British GP Louise Newson on global mission to end menopause suffering

British GP Louise Newson is on a global mission to change attitudes towards menopause and allay “unfounded fears” of hormone replacement therapy.

Dr Newson, who is in Australia this week, is credited for starting a menopause revolution in the UK that is now spreading across the world.

The renowned menopause specialist said while any treatment is a choice, she didn’t understand why women are still being taught that “we just have to get through it”.

“We have to really be talking more about why are the minority of women being prescribed evidence-based treatment in the form of hormones?” she said.

“In Australia, it’s around 10 per cent of menopausal women. Globally, it’s five per cent.”

Almost all women experience menopause symptoms and 25 per cent suffer severely.

Dr Newson has amassed millions of followers on her social media, podcast and app since she opened her private menopause clinic — which sees 4000 women a month — in the UK in 2018.

She also spoke alongside other world-leading menopause doctors at the So Hot Right Now conference at Sydney Opera House last Saturday in front of 2500 attendees and more online.

“I have 20 per cent of my followers and podcast listeners from Australia. People stop me in the street and tell me how much they’re struggling to receive the right help,” she said.

“It’s 2025. Women should be empowered with knowledge so they can make choices that are right for them.”

An advocate for hormone replacement therapy to alleviate menopause’s often-debilitating symptoms, Dr Newson said it also has the benefit of improving women’s long-term health.

She called for a “reframing” of menopause beyond the cessation of menstrual periods.

“We have hormones, oestradiol, progesterone, testosterone, made in our ovaries, and our ovaries don’t last forever, so when they don’t work as well, the hormone levels decline,” she said.

“But hormones don’t just work in our reproductive tract. We’ve known since they were discovered in 1941 that our hormones are chemical messages. They go to every single cell in our body and they have really important biological effects. They’re not just made in our ovaries, they’re made in our brain, other organs and tissues. When levels of those hormones are low, they can cause a myriad of symptoms throughout the body, like palpitations, dry skin, joint pains, headaches.

“More importantly, those low hormones have an increased risk of inflammatory diseases, heart disease, diabetes, dementia, autoimmune disease, cancers, and it is really relevant because we’re living so much longer.”

Dr Newson said unlike 100 years ago when women died at a much younger age, these days many women were living a third of their lives without hormones.

As a clinician I want to reduce future diseases. I don’t want just to make people feel better.

This means for many women, she said, spending the last 10 years of their life in poor health partly due to not having hormones for so long. HRT was widely prescribed to treat menopause until a clinical trial was halted in 2002 after it reported a link with an increased risk of breast cancer.

Dr Newson said the study was flawed and used synthetic hormones which carried more risks than the newer body identical hormones.

But she said an “unfounded fear” of HRT persisted today among women and doctors.

Dr Newson said some patients’ stories were “so sad and so harrowing”, including women ending up in psychiatric hospitals or misdiagnosed and medicated for other conditions without any consideration of hormones.

She said HRT’s impact was often “transformational”.

“They often feel so much better. We see things like their cholesterol coming down, their blood pressure coming down. It’s amazing,” she said.

“That’s really important because as a clinician I want to reduce future diseases. I don’t want just to make people feel better. That’s really quite impressive to have a safe medicine that will improve a myriad of symptoms and improve future health.”

But her clinic, Newson Health, has been criticised over its use of HRT.

Last year the BBC Panorama program aired accusations from former patients and doctors from the clinic that high doses of HRT prescribed there put women at risk.

Dr Newson said every woman absorbed transdermal oestrogen differently and some people needed a higher dose in order to get enough into their bloodstream to be effective. Hormones levels are then monitored by blood tests.

Menopause has become a hot topic recently as the subject of a federal Senate inquiry and election promises by the Federal Government and Opposition to improve the situation.

This month three new body identical hormone medications were added to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme — the first additions in more than 20 years.

The Albanese Government estimated that around 150,000 women a year will benefit from the reduced cost of the medications.

Dr Newson. who has been speaking to doctors and the public at events organised by Perth menopause and women’s health clinic Hera, said she felt the menopause movement was accelerating more quickly in Australia than in the UK.

“I feel that Australians embrace new things a lot more, maybe, than people in the UK,” she said. “They are understanding a lot more the injustice of women not being allowed their own hormones back, and their health risks of not having hormones.”

Dr Newson said training and education in menopause care for doctors was necessary.