Beware menopause marketing — not all the products claiming to ease your symptoms are harmless

When Amanda Thebe received a package of menopause skin care products in the mail last month, her first question was “Why?” “I would have bought the skin care without the word ‘menopause,’” said Thebe, a Toronto author and public speaker known for her work raising awareness about women’s menopausal health.

“They didn’t need to do that. They’re just cashing in.” She noted, too, that there’s recently been a noticeable uptick in products catering explicitly to women experiencing perimenopause and . That’s a radical shift from, say, a half dozen years ago, when associating a product with “the change” would likely have been seen as a net negative.

Menopause has come a long way, to the point that nearly all wellness trend forecasters, including Whole Foods, have tapped the “menopause market” as one of the next big things for 2024. It seems we’re about to see everything from meno foods, like special energy bars, to supplements and skin creams, as well as immersive experiences at “pause” spas and retreats that offer counselling on nutrition, exercise, and anything else you can imagine.

We can also look forward to a slew of new apps and period trackers in the “femtech” space, especially given that celebs such as and Stacy London have invested in the menopause market. Thebe said that estimates put the global menopause market at over $16 billion, a number that sounds big but actually makes a lot of sense, given that this planet is home to roughly a billion women between the ages of 40 and 60.

In North America, elder millennials and Gen Xers, who seem to have grown up and evolved into Gen M, are often cited as the driving force behind this new focus on “the pause.” “I think it’s mostly about awareness,” offered Trish Barbato, co founder and director of the Menopause Foundation of Canada, who notes that the United Kingdom was ahead of the curve on the pause.

“All of the advocacy groups like ours started because there was nobody talking about it, and we began raising our voices and having conversations, and suddenly it struck a chord.” Almost everyone agrees this is a welcome change. At the same time, though, there are serious concerns that the rise of the menopause market might trigger a Pandora’s box of medical misinformation used to sell unnecessary gadgets, diets and supplements — a situation that already poses a problem.

“I run the menopause unit at Mount Sinai and women come in with shopping bags full of stuff that they’ve taken to relieve symptoms,” said Dr. Wendy Wolfman, professor in the department of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Toronto’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine. “And I think, ‘Oh my God, what a waste of money.’” Wolfman isn’t judging.

In fact, in her role as director of the hospital’s clinic, she’s spent much of her career trying to fight the underlying problem that makes women vulnerable to the pitch, namely, that has meant that getting good information has been an uphill battle. “I think what happened is that women fell through the cracks and sought other modalities of treatment that included herbal remedies and naturopathic supplements,” she said.

“And I’m not faulting women because they still had symptoms and no one seemed interested in treating them. They were trivialized.” Some of these products might be harmless, such as cooling pillows or supplements. Others are less benign. “There’s a product that measures certain hormones to see if somebody is menopausal,” noted Wolfman.

“This is going to generate anxiety, ultimately, because that hormone goes up and down for many years before people actually become menopausal. “There’s also a lot of advice about how to balance your hormones,” she added. “Once you’re menopausal, your estrogen level is low. Your progesterone level is low.

There’s no balance.” Dr. Michelle Jacobson, assistant professor at the Temerty Faculty of Medicine department of obstetrics and gynecology as well as a menopause specialist at Women’s College and Mount Sinai hospitals, says there are potential issues with certain hormonal treatments that are sold as “more natural.” “One thing that everybody seems to agree on is that we have to be very careful about compounded bioidentical therapies,” explained Jacobson.

“There are actually a lot of pharmaceutical grade Health Canada approved products that are considered ‘body identical’ and similar to what the ovary makes, so there’s really no need to seek out alternatives that might not be made in the same quality controlled environments.” Jacobson encourages women to seek out information from qualified health experts to see what optimizes their health needs and, if applicable, is covered by their health insurance, so they can access the front line, gold standard treatments recommended by doctors.

“I’ve diagnosed far too many endometrial cancers and other similar issues that really resulted from imbalanced and inadequately dosed therapy,” she said. Sadly, accessing qualified medical experts presents a serious challenge for many. An estimated two plus million people in Ontario don’t have a family doctor.

Those who do might be surprised to learn that our provincial health care system doesn’t even offer a billing code for a special menopause appointment. Even if there was a way to schedule a “welcome to the pause” appointment, not every doctor is fully up to speed. Wolfman cited a recent study that found only 30 per cent of residents in obstetrics and gynecology programs had received training in menopause.

Mount Sinai Hospital is expanding its menopause centre, and one aspect of the plan includes increasing resources to help educate doctors and the general public. Many advocates hope that some of the menopause market energy can be channelled into making substantive change, such as the work at Mount Sinai, where they’ll be launching , a virtual health care platform that, once fully off the ground, is designed to connect women with nurse practitioners.

For the large part, most experts agree we don’t need to reinvent the wheel. Instead, this recent increased awareness would best be used to repurpose existing resources, and learn how to access employee benefits and treatments that are already available. Advocates are hopeful that, with this attention, it will be possible to get good information out there and make substantive change.

“The question we get frequently is, ‘Is menopause having a moment?’” said Jacobson, “And our response is typically that we hope it's not just a moment but the start of a real movement.”.