopause is having more than one moment. The topic is gaining momentum, thanks in large part to a doctor from Galveston, Texas, whose mission is to educate and empower women.
Dr. Mary Claire Haver, board-certified OB-GYN and author of the New York Times bestseller “The New Menopause,” joined FOX 7 Austin’s Rebecca Thomas for a conversation.
REBECA TOMAS: Before the release of “The New Menopause,” you had already built a large following on social media. So, clearly, there is a real hunger for knowledge about menopause and its not-so-well-known precursor: perimenopause. Would you give us a brief breakdown of these stages of life?
DR. HAVER: So, I think most of us understand that menopause is the end of our fertility. It’s the end of our periods. But I don’t think what most people understand is that when our fertility declines, we actually lose all estrogen production from the ovaries for the rest of our lives, and that has some significant effects on us. Besides the cliché, hot flashes for the rest of our lives.
REBECA TOMAS: Perimenopause, however, begins long before menopause.
DR. HAVER: TRUE.
REBECA TOMAS: So, talk about it.
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DR. HAVER: So the average age of menopause, which is one year after your last menstrual period, is an average age of 45 to 55 years. You know the average range around 51 or 52 years old. Perimenopause, which is the transition from normal reproductive cycles to the end. , it takes between 7 and 10 years for most women. Therefore, it is very reasonable for women between the ages of 35 and 45 to begin their perimenopausal journey and begin to have symptoms that start slowly and then accelerate towards menopause.
REBECA TOMAS: And there are many symptoms beyond the well-known hot flashes. How does the massive drop in estrogen affect women’s long-term health?
DR. HAVER: So one of the really interesting findings that came out of the Women’s Health Initiative was that women have an acceleration in their risk of cardiovascular disease. And it’s mainly because estrogen has a really protective effect on the lining of the blood vessels that surround the heart. And, when estrogen levels decrease, we are more likely to develop plaques and then atherosclerosis. So that’s one of the ways. Our cholesterol levels also tend to increase during the menopause transition, without changes in diet and exercise, as does our blood pressure. So all those types of confluences together increase our risk of cardiovascular disease, where premenopause we were shorter than men. But then, in postmenopause, we catch up with them and surpass them.
REBECA TOMAS: And speaking of that same study, the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI), over 20 years ago, essentially discontinued the use of hormone replacement therapy due to concerns about breast cancer. It turns out that study was flawed, as were the reports in terms of relative risk and absolute risk. So what do women and providers need to know about what is now more often called menopausal hormone therapy, or MHT?
FURTHER HEALTH RHYTHM STORIES:
DR. HAVER: So MHT, if we look at modern menopause care and the reinterpretation of the data sets coming out of the WHI and many other studies done around the world, we see that for the majority of women, especially in early menopause , the benefits of hormone therapy for menopause are going to outweigh the risks. And we just have, and I joke that it’s as resilient as menopausal chin hair, this notion that menopausal hormone therapy should only be used rarely, only in extreme circumstances, and is dangerous when it actually promotes health. Again, going back to WHI, women who were on hormone therapy had about a 50% lower annual incidence of cardiovascular disease.
REBECA TOMAS: How can perimenopausal or postmenopausal women best advocate for themselves and find a doctor who is knowledgeable about this stage of life and will listen to them?
DR. HAVER: So, I wish I could tell you that you could just go to your OB-GYN or family medicine or internal medicine doctor and say, ‘hey, let’s talk about my menopause and my treatment options,’ because we’re not doing a great job. currently in the US healthcare system on how to provide meaningful clinical education about menopause, its health risks, and the options we have to promote health during the menopause journey. We have a lack of financing, a lack of education, a lack of training. The WHI made people afraid of menopausal hormone therapy. So, one, educate yourself. Absolutely. There are many great resources. We have a website, of course my book, you know, shameless plug here. There are other good books out there. Number two, find a provider trained in menopause. And a good source for this will be menopause.org. That is the Menopause Society website where I am certified. And many of the “Menoposse” are certified, so you know someone has taken training outside of their traditional medical training to learn more about menopause.
REBECA TOMAS: And Dr. Haver also has a ton of free information on her website. That’s thepauselife.com. And, of course, on all of her social media channels.
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