This year the Herald’s award-winning newsroom produced a range of first-class journalism, including Jacinda Ardern’s shock resignation, the Auckland anniversary floods, arts patron Sir James Wallace’s prison sentence, the election of Christopher’s Luxon government and the All Blacks’ narrow defeat in the Rugby World Cup final.
This summer we’re bringing back some of the best-read Premium articles of 2023. Today we take a look at some of the year’s best menopause and perimenopause advice.
Menopause checklist: Questions to ask your doctor about HRT
They call it “the Davina effect”. Campaigns led by hormone replacement therapy (HRT) enthusiasts such as British broadcaster Davina McCall have led to a boom in demand. The number of women being prescribed HRT in England has risen by almost 30 per cent over just the last year, from 1.8 million in 2021 to 2022, to 2.3 million from 2021 to 2023 – and has doubled since 2015.
“The normal range for a last period is between the ages of 45 and 55,” says Dr Juliet Balfour, a GP who runs an NHS menopause service in Somerset. Because perimenopause, the period of hormone changes leading up to menopause, can last 10 years, some women in their thirties and forties will experience symptoms and could benefit from HRT.
If you are considering joining the hormone rush, here are 11 questions you might want to ask your doctor.
Spice Girl Emma Bunton: Menopause destroyed my libido
Mel C’s recent autobiography, Who I Am, surely put any lingering doubts to bed. When the Spice Girls sang, “I really, really, really wanna zig-a-zig-ah” on their global 1996 hit Wannabe, they definitely meant the joys of carefree young sex.
Emma “Baby Spice” Bunton and her husband, the singer Jade Jones, have been thinking about that quite a bit recently.
“My desire, my libido, whatever you want to call it, it went and that really worried me,” Bunton says. “Even after 24 years together Jade and I still really fancy each other, but instead of acting on it, it was more like, ‘Shall we watch the last episode of Succession?’ Or just ‘zzzzzz’ rather than ripping each other’s clothes off. And that fading desire is a big, big shock for a woman.”
Jade Jones is listening to this very carefully. “I suffered, didn’t I, babe?” he interjects suddenly. “I was like, ‘What’s happening?’ I had to be patient. But then Emma got help and, boy, she came back so strong.”
Read more about Emma Bunton’s menopause experience here.
Seven diet secrets to eat your way to a smoother menopause
This week, a new non-hormonal treatment for hot flushes was approved for use in the US. In studies, the drug, Veozah, cut the number of hot flushes in half, which, given that 80 per cent of women suffer from them, is a huge breakthrough. But what about the many other effects of menopause which Veozah doesn’t claim to treat?
In a study for the menopause care app Stella, when women were asked to list their most troublesome symptoms, hot flushes didn’t even make the top five. They rated well below fatigue, difficulty sleeping, anxiety, low mood and weight gain. Luckily, there’s growing evidence that simply tweaking the way you eat could transform your experience of menopause.
Marcela Fiuza is a menopause specialist dietitian at Marcelanutrition.com. She says: “Menopause is a critical point where women experience a lot of metabolic changes. What you eat now will be a big determinant of how healthy you will be over the next 30 or 40 years of your life. The right diet can make an incredible difference to women’s lives.”
Here’s how to build a menopause-friendly diet.
Mid-life dementia link: How menopause changes the brain
Across the United States, roughly 6 million adults 65 and over have Alzheimer’s disease. Almost two-thirds of them are women — a discrepancy that researchers have long attributed to genetics and women’s longer life spans, among other reasons. But there is growing consensus that menopause may also be an important risk factor for the development of dementia later in life.
Women going through the life phase, which is clinically defined as the end of fertility, face as many changes in the brain as in the ovaries, said Dr Lisa Mosconi, a neuroscientist and director of the Women’s Brain Initiative at Weill Cornell Medicine. While the vast majority of women will weather these changes without long-term health consequences, about 20 per cent will develop dementia in the decades that follow.
The female brain is rich in estrogen receptors, particularly in regions that control memory, mood, sleep and body temperature, all of which “work beautifully when estrogen is high and consistent”, Dr Mosconi said. Estrogen is also vital for the brain’s ability to defend itself against aging and damage.
The characteristic decline in estrogen during menopause not only alters the functioning in some brain regions, she said, it is also thought to change the brain’s structure; scans show reduced volume in menopausal brains compared to male brains of the same age and to those of pre-menopausal women.
These neurological changes may be responsible for some menopausal symptoms, including hot flashes, mood disruption and a mild, usually temporary decline in memory and cognition. Read the full story here.
‘Meno-washing’: Are mid-life women being scammed?
“Wow, you could open a health-food store with all this,” my friend says as she closes the cupboard door in my kitchen. She is not wrong, I realise, as I gaze at the boxes, bottles and pouches of supplements I’ve accumulated since being told by my GP, two years ago, at the age of 43, that I was, officially, perimenopausal.
At a glance, there’s the vitamin D supplement I bought after reading that our natural supply diminishes at this stage of life; rhodiola, which is meant to help with anxiety and reduce cortisol levels; agnus castus for PMT symptoms; and magnesium to help with my mid-life insomnia. I have one friend who swears by wild yam to help stomach cramps and another who uses ginkgo biloba to help overcome brain fog.
Over the years, I have collected quite an array of herbal supplements for my intermittent insomnia, and after hearing from the GP that I was menopausal, and starting HRT in 2021, I began looking into holistic HRT remedies, too.
Dr Louise Newson, a GP and menopause specialist who runs a clinic in Stratford-upon-Avon, says she has seen a big surge in demand for HRT alternatives in recent years. “There is an absolutely huge market nowadays for menopause-related supplements,” she says. “And while it’s understandable that women are looking for a way to relieve symptoms, I would always urge caution in seeing herbal medicines as a cure-all for menopause symptoms.”