It's not your imagination: we really don't know much about menopause
“It’s not something we learn about in medical school.” Only 9% of NIH funding and 2% of VC dollars go to women's health. If men had menopause, we'd know a lot more.
“The new science of menopause” is a good review of what’s changing in menopause therapies, including new specialty providers trained far beyond what medical school gave them, using techniques both old and new. Both HRT and non-HRT methods are back on the drawing board, as well as other approaches. [Click to find a physician who is certified in menopause therapy.]
Much has been written about the lack of research on conditions that affect women. Until 20 years ago, women were rarely included in medical research and findings were not identified by sex—meaning results presented as applicable to everyone were actually heavily weighted toward men. We learned about men’s health, but not women’s. That’s slowly changing, but even today, women are only included in about 25% of medical research. And the way we pay for health care makes all that worse: payment is oriented to surgery, procedures, and pharmaceuticals. Anything not in those categories is overlooked.
No wonder, then, that menopause—a condition, not a disease—has languished at the bottom of the pile in research. Basically, women are told “to accept the misery of the transition, and the health troubles that can follow.”
After decades of neglect, public and private research funding for menopause, as well as public awareness, are now on the rise. The possibilities are pretty astounding: menopause affects half the population and interrupts a time when women are in their prime professionally. As a result, “the outlook for managing menopause is now starting to change, say researchers and clinicians. Treatments — both old and emerging — are offering hope. Some researchers, for example, are revisiting hormone therapy and the optimal time for treatment to start. Others are exploring the benefits of stalling the onset of menopause.”