What really happens to your skin during the menopause
telegraph.co.ukcampaigning and documentaries reportedly helped drive a rise in women asking for hormone replacement therapy (HRT); and the appointment of a government “menopause tsar” to manage the demand.
Despite prescriptions for HRT doubling in the past five years, of the 80 per cent of women who experience symptoms when going through menopause, only a small proportion take HRT (as little as 10 per cent in some parts of the country) according to the British Journal of General Practice.And yet the physical and psychological symptoms – of which there are about 40, ranging from hot flushes to depression, insomnia, brain fog and skin concerns – have long been ignored by both the medical profession and large swathes of the beauty industry, which, one could argue, has lazily captured the menopausal market under the umbrella “anti-ageing”.
This is despite the Royal College of Nursing estimating that 13 million women are affected by the menopause in the UK alone.Still, little has been known about how menopause affects the skin other than the basics; oestrogen promotes collagen production, thus when the hormone begins to deplete, a loss of firmness and radiance follows.
As with many women’s health concerns, scientists are only beginning to scratch the surface of how our hormones affect the skin.
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