Q: Why is menopause suddenly getting so much more attention?
Dr. Gillian Goddard:
I think it’s, as it often is, sort of a perfect storm of factors.
One is we’re in the midst of a generational shift. For a long time it was baby boomers who were going through perimenopause and menopause. Now it’s been more Gen X.
Gen X has a very different attitude toward aging and toward what’s acceptable as far as medical intervention and the acceptance of risk versus benefit. And so I think there’s been a big generational change.
I think a lot of women going through menopause now watched their mothers suffer when they were going through menopause. That’s different.
We also have some distance from the Women’s Health Initiative study, which is the study that made so many women fearful of taking hormone replacement therapy.
And so I think that’s been really beneficial as well. We’ve got the wisdom of hindsight now and some reanalysis of that data telling us that hormone therapy is, for the vast majority of women, quite safe.
And then I also think somebody realized that we’ve got money to spend.
As you know, if there is an opportunity in the market, people will come in to fill that opportunity.
Q: When do women typically start coming to an endocrinologist with midlife concerns?
Dr. Gillian Goddard:
I would say early 40s is when that really starts to happen.
And I think that the reason for that is because we know that most women enter the late reproductive stage between their late 30s and about 45.
And so this is when women are starting to see menstrual changes and they’re starting to have symptoms. And that’s what’s bringing them in.
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Dr. Gillian Goddard
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