{"id":41183,"date":"2026-08-12T16:33:58","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T11:33:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=41183"},"modified":"2026-08-12T16:33:58","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T11:33:58","slug":"norah-odonnell-what-i-learned-from-my-doctor-about-menopause","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=41183","title":{"rendered":"Norah O&#8217;Donnell: What I learned from my doctor about menopause"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"\">\n<p>For this week&#8217;s &#8220;Healthful,&#8221; I sat down with my very own doctor, Rachel Rubin, to tackle the important topic of menopause: How your body changes, why women may be needlessly suffering, and what you can actually do about it.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s what I learned in our conversation, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@HealthfulwithNorahODonnell\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">streaming now on YouTube<\/a> and available wherever you listen to your podcasts:<\/p>\n<h2>Menopause as &#8220;a castration event&#8221;<\/h2>\n<p>&#8220;Menopause is a castration event, whether we like it or not, whether it&#8217;s natural or not,&#8221; Dr. Rubin said. &#8220;Whether it&#8217;s supposed to happen or not, we are outliving our ovaries.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Rubin described menopause as essentially the ovarian function turning off: Your ovaries no longer make estrogen, progesterone or testosterone. &#8220;You&#8217;re not making the hormones that you were during your reproductive years, and that has consequences because you have hormone receptors throughout your entire body,&#8221; she explained.<\/p>\n<p>The severity and symptoms are different for everyone, but women commonly experience hot flashes, poor sleep, mood changes, weight gain and memory issues.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>While Rubin said some men see a natural decline of testosterone as they age, they &#8220;don&#8217;t really get to &#8216;castrate&#8217; levels.&#8221; She explained her castration remarks in the context of a gas tank analogy: &#8220;Women, their gas tank is zero. Men, they kind of live at like half a tank, and maybe if they get to a quarter of the tank, they can go to their doctor, they get some testosterone, and they go back to half to three-quarters tank and they feel great.&#8221;<\/p>\n<h2>Vaginal hormones can prevent UTIs \u2014 and save billions in Medicare<\/h2>\n<p>Urinary tract infections are common during and after menopause, and if untreated, can lead to sepsis, hospitalization and even death. It&#8217;s why Rubin said she thinks all menopausal women should be offered vaginal hormones, which fix the urinary tract&#8217;s microbiome and can prevent UTIs.<\/p>\n<p>Right now, fewer than one in 10 postmenopausal women are using vaginal estrogen, even though its use is supported by the American Urological Association, and it&#8217;s often covered by insurance.<\/p>\n<p>Rubin said giving women vaginal estrogen could save Medicare $6 billion to $22 billion a year, citing costs around urgent care visits, hospitalizations and ICU admissions.<\/p>\n<h2>Women actually produce more testosterone than estrogen<\/h2>\n<p>You need testosterone to make estrogen in the ovaries \u2014 and women make more testosterone than estrogen.<\/p>\n<p>Rubin said there&#8217;s global consensus that testosterone helps menopausal and perimenopausal women with low libido, but there&#8217;s no FDA-approved testosterone product for women. Although, it can be prescribed off-label. Rubin said her patients who take testosterone tell her it helps with more than libido \u2014 that patients come back and say, &#8220;I just feel more like me.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve never talked about this publicly before, but I use testosterone prescribed by Rubin \u2014 it comes in a tube that&#8217;s normally prescribed to men, but I administer it in much smaller doses. There wasn&#8217;t an &#8220;aha&#8221; moment for me, but I noticed its effects over time, and in concert with other hormones.<\/p>\n<section class=\"content__body--footer\">\n<\/section>\n<p>  <!-- data-recirc-source=\"queryly\" --><\/p>\n<aside class=\"component list recirculation component--type-recirculation  \">\n<p><h3 class=\"component__title\">More from CBS News<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n<div class=\"component__item-recirc-block\">\n<p><h3 class=\"component__title\">Go deeper with The Free Press<\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<section class=\"content__body--footer\">\n      <!-- tags --><\/p>\n<section class=\"content__tags\">\n<p class=\"content__tags__label\">In:<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/section><\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For this week&#8217;s &#8220;Healthful,&#8221; I sat down with my very own doctor, Rachel Rubin, to tackle the important topic of menopause: How your body changes, why women may be needlessly suffering, and what you can actually do about it. Here&#8217;s what I learned in our conversation, streaming now on YouTube and available wherever you listen&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41184,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/assets2.cbsnewsstatic.com\/hub\/i\/r\/2026\/08\/11\/fe5d7560-6391-4528-85d6-41e8e1a75670\/thumbnail\/1200x630\/e9f10d4e7b0e097336edd396f4c19cdb\/healthful-norah-rubin.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pics-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41183\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/41184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}