Lion’s mane mushroom, maca root, collagen concoctions: there’s a menopause gold rush out on social media’s wild frontier
A woman gets to a certain age and all she wants is to be left alone. No chance. Writing in the medical journal Post Reproductive Health, a group of academics warned this week of a “menopause gold rush” leaving women vulnerable to financial exploitation, misinformation and, frankly, a sweat-inducingly gigantic avalanche of advertising. A lot of this activity has been driven by – guess what? – social media. One respondent told the researchers: “Everything I know about the menopause I learned on Instagram from other women.” As gold rushes go, this has got to be the one you’d least like to see dramatised in a Hollywood movie: “Quick, Bianca, activate the algorithmic analysis of the campaign for the vitamin B6 supplement!”
The academics warned of “a rapid expansion in unregulated private companies and individuals providing menopause information and support for profit”. So now, instead of talking about the treatment and management of menopause, we are talking about how to cope with an equally pernicious condition and one that seems to have no cure or end: the ubiquitous commercialisation of menopause.
Viv Groskop is a comedian and author of How to Own the Room: Women and the Art of Brilliant Speaking
