TVO's The Agenda: “What You Need to Know About Menopause”

Wendy Wolfman, a professor in the ob-gyn department, appeared on TVO’s The Agenda to discuss menopause, its symptoms, and the opportunity for Canada to become a leader in menopausal education. The episode aired in March 2025 and is titled, "What You Need to Know About Menopause."

“Every woman, if she lives long enough, will go through menopause. Not every woman now gets pregnant,” said Wolfman, who is the director of the Menopause Clinic and The Premature Ovarian Failure Clinic at Mount Sinai Hospital. She estimated women will live anywhere from 30 to 50 per cent of their lives after menopause.

Menopausal symptoms, caused by hormone fluctuations, are wide-ranging: from hot flashes, sore breasts and heavier periods to less commonly associated symptoms like joint aches, itchy skin and “brain fog.”

Society underestimates the length of time these symptoms happen, said Wolfman.

“We used to think [symptoms] happened for about a couple of years, but…the average time they last is 7 to 10 years. Forty per cent of women have symptoms into their 60s, and 10 to 15 per cent of women have these symptoms into their 70s.”

There is an awareness and education gap around menopause, including the messaging around hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and how it can be used to treat symptoms.

“I think it’s a huge problem, because even in the undergraduate curriculum, even in the gynaecology curium, there’s so little time spent on menopause,” she said, adding that there’s a concerted effort to add more in the curriculum.

Wolfman — who runs educational courses through her clinic as do a number of other organizations in the country — believes that allowing women to use all their skills over their lifetimes would “improve not only the health of ourselves our partners, our families, but even our nation. Our goal is to make sure women are not prevented by their symptoms from functioning at their highest level.”