Oprah and Dr. Sharon Malone on Everything You Need to Know About Menopause
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Why is menopause a hot topic today?
Thank you all for joining the Oprah Podcast and for watching us on YouTube. I appreciate you taking the time to spend it here with me. And I am just so appreciative of the conversations we're having about things that impact all of our lives. And I'm guessing you all have been hearing a lot about menopause these days. But the more I talk about it, the more I realize we need a Menopause 101 because there's still so much There's so much confusion still out there, and we need reliable information, and we need facts. Menopause is not a disease or a disorder, but a natural part of aging that all women born with ovaries will eventually experience. Menopause occurs when a woman has gone 12 months without a period, which means her ovaries have stopped producing hormones and her body is no longer capable of reproduction. For most women, menopause occurs between the ages of 45 and 55. But before you enter menopause, your body will go through a transitional period known as paramenopause, which can begin as early as your mid-30s.
Paramenopause can last anywhere from 4 to 10 years and may include symptoms like hot flashes, fatigue, mood swings, dry skin, dry everything, and low libido. To help us understand more about the menopausal journey, I invited Dr. Sharon Malone to the podcast. Dr. Malone has been a pioneer and nationally renowned expert in menopause for over three decades.
What are the stages of menopause and their symptoms?
She is the chief medical advisor for Alloy Women's Health and the New York Times bestselling author of Grown Woman Talk. So happy to have you here, Dr. Malone. Thank you so much for having me, Oprah. You know, it's what we were saying before, that I feel like I've been talking about it and talking about it and talking about it. And you say you talk about it. It's every day. And then there's still all these people who have never heard about menopause and what it means for all of our lives.
Right. You know, even for the women who are out there who are currently going through menopause, they haven't heard this conversation. And there's another 6,000 women every day going into menopause. And so the backfill is constant because there are people that just haven't had this conversation, not with their doctors, not with their mothers, and not even with their friends.
So I'm hoping those of you who are seeing this, if you're watching for yourself, that you pass it on to somebody who you also know needs it. Let's start by you explaining the four stages of women's reproductive and post reproductive lives. Can you walk us through what they are?
Yes.
You do that very well in Grown Talk, but I want you to share it with people who haven't read the book yet.
I would love to. The first stage that we're all familiar with is your premenopausal phase, and that really starts at puberty. And that encompasses your reproductive life, the peak reproductive years, which starts somewhere at 12, 13, and it goes to women when they're early 30s. That's premenopause. So when we're talking about that, that's the concern. Yes. Then when you become perimenopausal, that is that amorphous phase between being your peak reproductive years and the end of your reproductive years. And the end of reproduction really starts at menopause. So there's this great space in between the perimenopausal years where you start to have some of the symptoms of menopause. But you're still having your periods, sometimes regularly, sometimes not.
But all of the things that we normally associate... Isn't the sometimes regularly and sometimes not a real indication that you're in peri?
Yes, because sometimes for women, that's the... You're not in menopause until it has stopped. You are not in menopause officially until you have had your last period. And how do you know when you've had your last period? Well, you know you're in menopause when you've gone 12 full months and you've not had another period. Then it's official. You are menopausal. But what's confusing for women is that in-between state because it can start as early as your mid-30s. And it can go on until you've had your last period. And that can go on from anywhere from four to 10 years for women. And that's where I think a lot of the confusion comes in.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
Why is menopause a hot topic today?
0:00–1:31
2
What are the stages of menopause and their symptoms?
1:31–6:11
3
How does hormone replacement therapy work?
6:11–11:00
4
What is Naomi Watts' experience with early menopause?
11:00–18:02
5
How can women address menopause in the workplace?
18:02–23:52
6
What was the impact of the 2002 Women's Health Initiative study?
23:52–57:14
Speakers
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