Most mammals don’t live long after their last offspring. Humans do. For IMA Senior Fellow in Obstetrics and Gynecology Dr. Kimberly Biss, that means thinking about quality of life after menopause, not just quantity.
In this clip from her IMA Academy lesson, she takes on the stigma around hormone therapy and welcomes the FDA’s decision to remove its black box warning. Menopause, she explains, is the point when a woman’s eggs are gone, typically between ages 45 and 55. The reproductive organs are part of the endocrine system, and when other parts of that system stop working, medicine replaces what’s missing, whether that’s thyroid hormone or insulin. Her own mother had Addison’s disease and was on cortisol. So why, she asks, do we vilify female hormones?
The full 50-minute lesson brings clinicians up to date on hormone therapy for women. Dr. Biss traces how sex hormones function across a woman’s life stages, revisits what the Women’s Health Initiative trial actually showed versus how it was received, and maps today’s hormonal and non-hormonal options for managing menopausal symptoms. She closes with a practical framework for individualized hormone therapy, built around the patient rather than the headline.
