Claims that menopause has been over medicalised and potentially overtreated with MHT have been rejected as “patronising” and harmful to women by leading Australian women’s health doctors.

The doctors were commenting on an Australian-led series on menopause in The Lancet that argued menopause had been turned into a health problem to be solved by hormone therapy.

This had the potential to lead to the disempowering of women and overtreatment, wrote lead author Professor Martha Hickey, a gynaecologist at the Royal Women’s Hospital in Melbourne.

She called for an overhaul of the medical profession’s approach to menopause and a move towards a more holistic overview.