New research review = a bit of clarity

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Photo by Alessandro Bianchi on Unsplash

There is a major gap in menopause research, better treatment options are needed and the whole damn thing needs a new name.

Those were some of the findings of a comprehensive review conducted by a team of international experts and published this week in the journal Cell.

The project, which looked at 200 resources over more than 70 years, was led by Monash University Women’s Health Research Program head Professor Susan Davis. Reading this rational assessment of the current situation felt like pouring the cool water of calm, curious and constructive scientific minds on a fire of conflict-of-interest driven hype and hyperbole, fear-inducing social media posts, and a whole lot of angry polarization.

In a week where I saw a popular doctor on Instagram confidently calling menopause a pathology that only appeared 100 years ago, when we all used to die at 50, I loved this in particular:

“Recognition that menopause, for most women, is a natural biological e…