There are about 80 symptoms associated with menopause, including hot flashes, brain fog, headaches, weight gain, dry itchy skin, and hair thinning.
The wide-ranging symptoms could be mistaken as other issues, which could be confusing for the women and even healthcare practitioners.
“There are around 80 symptoms associated with menopause transition, that's why the whole scenario is so confusing for the woman herself, for the family, for the caregivers, for the husbands, for the doctors, researchers,” said Dr Vandana Garg, medical innovation director, wider Asia, Haleon.
Speaking at the Growth Asia Summit 2024, Dr Garg said that these 80 symptoms could be broadly categorised into three baskets, namely mobility health, mental health, and metabolic health.
She was speaking on the topic: A journey to women’s health – uncovering the market gaps and addressing nutritional misconceptions seen across different life stages.
This is one way to meet the nutritional and health needs of women experiencing menopause.
During menopause, which is when menstruation has stopped for 12 months, women typically face a deficiency in vitamin B6 and calcium.
“There’s data showing that vitamin D deficiency is also increasing in this group, and in addition to cognitive dysfunction and osteoporosis, there comes a plethora of metabolic dysfunctions.
“Eighty per cent of women are also affected by hormonal imbalance,” she said.
While hormone replacement therapy (HRT) is the gold standard for addressing menopausal symptoms, there remains low uptake.
Dr Garg pointed out that less than 30 per cent of menopausal women take HRT and only 15 per cent continue the therapy for a prolonged period.
Some reasons include high cost, risk of weight gain, desire for personalised solutions, and the perception that “natural is good”.
This opens the opportunity for health supplements to help them cope with these symptoms.
Besides acknowledging that menopausal symptoms are diverse, the way forward is to provide personalised and holistic care.
In this case, Haleon has designed products targeting different menopausal symptoms.
Under its Centrum Menopause Support range of products, the company has designed for instance, a multivitamin and hot flash support product.
On its label, the product is said to be “hormone-free”, “helps reduce hot flashes”,
“promotes healthy bones and metabolism.”
The product contains the patented formula geniVida which has been clinically studied to help minimise the frequency and duration of hot flashes.
Another product under the range, known as Restful Sleep, is said to “support quality of sleep and helps reduce hot flashes at night.”
Said to be hormone and melatonin-free, it is formulated with geniVida and DailyZz – a proprietary blend of polyphenols for supporting sleep.
More research and less stigmatisation
More needs to be done in terms of clinical trial and scientific research to better understanding women’s health, Katherine Miranda Mendoza, consumer sciences product experience (CSPX) lead – APAC and China, Haleon, added at the presentation.
This is because the lack of understanding could lead to assumptions and misdiagnosis of certain health conditions in women.
“You'll be surprised, only one per cent of the healthcare spend is on women's health, beyond oncology,” she said, citing data from a McKinsey report.
“There are also publications showing that women are underrepresented in clinical trials and because of that, there's lack of data, lack of science, lack of understanding of the women's health conditions.
“And then what happens? There are some assumptions - men and women are the essentially the same, except for the bikini zone,” she said.
For instance, conditions such as osteoporosis and migraine are affecting women more than men and cardiovascular disease symptoms might present differently in women.
“With male-dominated data, the hallmark symptom for heart attack is pain on the left on the chest. But for women, if they present different symptoms, it's considered atypical.
“This then leads to a risk of misdiagnosis and therefore women are more likely to die of heart attack compared to men,” she said.
Another issue is stigmatism around certain conditions, such as pain management, based on Haleon’s global pain index study.
The study surveyed 90,000 consumers from 19 countries and found that 49 per cent of women said that “pain has a high impact on their life, and they have to stop or adapt their daily routine.”
This figure is lower for men at 39 per cent.
However, only 35 per cent of women are likely to visit healthcare professionals for help, while 42 per cent of men are likely to do so.
Survey findings showed that women are hesitant to visit healthcare professionals as they felt discriminated when they talked about their pain issues.
Some of the women were told that it is normal or ordinary to feel painful and the likelihood is higher in Asian countries such as India and China.
