A recent study has shed light on the perimenopause period, an frequently enough-overlooked phase of the menopause transition, according to professor Martha Hickey, Chair of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of Melbourne.Hickey, who led last year’s Lancet series on menopause, described the study as critically important for its broad reach and detailed insights into perimenopause.
“The study reached quite a large number of women and provided deeper insight into perimenopause, an area traditionally overlooked in menopause research,” she stated.
Professor Hickey noted that pharmaceutical companies,which conduct over a third of medical treatment research,have historically excluded perimenopausal women from studies. This exclusion, she explained, is due to the unpredictable hormone production in women during this stage, which did not align with traditional study designs.
Though, Hickey pointed out a key limitation of the study: its cross-sectional nature. While valuable for identifying symptoms associated with specific stages of perimenopause,she said,”it doesn’t tell us how these things change as women go thru menopause.”
