Menopause

By 2030, an estimated 47 million women will be undergoing menopause each year. With the progressive increase in life expectancy, the number of women older than 50, and consequently in menopause, is much higher today than in previous decades. In the United States, the average life expectancy for women is about eighty years, indicating not only a greater number of postmenopausal women but also that these women will live more than one third of their lives deprived of oestrogen. The authors investigate the levels of the two important hormones, FSH and E2 during perimenopause. Levels of thyrotropin (TSH) in association with reproductive hormone are examined as well. Moreover, the physiopathogenesis of the sex- and menopause-associated differences in chronic liver disease are discussed, which are important to developing new approaches to prevention, diagnosis and treatment. The authors of this book also analyse the gender differences in the epidemiology, symptoms and progression of cardiovascular disease, which increases most markedly in women at the time of menopause. Furthermore, the management of the vasomotor symptoms, including hormonal replacement therapy (HRT) that constitutes the basis of the treatment of menopause symptoms are discussed.