Menopause should be “demedicalized” and treated as a normal phase of women’s lives instead of as a disease, reported an independent panel of practitioners and researchers brought together by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Washington, D.C., to develop a consensus on the topic. Representing Crozer-Keystone Health System as one of the 12 panelists from hospitals and universities across the country was Paul D. Woolf, M.D., chairman of the Department of Medicine at Crozer-Chester Medical Center.

“It was a true honor to be asked to participate on this elite panel,” says Woolf. “It gave me the opportunity to dive into a specific topic and work closely with colleagues to better understand the process and management of menopause.”

According to Woolf, panel participants were required to have no written opinions on menopause and would base their opinions strictly on the information presented to them by the Oregon Evidence-based Practice Center and expert panelists over the two-day period.

Following the presentations, the group worked through the night to present a report that concluded that many women go through menopause with few symptoms and without need for hormone treatment. However, many women, particularly those with surgically induced menopause, do experience more severe and debilitating menopausal symptoms, and should use hormone replacement therapy drugs.

Widespread use of hormone replacement therapy by menopausal women was thrown into doubt in 2002 when the Women’s Health Initiative study was halted because of evidence that using the drugs increased the risk of heart disease, breast cancer and blood clots.

“It’s clear that we need to change the tendency among women and health care providers to treat menopause as an illness requiring universal treatment,” Woolf says. “It can lead to the overuse of medications that are known to carry serious risks, or whose safety is still unclear. Women should talk to their physicians and carefully weigh their personal risks and potential benefits before starting treatment. For some women whose symptoms greatly diminish their quality of life, the benefits of symptoms relief may outweigh the risks.”

The panel also concluded that in addition to learning more about safe uses of hormones, further research into non-hormonal treatment approaches is necessary.

For more information, or to view the program and abstract from the State-of-the-Science Conference on Menopause-Related Symptoms, visit http://consensus.nih.gov/. The full report will also be published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.