--- title: Menopause Is Finally Going Mainstream in Medicine description: After being ignored for decades, doctors, pharmaceutical companies, and startups are taking menopause treatment seriously. canonical: https://time.com/6565057/menopause-treatment-symptoms-mainstream/ author: Jamie Ducharme article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2024-01-23T18:46:14.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:50:38.074Z article:section: Health og:title: Menopause Is Finally Going Mainstream og:description: After being ignored for decades. og:url: https://time.com/6565057/menopause-treatment-symptoms-mainstream/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt02ac9915f6ae8687/698a4417457a525bd3d68562/medications.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2309 og:image:height: 1299 og:image:alt: A large group of assorted pills and blister packs. og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Menopause Is Finally Going Mainstream twitter:description: After being ignored for decades. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt02ac9915f6ae8687/698a4417457a525bd3d68562/medications.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Menopause Is Finally Going Mainstream > Sponsored content. 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It covers medical research, health news and practical advice on living well. #### Where can I get reliable health news by email? Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. ## Video: Don’t Fall For the Marketing. ‘Toddler Milk’ Is Not Good For Your Child [Watch (HLS stream): Don’t Fall For the Marketing. ‘Toddler Milk’ Is Not Good For Your Child](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/IAL6rVMQ.m3u8) (2:05)  _Published 2023-10-20. A pediatricians' group is warning powdered drink mixes known as “toddler milks” are unregulated, unnecessary and nutritionally incomplete._  by [Jamie Ducharme](https://time.com/author/jamie-ducharme/)  ## Jamie Ducharme Ducharme is a contributor to TIME. Jan 23, 2024 6:46 PM UTC  Getty Images  by [Jamie Ducharme](https://time.com/author/jamie-ducharme/)  ## Jamie Ducharme Ducharme is a contributor to TIME. Jan 23, 2024 6:46 PM UTC Kathryn Clancy wrote [an entire book](https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691191317/period) about menstrual cycles. But even she was surprised by some of the pre-menopausal symptoms she recently began to experience at age 44. “A lot of things that have to do with my uterus, ovaries, and breasts, I have been massively underprepared for as a Ph.D.-level expert in this field,” says Clancy, a professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. “That should tell you how even more underprepared most people are.” Most people who menstruate will experience symptoms including hot flashes, brain fog, and changes to mood, sleep, and sexual function as they approach menopause, defined as the point in time a year after their last period. But that transition, which typically begins between the ages of 45 and 55, is [so rarely discussed in society](https://time.com/collection-post/6325393/menopause-health-care/)—and at the doctor’s office—that people often know nearly nothing about it in advance. [One 2023 study](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10273865/) of post-menopausal women found that almost none of them had learned about menopause in school, and about half of them “did not feel informed at all” about the life stage. But there are signs that menopause is finally going mainstream, as both the medical and business worlds get serious about the needs of the [million-plus people in the U.S. who reach menopause](https://www.nia.nih.gov/news/research-explores-impact-menopause-womens-health-and-aging) every year. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2023 [approved](https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-approves-novel-drug-treat-moderate-severe-hot-flashes-caused-menopause) Astellas Pharma’s drug to treat menopausal hot flashes, and pharmaceutical giant [Bayer is currently developing a similar medication](https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/bayers-menopausal-relief-drug-succeeds-late-stage-trial-2024-01-08/). Some companies are beginning to [offer menopause benefits](https://www.shrm.org/topics-tools/news/benefits-compensation/menopause-benefits-new-workplace-trend) to [their employees](https://time.com/6274622/menopause-us-economy-women-work/). Lawmakers have [pushed for more research](https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/8774?s=1&r=13) on menopause. And a flurry of menopause-focused startups have launched in recent years to supplement traditional care, since studies suggest a [significant portion](https://journals.lww.com/menopausejournal/fulltext/2023/01000/treatment%5Fand%5Fresource%5Futilization%5Ffor%5Fmenopausal.11.aspx) of people going through menopause [are not treated](https://hellobonafide.com/pages/state-of-menopause). The company [Alloy](https://www.myalloy.com/), for example, connects patients to menopause specialists via telehealth and sells wellness products targeted toward those going through the transition. “I have really noticed, thankfully, a new attention and interest in taking care of people during this transition,” says Dr. Ghazaleh Moayedi, a Texas-based ob-gyn who provides menopause care. She attributes that shift to growing numbers of women holding positions of power in business, tech, and medicine, and to social media’s ability to spread information among patients. ### More From TIME But fixing the problem will take more than well-branded startups, or even new FDA-approved therapies, which not all patients are able to get. Experts believe a meaningful shift will only take place once the core issues change: how research is conducted and disseminated, how doctors are trained, and how seriously practitioners take women’s pain. --- For Dr. Sharon Malone, chief medical advisor to Alloy, the medical system’s problems with menopause go back to 2002\. That’s when [a major study](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/195120) was published, linking hormone therapy —which can ease menopause symptoms by boosting levels of hormones that have dropped off—to increased risks of breast cancer and other serious conditions. After that, [hormone therapy use plummeted in the U.S](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14709575/). But, Malone says, there’s a crucial caveat to the data: the study participants' average age was 63, older than that of a typical patient receiving hormone therapy for menopause. [Later analyses](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6780820/), and [statements from researchers involved in the study](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5415400/), clarified that the risk of breast cancer may have been overstated, particularly for younger people. In [a 2022 position statement](https://www.menopause.org/docs/default-source/professional/nams-2022-hormone-therapy-position-statement.pdf), the North American Menopause Society said hormone therapy has more benefits than risks for women younger than 60 and within 10 years of menopause, unless they have specific complicating health factors. But many doctors and health groups remain wary. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for example, [still cautions](https://www.cdc.gov/cancer/breast/basic%5Finfo/risk%5Ffactors.htm) that hormone therapy may be associated with higher risks of breast cancer when taken for at least five years. There has also been debate about whether hormone therapy is linked to a heightened risk of dementia—a risk that Dr. Kejal Kantarci, a professor of radiology at the Mayo Clinic, says her research has not borne out, at least among younger people. In [a 2018 study](https://www.neurology.org/doi/10.1212/WNL.0000000000005325), Kantarci and her colleagues compared a small group of women who used menopausal hormone therapy in their 40s and 50s with those who took a placebo. Three years later, they found no significant differences in cognitive function between the two groups. Other studies, however, have [reached different conclusions](https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/28/health/hrt-dementia-risk-wellness/index.html). The result of all this back-and-forth, Malone says, is that “we are now looking at a generation of doctors that really have not had formal or informal training in how to treat menopause. Women don’t know what to expect, and doctors don’t really know what to do.” Moayedi says the problems in physician training go deeper than hormone therapy. “I don’t remember a single lecture from medical school about menopause,” she says. And after graduation, she, like many of her colleagues, worked in a clinic staffed by doctors finishing their medical training, which mostly served people who were uninsured or underinsured. Most of the patients Moayedi saw were lower-income pregnant people who qualified for Medicaid or older people on Medicare—which meant she hardly ever saw people who were going through menopause, despite training to become an ob-gyn. Physicians who don’t specialize in obstetrics and gynecology likely know even less, she says, because women’s health is often (wrongly) considered “separate from the rest of medicine.” Moayedi says she often sees patients who have been misdiagnosed with other conditions, [including ADHD](https://time.com/6554521/adhd-drugs-shortage-pandemic/), because their primary care doctor didn’t realize that symptoms like brain fog can be linked to menopause. Another reason doctors are under-informed, Clancy says, is that most reproductive-science research looks at people at the peak of their childbearing years, which typically excludes adolescents and adults entering menopause. She says there’s a clear need for more studies—and more funding for studies—on people who fall outside those main reproductive years. [A bill introduced in 2022](https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/8774?s=1&r=13) called for $100 million for menopause research in 2023 and 2024, but it hasn’t moved forward. Even so, Malone says she’s encouraged by the fact that menopause is receiving renewed attention—and that people are noticing the need for that course correction at all. “Women of a certain generation just assumed that suffering was just part of being a woman, our unfortunate lot in life,” she says. Now, she says, patients “are saying, ‘This is nonsense. You’re going to have to do better by us.’” ## Transcript Still infant formula has everything, your baby needs to grow and Thrive and have a very, very healthy life. And what? Expert that has pediatricians and babies Pediatrics like my page and call it consultant say that. After a year you can transition if you're using a formula at to cow's milk and or continue breastfeeding and using human milk in whatever capacity and so no matter how you feed your baby while they're that when there are your underwear, whether that's with human milk or breast milk, or with infant formula, add a year, you can transition to cow's milk and baby is developed enough that they can process atom has what they need. And they also of course, they're eating other complimentary food but that's fine as well. And so you don't really need a toddler milk at that point to be paying extra and paying for something that isn't needed. And also has a mom of three daughters including a four month old to 2 year old and A5 year old Is that beats holla, notes are alongside infant formula in the aisle, and it's very confusing for parents. I know especially the first time hearing, but as a third time. Miss confusing, and everyone wants, what's best for their kiddos. And so, you're in the aisle and you're like, I was trying to transition from infant formula formula and they start purchasing it. And everything is what medical professionals recommend and is that if you're using inform you, that you can then transition to cow's milk. And if your breastfeeding and you'd like to continue to do continue feeding with breast milk, so you don't need these toddler formula is, and to a certain extent, the marketing of these toddler formula is is a bit predatory cuz you don't need them according to medical professionals. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/6565057/menopause-treatment-symptoms-mainstream/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/6565057/menopause-treatment-symptoms-mainstream/"},"headline":"Menopause Is Finally Going Mainstream","datePublished":"2024-01-23T18:46:14.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:50:38.074Z","description":"After being ignored for decades.","url":"https://time.com/6565057/menopause-treatment-symptoms-mainstream/","keywords":["Aging","healthscienceclimate"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt02ac9915f6ae8687/698a4417457a525bd3d68562/medications.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Jamie Ducharme","jobTitle":"Ducharme is a contributor to TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/jamie-ducharme/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt02ac9915f6ae8687/698a4417457a525bd3d68562/medications.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"A large group of assorted pills and blister packs.","caption":"A large group of assorted pills and blister packs.","creditText":"Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/aging/","name":"Aging"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/6565057/menopause-treatment-symptoms-mainstream/","name":"Menopause Is Finally Going Mainstream"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Don’t Fall For the Marketing. ‘Toddler Milk’ Is Not Good For Your Child","description":"A pediatricians' group is warning powdered drink mixes known as “toddler milks” are unregulated, unnecessary and nutritionally incomplete.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/IAL6rVMQ/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2023-10-20T20:50:14.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/IAL6rVMQ.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/6565057/menopause-treatment-symptoms-mainstream/","duration":"PT2M5S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/6565057/menopause-treatment-symptoms-mainstream/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```