Health and fitness influencers have become very comfortable promoting the idea that menopause is a hormone deficiency and cause of disease.
60 years after the HRT revolution kicked off, functional doctors, alternative health practitioners and coaches have aligned with mainstream medicine to convince women that their physical and mental well-being is reliant on hormonal pills, patches, creams and gels.
What a dream for pharma that their messaging has become embedded in trending “health hacks.”
It’s as if most of the influencers who I’ve heard talk about perimenopause and menopause are unaware that good health and longevity have never been proven to be dependent on long-term use of pharmaceuticals. EVER. Not even for women who journey through natural menopause.
It’s also as if influencers are unaware that HRT, even bioidentical HRT, remains a prescription-only medicine (POM), which comes with the risk of side-effects.
Even in the US and Australia, where the promotion of POMs is allowed, strict rules apply. However, these rules are not being followed in informal “women need HRT” conversations, such as those we hear on podcasts. Regulators seem not to care.
Recently, menopause and HRT were discussed on the most popular podcast in the English-speaking world, The Joe Rogan Experience. An HRT-or-nothing influencer was delighted to post a clip from the podcast episode (#2239), which turned up in one of my social media feeds..
During the episode, and in the middle of a very guy-oriented conversation, Derek from "More Plates, More Dates" suddenly became Mr Menopause Expert. He made four specific claims that I’ve heard shared repeatedly over the internet.
Almost nobody is challenging these made-up stories about women’s health. Since I’ve spent over a decade digging into the research around menopause and HRT, I’m comfortable exposing and debunking these common claims.
CLAIM 1: Unlike men, women can’t possibly maintain health from midlife on, because there’s a “complete cessation of estrogen and progesterone production” post menopause.
THE PHARMA DREAM: Medicate women for life.
There’s no innate design fault in woman! Yet, throughout the ages we’ve been labeled as weaker, more dangerous, hysterical and now deficient. If you can’t see the pattern, I’m not sure I can help you.
Promoting the idea that menopause is a deficiency, to be treated like a disease, is profitable indeed – medicine can be prescribed for decades!
Luckily, the body still makes hormones post menopause, just not the amounts that were needed for reproduction.
IMPORTANT FACT: Women in Blue Zones do very well without HRT. They live long and healthy lives even with their lower hormone levels post menopause!
CLAIM 2: Women are putting their heart and brain “in danger” by not taking HRT.
THE PHARMA MARKETING TACTIC: Fear.
For decades, pharma has been trying to convince women that menopause is the cause of disease. When it comes to other areas of health, influencers may focus on the real cause of disease: a life lived out of balance.
Throughout written history, women have always lived beyond menopause. In addition, wherever data on life-expectancy is available, women have outlived men. And yet, menopause is supposed to be the cause of disease?
IMPORTANT FACT: Every large randomized controlled trial carried out to test if HRT prevents disease in women in natural menopause has found the opposite to be true. In 2017, the North American Menopause Society had to change their policy document on HRT to remove disease prevention claims (important to read the small print).
CLAIM 3: We can ignore the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI 2002) because it tested synthetic estrogen and progestin, not the newer bioidentical hormones (BHRT).
THE PHARMA SPIN: create new stories about WHI each decade since it created an earthquake in the menopause world over 20 years ago.
These days, BHRT is assumed to be safer. However, without large clinical trials in place, how can we make that assumption? BHRT product inserts do not make that claim.
The headline that should have come out of WHI is that women were lied to. Back in the last century, women were told that HRT could be taken for life and that it would prevent heart disease and more. This was untrue.
IMPORTANT FACT: The increased risk in breast cancer from HRT for healthy women < 10 years post menopause is slight. However, because HRT (including synthetic versions) is taken by millions of women, and because it used to be regularly prescribed to much older women, the manufacturer of one combined HRT product has already settled lawsuits, and is expected to settle more, with payments amounting to $1.2B due to breast cancer occurring in patients.
CLAIM 4: Alzheimer’s is intertwined with menopause shutting off women’s hormones.
THE PHARMA TACTIC: Ignore the science.
These days, pharma loves associating dementia and Alzheimer’s with menopause. With these conditions on the rise, many women will know an older member of their family with impaired cognitive abilities. It’s easy for fear to take hold and it’s impossible for women who are taking HRT to measure if it’s preventing cognitive decline or not.
While it’s true that women experience more dementia and Alzheimer’s than men, is menopause the ONLY variable that we need to consider when we look at the life of an average man and woman? Why aren’t we looking at the negative impacts from THE PILL, other medications more often prescribed to women, toxic cosmetic products, toxic cleaning products, the breakdown of the extended family and how that impacts women in later life, and more?
IMPORTANT FACT: The most robust randomized controlled trials and the largest observational studies have found a null to negative impact from HRT on dementia for women who go through natural menopause. There is NO evidence that healthy women need HRT to prevent cognitive decline.
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