Perimenopause business boom offers hope, health, and hype

Strange things can start happening to women as they enter middle age. 

Lying in bed night after night, Andrea LaCroix noticed her heart was pounding mysteriously fast. Claire Gill had a baby in her early 40s, so when she started skipping periods a year later, she thought she might be pregnant again. Laura Okafor wasn’t sure whether her new sleep troubles and spike in anxiety were typical for a mom with young kids.

Eventually, all three women arrived at the same explanation for their symptoms: perimenopause, a period characterized by fluctuating hormones that can last for years before the official onset of menopause, 12 months without a period. 

Menopause has been flooded with attention in recent years, the subject of books, businesses, and advocacy by celebrities like Drew Barrymore, Naomi Watts, Halle Berry, and, in a new ad for WeightWatchers, Queen Latifah. Now health entrepreneurs are coming for perimenopause, menopause’s “smaller sister,” as Okafor puts it. Hoping to expand on the $18 billion menopause market, businesses are marketing perimenopause communities, supplements, meal plans, wearables, prescription medications, and more to women starting in their late 30s.