Love the Perimenopause Movement, Skeptical of the Checkout Cart

I was deep in research for a column about the perimenopause supplement boom when I came across the TikTok trend: women taking Allegra and Pepcid together to manage hot flashes, brain fog, mood swings — the whole constellation of symptoms the medical system spent decades telling us were just stress, or aging, or in our heads. The theory has something to do with estrogen and histamine. Doctors say there's no evidence it works. And yet.

I understand exactly why they're doing it anyway.

I watched a close friend spend two years getting dismissed by her OB — told she was fine, told she was "too young," told it was "just stress." She eventually went to a telehealth platform, got prescribed HRT, and felt like herself again. I think about her every time I see a $50/month perimenopause supplement with a clinical-sounding name and a list of "clinically studied" ingredients, because the desperation that drove her there is the same desperation someone is currently monetizing.

Dr. Jen Gunter recently tore apart one of those supplements and found the evidence behind most ingredients was thin at best. A STAT News piece this week argued the whole perimenopause movement might be medicalizing a normal life transition — that maybe some of this is just being tired and 40.

Both things can be true. The movement gave women language for what their bodies had been doing for years, and the industry that followed isn't necessarily on our side. Gratitude for the conversation doesn't mean handing your credit card to whoever showed up to profit from it.