Gwyneth Paltrow is good for perimenopause.
I said what I said.
She was one of the first celebrities to start talking about this transition – back in 2018, when she said menopause needed rebranding. (Yes I know she was selling supplements; she was also sticking her neck out) She’s a first-round investor in one of the leading startups out there, Evernow, and whenever she speaks about this topic publicly, it’s in the main thoughtful and responsible. We know she’s going through it herself and also, she’s having a hell of a time,. That includes, as she’s talked about on her podcast, scary flooding periods so bad she wonders whether to go to the ER.
As Alicia Jackson, CEO of Evernow, told me on our podcast episode, if celebrities with all of their resources struggle, what does that mean for all the rest of us?
And so. In her most recent interview with US People magazine, Paltrow said this:
“I'm really in the thick of perimenopause, so it's quite a roller coaster, and my best advice is that every woman really needs to contemplate what is the right way for her,” she explains. “For me, I've been really trying to focus on having a very well-functioning gut and liver so that these excess hormones can be flushed out of the body and cause less symptoms.”
And here is where GP and whoever is advising her through this is way out in front. Outside of the echo chamber of estrogen-obsessed mainstream medicine, in Traditional Chinese Medicine, in Islamic medicine, for example, the gut and liver are essential to curbing some of the more difficult menopause symptoms.
Further, it’s forward-thinkers across the spectrum who are talking about the dangers of recirculating excess estrogen – something that isn’t even on the radar of “more, sooner, faster, forever” estrogen maximalists. They like to overlook something key: estrogen makes things grow, but that means in certain circumstances, it can make bad things grow too.
This is the corner of the discussion where we also recognize that a lot of the symptoms we have in perimenopause are actually due to high (not low) estrogen, particularly in the context of falling progesterone. In the fullness of time, it could all prove ahead-of-the-curve.
In the meantime, a well-functioning gut and liver is available to all of us, doesn’t usually require a prescription to achieve, and in my personal experience, it does make everything easier.
It certainly can’t hurt.
In other celeb news:
• SHAMITA SHETTY is an Indian actress, interior designer and contestant on the 15th season of a reality show called Big Boss. She’s also posting to her 4.7 million Instagram followers about her symptoms, in a country where there is still a lot of stigma associated with doing so. “Appetite is increased, mood swings, fogginess, memory fog, palpitations – gosh, that’s been a crazy one.” She didn’t know about perimenopause either:
• GABRIELLE UNION: Someone got a brand deal! If you feel like you’ve seen Gabrielle Union everywhere talking about perimenopause in the last few weeks, you have. It’s no accident: she is an ambassador for the ClearBlue Menopause Stage Indicator, which is why she seems to be doling out her menopause symptoms one by one to various media outlets – including The Drew Barrymore Show. It’s helpful to see a perimenopausal celebrity being real about it, and she’s been real about it for awhile. Still, you have label a social media post with an #ad when you get paid for it. I’m still not sure why it’s not required for legacy media, too.
• TRACY ANDERSON: This one hurt my heart a little bit, because in the end it’s seems like a woman who doesn’t want to face the fact that she’s 49, and menopause is coming. (And who among us can’t identify with that?) And this why I say the first symptom of perimenopause is denial: celebrity trainer Tracy Anderson says she “stopped perimenopause” at age 49 by going 98 percent vegan.
follow the evidence
• MUSIC+TOUCH: I’m single and not dating at the moment, so one thing I’ve noticed is that I can get feeling really weird if I go for a few weeks with only some cat snuggles and friend hugs. Humans need touch. They also need music, and those two beautiful things were the subject of a study published in Menopause, the journal of The Menopause Society of North America. A small, lucky group of 108 women who experienced these things reported better sleep, quality-of-life and a reduction in symptoms after four weeks.
• OVER IN LATIN AMERICA: Some things I learned from reading this study Ageism, menopause and health disparities in Latin America in The Lancet Regional Health Americas journal: stigma may be higher due to ageism and misogyny, some studies have turned up a higher prevalence of hot flashes and night sweats, Latin women suffer more from vaginal dryness and sexual problems, have a low uptake of hormone therapy and prefer natural remedies.
• HrT+BONES: Hormone therapy helps maintain bone density, but only while you are taking it. What happens after? According to these findings from almost 1,000 women who are part of the long-term Buffalo OsteoPerio study, five years on, women who went on hormone therapy for a few years and then went off experienced the greatest bone loss; almost double those who never took it. The researchers said further study was needed to build on current research, and look at whether targeted physical activity would mitigate that post-HrT bone loss.
headline hysteria
It’s a four-way tie:
Menopause made my insides 'fall out' – women should be taught how to stop this happening Yahoo!life UK
Australia: Alana's mum thought she was menopausal. Then she was told she had six months to live 7News
Gabrielle Union defies menopause stigma and warns of the deadly risks of staying quiet USA Today
'Vaginal Dryness' Can Be Fatal. No, Really Medscape
peri power tool
This isn’t specifically a perimenopause product (most of the things I’ve used and will recommend aren’t, actually) but I do count it as a game-changer in my successful efforts to heal my whole self starting with my gut earlier this year. Anyone who is experiencing gut issues will learn a ton from this app. It involves short daily meditations and lessons that drive home the truth that our gut health is intricately tied to our mental health, and vice-versa. I paid US$79 for this app for three months and stuck with it daily. And I am so glad I did. It’s not at all about nutrition recommendations or food: it’s about you. No affiliation, but I do see that they are offering a Black Friday 20 percent discount.
bookshelf
OUT NOW: “This anthology of poems and short fiction aims to address that, with wild and wonderful writing from humour and anger, relief and distress, by women who have experienced menopause, whether naturally or as a result of surgery; with a healthy dose of views from the global majority and the lesbian, bisexual and trans communities.”
Hotflash inc podcast:
Round the world reading list
• You guys there is a perimenopause quiz in Cosmo and this piece originally appeared in Cosmo too! COSMO….
• Celebrities in the Philippines talk menopause: Menopause is no joke Manila Bulletin
• A Singapore-based communications expert talks IVF during perimenopause Sassy Mama
• Nigerian Nollywood actress Njoke Silva wants you to know something: Why Older Women Are Sexually Active As Younger Women Naija News
• What a great feature on menopause: Lost in Transition Winnipeg Free Press
• Christine Tondorf can’t wait for this: Why I’m throwing a party to celebrate menopause The Guardian
• I only just connected the dots how anxious I got about traveling during perimenopause after reading this Ireland-based writer’s experience: “If you name it, you tame it” Newstalk
Editor’s note
Imagine the hornet’s nest I walked into starting out Hotflash inc a few years ago, when I posted a photo of Gwyneth Paltrow herself, holding a copy of Will Cole’s new Intuitive Fasting book, and said ‘hey, we complain that no celebrities are talking about menopause, but she’s talking about it’.
It reminded me of the time I had to present about music in Grade 5, and I didn’t know anything about it, so I got my dad to help me. He really loved Linda Ronstadt, so we chose her, and through the course of the project, I started to love her too. I walked in so excited to share her music, nervously taking the record out of it’s sleeve, putting the needle on the song we decided I should play (I think it was It’s So Easy). Then I watched with my heart falling as my classmates not only failed to appreciate the brilliance engaging their ears, but started snickering instead.
When I checked with a friend later why, she informed me that Linda Ronstadt wasn’t cool.
I remember really wishing I’d chosen someone else for my presentation, someone that would have had everyone thinking “Ann Marie is so cool!”
This is dramatic, but I think a little piece of me died that day. I also think something better was born.
AMx
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This is the nicest thing ever x
Note to editor: from all too many childhood experiences of my own from classmates as a kid i just want you to know: I think you’re so cool ❤️🔥