Writer: Shayda Swann | Editors: Romina Garcia de leon (Weblog Co-coordinator) and Katherine Moore (Director of Operations)
Revealed: April 4, 2024
On Worldwide Ladies’s Day (March eighth 2024), the Ladies’s Well being Analysis Institute hosted the ninth annual Ladies’s Well being Analysis Symposium, titled Midlife Ladies’s Well being Analysis: Unpacking the Science of the Menopause Journey and its Well being Impacts. On this weblog, we’ll be highlighting the work shared by the keynote speaker, Dr. Susan Reed (MD, MPH).
Why menopause issues
Maybe the obvious motive why menopause issues is as a result of half of the world’s inhabitants will expertise it. This ubiquitous expertise brings bothersome signs that may cut back ladies’s high quality of life, result in work absences, and cut back total productiveness. Regardless of this, solely a fraction of well being funding goes in direction of menopause analysis. As an example, of the ~9,000 grants funded by the Canadian Institutes of Well being Analysis from 2009-2020, solely 5.9% evaluated feminine particular outcomes, not to mention menopause-focused work. We encourage readers to overview our three-part menopause collection the place we cowl many of those subjects in depth (Half 1, Half 2, and Half 3).
Reviewing landmark research in menopause analysis
The Examine of Ladies’s Well being Throughout the Nation (SWAN) started in 1994 and was a US-based cohort of three,000 ladies aged 42-52. They recognized that “menopause transition signs”, similar to menstrual irregularity and vasomotor signs (i.e., sizzling flushes and night time sweats) peaked between ages 46-56 and that most individuals expertise menopausal signs for as much as 10 years. In addition they reported that signs have been usually most bothersome within the two years earlier than and after the ultimate menstrual interval. Moreover, the SWAN research recognized necessary predictors of vasomotor signs, similar to adiposity (physique fats), having lower than a university schooling, stress, melancholy, and nervousness. The SWAN research additionally reported key findings round sleep, temper, cognition, heart problems, metabolic well being, bone well being, and sexual well being. As an example, they discovered that low libido was related to vasomotor signs and that bone loss is most speedy within the yr previous the ultimate menstrual interval.
One other research, referred to as MsFLASH, additional superior our understanding of this necessary part in ladies’s lives, with a give attention to assuaging menopause signs. First, they discovered that selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and serotonin-norepinephrin reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs) have a modest profit of lowering vasomotor signs in ladies who can not or favor to not take hormonal therapies. Sadly, train, omega-3s, and yoga have been not discovered to be helpful therapies. Equally, they discovered that neither vaginal estrogen nor vaginal moisturizer decreased the variety of moderate-to-severe vulvovaginal discomfort episodes in comparison with placebo.
What can we find out about treating menopause?
From the research cited above and others, Dr. Reed shared the present proof for menopause remedy choices. This can be a very transient overview and we encourage all ladies to debate particular remedy approaches with a trusted well being care supplier. First, menopause hormone remedy might be initiated in most ladies with signs between ages 50-59 who’re 1) low threat for heart problems, breast most cancers, or venothromboembolism (blood clots) or 2) reasonable threat based mostly on knowledgeable decision-making. Remedies needs to be initiated inside 10 years of the ultimate menstrual interval or earlier than age 60.
Data translation
Dr. Reed additionally shared a number of helpful patient-centred assets to assist ladies navigate the menopause transition. As an example, the Menopause Precedence Setting Partnership has a survey the place ladies can share their priorities for future menopause analysis initiatives. The MsFLASH research additionally developed a incredible web site which features a primer on menopause, an outline of remedy choices, and a instrument to construct a personalised “menoplan”.
Due to the organizers of the Ladies’s Well being Analysis Symposium for an additional glorious assembly and for prioritizing mid-life ladies’s well being!