Doctors warn against over-medicalising menopause after UK criticism

Doctors said that treating menopause as a hormone deficiency that requires medical treatment could make matters worse.

There is an urgent need for a more realistic and balanced narrative which actively challenges the idea that menopause is synonymous with an inevitable decline in women's health and wellbeing and called for continued efforts to improve awareness about the symptoms and how to deal with them.

Half of humankind is at midlife. There is no universal experience when it comes to menopausal symptoms and most women prefer not to take medication unless their symptoms are severe.

Over- medicalisation of the menopause risked collapsing this wide range of experiences into a narrowly defined disease.

While effective treatments are important for those with troublesome symptoms, medicalisation may increase women's anxiety and apprehension about this natural life stage.

They said that women's experiences of menopause were influenced by a number of factors. A recent review found that women with negative attitudes and expectations were more likely to experience distress.

A study of UK women who were having hot flashes found that those with negative beliefs about menopause were more likely to report embarrassment and shame.

Changing the narrative by normalising menopause and emphasizing positive aspects such as freedom from menstruation, pregnancy and contraception would empower women to manage menopause with greater confidence.

More than 75% of women who experience the menopause report symptoms, with 25% describing them as severe. Some women benefit from hormone therapy, but it's not the only thing that can help.

The chair of the British Menopause Society and the society's chief executive wrote in an editorial that healthcare providers should take an individualised approach to assessment and empower women to make informed decisions.

Although the benefits of hormone replacement therapy were likely to outweigh the risks for most women with problematic symptoms, current evidence did not support its use to prevent dementia or cardiovascular disease.

Many U-turns regarding the safety of HRT have had a lasting impact on practitioners' confidence in the available evidence. Although the benefits of HRT outweigh the risks in most women, this isn't always the case. There needs to be a challenge to the point about GP competence.