Evidence of meeting #50 for Status of Women in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was symptoms.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Emmanuella Lambropoulos
You can submit an email.
The floor is yours, Mr. Perron. You have six minutes.
Bloc
Yves Perron Bloc Berthier—Maskinongé, QC
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
I thank the witnesses for being with us today.
Ms. Edgell, I'll give you 30 seconds to respond to the last question you were just asked.
Associate Professor, School of Kinesiology and Health Sciences, York University, As an Individual
To answer your question, the study found that shift work influences the age of natural menopause. There is an interaction between shift work and menopause, so for today's topic, those who are working shift work have an earlier age of natural menopause, and that has negative consequences for cardiovascular health. That's the short and sweet version.
Bloc
Yves Perron Bloc Berthier—Maskinongé, QC
Will there be an acceleration of the aging process in the human body in general?
Associate Professor, School of Kinesiology and Health Sciences, York University, As an Individual
It would cause premature menopause.
Bloc
Yves Perron Bloc Berthier—Maskinongé, QC
What really struck me in your opening statement was when you made a connection between the various symptoms that can be triggered by menopause, the fact that these symptoms are present in different diseases, and that there could therefore be an interaction—perhaps even a positive one—in terms of medication. Have there been any studies on this or is there nothing available?
Associate Professor, School of Kinesiology and Health Sciences, York University, As an Individual
There are no studies on that, to my knowledge.
Associate Professor, School of Kinesiology and Health Sciences, York University, As an Individual
Not to my knowledge.
Bloc
Yves Perron Bloc Berthier—Maskinongé, QC
Okay.
You say that we need to improve education for the public, health professionals and so on. However, to provide better education, we need information. What I understand from your three statements is that there is a very significant gap in terms of research and evidence.
Am I on the right track?
Associate Professor, School of Kinesiology and Health Sciences, York University, As an Individual
Absolutely.
Bloc
Yves Perron Bloc Berthier—Maskinongé, QC
Mr. Whittingstall, you mentioned, among other things, the annual amount allocated to diabetes research. If you had to give a rough estimate, how much should the federal government invest in research specifically on menopause to start getting conclusive results? I know this may be difficult to answer.
Director, Department of Medical Imaging and Radiation Sciences, Université de Sherbrooke, As an Individual
Thank you very much for the question.
Over the past 10 years, according to my calculations, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research has provided $300 million in funding for diabetes research projects. For menopause, the figure is $20 million.
If we compare everything that's been achieved in terms of information and research on diabetes over 10 years with $300 million, what do we expect to achieve with $20 million over 10 years?
Director, Department of Medical Imaging and Radiation Sciences, Université de Sherbrooke, As an Individual
I think it's time for the funding levels to be at least on par.
Bloc
Yves Perron Bloc Berthier—Maskinongé, QC
That's a minimum.
As for your medical imaging studies, I understand that you also conducted some on menopausal women. What have you observed in general?
Director, Department of Medical Imaging and Radiation Sciences, Université de Sherbrooke, As an Individual
Our study focuses on women before and after hormone therapy. The results are still very preliminary, but I can tell you that the hormone therapy used in this study is not only effective, but it also seems to have a positive effect on the brain.
Yves Perron Bloc Berthier—Maskinongé, QC
Thank you very much.
Ms. Yuksel, you also spoke at length about symptoms. You talked about presenteeism: women who aren't doing well, but who, like everyone else, get up in the morning and tell themselves they have to go to work, even though they are less productive. That leads to a series of secondary factors—not the physical symptoms the woman experiences, but other factors of a social nature or related to performance and judgments made in the workplace.
That ties in somewhat with what we were saying—the need for better information and the need to educate employers. What can the federal government do about that?
What we're looking for are specific recommendations for the government. This isn't straightforward, as the research is just beginning, but it will take years to have the results. In practical terms, I understand—and I assume that the committee members will agree—that we should adopt recommendations to fund research, but beyond that, what can we do to help, starting tomorrow, the women who are in this situation and experiencing difficulties in the workplace?
I also invite the other witnesses to feel free to speak.
Co-Founder, Chief Health Officer and Executive Vice-President, Effica Health, As an Individual
For information for women, especially in the workplace, to help employers, the federal government could work closely with the provinces as well to encourage workplace accommodations. It could also work with the Menopause Foundation of Canada, for example, or the Canadian Menopause Society and like organizations, which have the advocacy and the ability to provide that education.
For example, the Menopause Foundation of Canada has on its policy agenda working with workplaces to include accommodations and education about the impact on the workplace for women, as well as employers.
Bloc
Yves Perron Bloc Berthier—Maskinongé, QC
I appreciate you bringing up the existence of the provinces, as this matter involves jurisdictional issues, which will not be straightforward.
We'll come back to that.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Emmanuella Lambropoulos
Thank you very much, Mr. Perron. That concludes your time.
We will now go to the second round. The floor goes to MP Borrelli for five minutes.
Conservative
Kathy Borrelli Conservative Windsor—Tecumseh—Lakeshore, ON
Thank you, Chair.
I want to say thank you to the witnesses. This has been a very productive day of study at this committee, with excellent questions from all around the table.
Thank you, everyone.
Something has come to mind for me. It's not in my notes, so I'm going to be talking off the top of my head.
I've noticed that the scare of using hormone therapy has come up twice. I think that began in the early 2000s. I'm a person who came out of that time and I have many friends and relatives who went through the whole experience of menopause without any hormone therapy.
Now we've heard from Dr. Whittingstall how menopause can really affect the workings of the brain, and we've heard from Dr. Edgell how menopause can really affect women's cardiovascular systems. There are thousands of women who are in their seventies and eighties and have never had hormone treatment.
Is there anything they can do now to make changes to improve the eventual outcomes later in their lives, because they haven't had hormone treatment?
This question is for anyone.
Associate Professor, School of Kinesiology and Health Sciences, York University, As an Individual
Diet and exercise are always good treatments. A lot of what happens in menopause is that your fight-or-flight system gets activated, so things like a nutritious diet and exercise bring the sympathetic activity down, and that's going to be beneficial to your cardiac health and your cerebrovascular health.
In the earlier session, natural products came up. There will be some holistic treatments and natural treatments that will probably be very beneficial.
Conservative
