The Menopause Manifesto: Own Your Health with Facts and Feminism

by Jen Gunter

38 percent of women ages forty to fifty-nine and 23 percent of women age sixty and older eat fast food every day—instead

less fast food, more vegetables, more fiber, eliminating sugar-sweetened beverages and fruit juice?

Instead of precision nutrition for a select few we need good nutrition for all.

In 1994 the United States passed the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA), removing multiple safeguards for consumers. For example, companies don’t have to prove the product contains what’s advertised on the label.

Consequently, adulterated products are common.

Sometimes the main ingredient is swapped out for a less expensive product, there may be no active ingredient at all, or instead of a botanical th...

In 2015 the New York State attorney general investigated herbal products sold at GNC, Target, Walmart, and Walgreens, and 80 percent of the products didn’t contain any of the herbs on the labels.

With supplements the motto is truly buyer beware.

Plants can be more dangerous than pharmaceuticals, so why insist on drug safety and not extend that safety requirement to botanicals?

To me studying all therapies regardless of source is an act of feminism, because women can only be empowered about their health with accurate information.

It’s fascinating how injections of vitamin B12 are branded as natural, immune boosting (not a thing), and wellness promoting, and other interventions or medications, such as vaccines, are stuck with the Evil Pharma label.

This is especially dumbfounding with vitamin B12, as the injections are made by a pharmaceutical company and they contain small amounts of aluminum, one of the ingredients that some people falsely claim make vaccines unsafe or unnatural.

While the amount of aluminum in B12 is less than the amount in vaccines (and the amount in both is very safe), people don’t g...

OTC hormones are available seemingly everywhere, even on Amazon. Avoid them. They may not even contain hormones, but there are many other reasons to also give them a pass.

This is a good example (or really an enraging example, because this type of labeling shouldn’t be allowed) of how labels can be misleading.

MULTIVITAMINS: These products have been reimagined for women over fifty to provide support from within—don’t fall for it! The only reimagining here is to figure out how to target women’s fears as they age.

VITAMIN A: This is a group of compounds also knows as the reti-noids. Doses of 10,000 IU a day or more are associated with an increased risk of osteoporosis.

supplements of vitamin B6 combined with B12 together are associated with an increased risk of osteoporosis and fracture—in one study there was a 50 percent increased risk of a hip fracture. The higher the dose of the vitamins the greater the risk.

WHAT DO MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATIONS SAY ABOUT THIS SUPPLEMENT? Specifically the North American Menopause Society (NAMS), the International Menopause Society (IMS), the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ACOG), or the Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of Canada (SOGC). Enter the name of the supplement or product and then the name of the society into the search engine.

ods.od. nih.gov.

Never assume a product is benign or that it doesn’t have an interaction with another medication just because it isn’t a pharmaceutical or because the labeling claims it is natural.

The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (www.nccih.nih.gov) is a good place to start a search for safety and always tell your provider if you are taking any supplements or are planning to start.

DOES THE PERSON RECOMMENDING THE PRODUCT PROFIT FROM THE SALE? Talk with a medical professional who doesn’t profit from the supplement to get unbiased information. • DOES THE PERSON RECOMMENDING THIS SUPPLEMENT USE TERMS SUCH AS PREGNENOLONE STEAL OR ADRENAL FATIGUE? If so, get another opinion.

Look for products with a seal of approval from one of three independent agencies—NSF International, US Pharmacopeia (USP), or ConsumerLab—that test these products for purity.

These quality of life issues matter, because for a therapy to be useful you have to be able to use it.

I disagree with the American College of Physicians as do many others, but if this is where a woman’s provider is getting their information about MHT it may well affect how they counsel their patients.

I’d like to blame my hormones, but I also have to be truthful. This was a period of time where I stopped exercising and ate a lot of meals in restaurants.

This is an important point and deserves emphasis—it’s very easy to blame menopause when it can be *waves hands all around* everything else. Just as it’s important not to dismiss women who are having menopause-related concerns, it’s equally as important to not blame all concerns on menopause and assume that estrogen is the answer.

menopause shouldn’t be a mystery to women and it’s not a marginal concern—this is women’s health care.

When we focus on hormones we miss many other important interventions, like quitting smoking, diet, and exercise. Or the value of CBT for hot flushes, insomnia, and low desire.

But there is other harm in being estrogen-exclusive. When people imply all women need estrogen during their menopause transition or during their postmenopause, it’s simply a rebranding of what we heard with hormone marketing in the 1950s and 1960s. It’s just now instead of estrogen being packaged as glamorous, it’s sold as natural and self-care.

MHT isn’t a Get Out of Menopause Jail Free Card, it’s one puzzle piece. For some women a big piece of the pu...

Instead of thinking in terms of natural or unnatural, menopause is best...

The best way to approach menopause is to be informed so women can understand if what is happening is menopause-related; what diseases she may face due to her combination of genetics, health, and menopausal status; and what is the best way to achieve quality of life and health and how to best balance those goals against any risks. This can only happen with accurate information and without the prejudice of the patriarchy.

If it’s found online at the North American Menopause Society (NAMS), the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), the Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of Canada (SOGC), the Australasian Menopause Society (AMS), or the International Menopause Society (IMS) then it has been vetted by experts and typically those experts have been required to disclose any biases.

A good way to start looking for information online isn’t to just use a search engine, rather to search internally on NAMS or ACOG or to enter a search, such as “hot flushes” and add “NAMS” or “ACOG” or any other medical professional society. This will filter results from those organizations, so they should appear at the top of the search.

NAMS also has a menopause certification for providers. While many providers who are not NAMS certified are excellent, looking for one if you are in North America who has that certification will help a woman find someone who has demonstrated an increased interest in the area, has passed a proficiency exam on the subject, and is requir...

To be a woman is to coexist with a unique reproductive gauntlet imposed by biology.

Many women have been conditioned to fear menopause as an expiration date for relevance and as a sign of weakness only because that is what men thought.

In fact, we have this amazing data that tells us that menopause is the opposite—a time when historically women contributed great things to society because of their knowledge and their age.

When told by a patriarchal society the story of menopause is one about deserted youth, frailty, and diminished worth. The story I want you to remember is about value, agency, and voice and the knowledge to keep yourself in the best of health while demanding an equal seat at the table.