How menopause became a pharmaceutical royal flush

Menopause or Good Business?

Before 1930s, menopause was considered to be nothing more than a product of female imagination. During the following years, reaching the peak in the 70s, the pharmaceutical industry saw a great chance for profit in menopause, creating a wide arrange of different therapies and medications, all of which deal with the symptoms of this natural process.

Today, menopause is considered to be equal to a disease. Therefore, you are being negligent of your health unless you spend money on medications necessary for treating the symptoms of menopause. Somewhere during the past decades, this natural factor of menopause was lost and replaced with something unnatural, which affects women, causing them to be sick. Therefore, this illness is to be treated as soon as possible, usually with hormone replacement therapy or pills, neither of which is a cheap or easily affordable method.

The Marketing and Menopause

Celebrities helped this line of pharmaceutical products reach the hands of many middle aged women around the world. Namely, marketing campaigns involved celebrities which were testifying about the dangers of menopause, possibly causing the Alzheimer's, colon cancer, teeth loss, cataracts and other health problems. However, the data was not genuine. Moreover, it was not said by the celebrities directly from their own experience, but rather through scripts they were given. Yet, the effect was overwhelming since today there is only a small number of women in the developed countries who do not use medications against the symptoms of menopause.

Also, the very notion of femininity was brought to question through these commercial endeavors. Women, during their menopause, were considered to be less feminine than before, since their hormonal levels dropped and their estrogen supplies got depleted. Therefore, we had women defined as empty, sexless shells once their hormones are gone. So, if they desired to be women again, attractive and feminine, they needed the pills or the synthetic hormones. The irony is more than obvious.

Bombarded with information about potential health risks of menopause, many women took these medications without thinking or analyzing their sources, let alone their effects. Yet, there are no proofs of menopause causing illnesses.

On the other hand, during the researches which lead to the birth of hormone replacement therapy, women were initially given estrogen hormone. However, this lead to endometrial cancer in some cases. Thus, progesterone was added to the mix and the therapy was born. Moreover, contrary to claims that hormone replacement therapy decreases chances of heart attacks, many tested women have actually had heart attacks while on the therapy.

All in all, be careful. Even though medications are supposed to help and usually do, these are a part of a giant, money-starving industry which has no priorities in helping you.