\n<\/p>\n
Millions of women are being exploited by a \u201cmenopause gold rush\u201d as companies, celebrities and influencers take advantage of a \u201cdearth\u201d of reliable information on the issue, experts have said.<\/p>\n
Healthcare companies and content creators saw menopause as a \u201clucrative market\u201d and were trying to profit from gaps in public knowledge, women\u2019s health academics at UCL said.<\/p>\n
Researchers called for the rollout of a national education programme after finding a significant number of women do not feel well-informed about menopause.<\/p>\n
Writing in medical journal Post Reproductive Health, they said: \u201cThere has been a rapid expansion in unregulated private companies and individuals providing menopause information and support for profit; this has been termed the \u2018menopause gold rush\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis fragmented landscape of menopause support and education leaves people vulnerable to financial exploitation, may propagate misinformation and is likely to amplify existing menopause-related health inequities.\u201d<\/p>\n
One woman who took part in the study told researchers: \u201cEverything I know about the menopause I learnt on Instagram from other women.\u201d Only one in five \u2013 22% \u2013 of 1,500 women surveyed by the UCL team felt well-informed about menopause.<\/p>\n
Nine in 10 women surveyed said an education and support programme was needed. The preference would be a service to be delivered in person or online in weekly sessions over two to four weeks, they told researchers.<\/p>\n
Those surveyed said the acceptability and success of such a programme would be dependent on it being accessible, accurate and based on the latest scientific evidence. It would also help with \u201cmyth busting\u201d.<\/p>\n
The UCL team has begun developing a training programme that could help women prepare for menopause and support those experiencing symptoms. These can include physical symptoms such as hot flushes, palpitations and difficulty sleeping, and mental symptoms including brain fog and mood changes.<\/p>\n
The lead author of the study, Prof Joyce Harper, from UCL\u2019s Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Institute for Women\u2019s Health, said: \u201cWe have a menopause gold rush because companies, investors and people see menopause as a lucrative market.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile public awareness of menopause has greatly improved recently, there has been a rapid expansion in private companies and individuals providing menopause education, especially on social media, which has led to misinformation which can make existing menopause-related health inequities worse.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere remains a dearth of evidence-based, theoretically informed and rigorously evaluated public health programmes targeting individuals around the time of menopause and immediately afterwards. Hence our proposal for a new national programme of menopause education and support, which we hope will be funded by the government.\u201d<\/p>\n
The senior study author Dr Shema Tariq, of UCL\u2019s Institute for Global Health, said: \u201cAlthough menopause is a natural hormonal and social shift, without evidence-based information and support it can be a challenging time for people. Menopause often comes at a \u2018crunch point\u2019 in our lives \u2013 we may be juggling multiple caring roles as well as the demands of work, and potential impacts on our self-esteem and relationships.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe believe that everyone should be entitled to accurate information and support networks, free of charge, so they are better able to navigate this stage of life.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Millions of women are being exploited by a \u201cmenopause gold rush\u201d as companies, celebrities and influencers take advantage of a \u201cdearth\u201d of reliable information on the issue, experts have said. Healthcare companies and content creators saw menopause as a \u201clucrative market\u201d and were trying to profit from gaps in public knowledge, women\u2019s health academics at<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29209,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[320,17275,129,5543,7645,5824,693,17276,7598],"class_list":{"0":"post-29208","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-social-issues","8":"tag-experts","9":"tag-exploited","10":"tag-gold","11":"tag-information","12":"tag-lack","13":"tag-menopause","14":"tag-millions","15":"tag-reliable","16":"tag-rush"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29208\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/29209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}