随着越来越多像梅琳达·弗兰奇·盖茨这样的女性谈论衰老应该被庆祝，人们越来越容易看到女性如何通过合适的医疗保健、心态和支持系统在衰老中蓬勃发展。在财富杂志举办的最具影响力女性峰会上，女性领导者们谈论了更年期、年龄歧视和友谊对女性健康的重要性，并强调了在女性人生的后半段，让她们的生活尽可能健康和充实的重要性。医疗保健领域的执行领导人指出，随着女性年龄的增长，以下事项值得关注。

👵 女性更年期治疗的关键：激素替代疗法 更年期是女性激素、情绪和身体发生剧烈变化的时期，通常被认为是普遍糟糕的。Midi Health（一家更年期护理公司）的联合创始人兼首席执行官乔安娜·斯特罗伯希望女性能够掌控这段时间，而这段时间往往让人感觉失控。 斯特罗伯在 MPW 峰会上告诉财富杂志：“虽然围绝经期和更年期是不可避免的，但痛苦并非如此。你不需要在这一时期受苦。对我来说，这非常令人振奋。” 斯特罗伯说，女性可能会经历与更年期相关的症状，包括脑雾、睡眠障碍、焦虑和抑郁，这些症状都与雌激素水平有关。“大约有 65 种症状与雌激素的变化有关，”她说。 斯特罗伯说，85% 的女性会经历严重的更年期症状，而对于 90% 的这些女性来说，激素替代疗法是答案。“这意味着 75% 的围绝经期和更年期女性应该接受激素替代疗法，”斯特罗伯说。但她补充说，实际上只有 1.8% 的女性接受了这种治疗。 “存在着大量的错误信息、恐惧和缺乏知识。医生也存在这些问题，这意味着女性没有得到正确的治疗，”斯特罗伯说。“如果你拒绝她们接受最适合她们的治疗，那么你实际上是在剥夺她们蓬勃发展的能力。”

👩‍💼 年龄歧视是真实存在的，并且对职场不利 美国退休人员协会执行副总裁兼首席公共政策官黛布拉·惠特曼（也是《第二个五十：中年及以后的七个大问题》的作者）在 MPW 峰会上表示，各个年龄段的女性都是职场的重要组成部分，而且现在工作的人口比以往任何时候都多。 然而，这些女性面临着年龄歧视，这使得她们被迫离开工作岗位，而她们需要这些收入来维持晚年生活，因为性别和种族工资差距导致她们在长期内获得的收入更少，惠特曼说。 “很多女性不得不工作更长时间，”惠特曼告诉财富杂志。“年龄歧视是真实存在的，而且对女性的影响更大。年龄歧视乘以性别歧视等于损失。” 惠特曼发现，拥有多代团队的职场更加繁荣。惠特曼说，不仅年龄多元化的团队生产力更高，而且人们实际上也希望与各个年龄段的人合作。 “这是我们第一次有五代人一起工作，”惠特曼说。她鼓励领导者创造更能促进多代人参与的职场，同时确保老年员工没有被排挤在外。这对年长的女性尤其重要，因为她们历来收入较低，并且更难被雇用。 惠特曼说，年龄歧视不仅对面临年龄歧视的女性不利，而且对经济也不利。随着人口老龄化和出生率下降，职场不可避免地会包括并需要老年人。 “我们需要老年员工，”惠特曼说。

🤝 友谊是“健康福利” 孤独和孤立对老年人来说可能是毁灭性的。全国妇女法律中心总裁兼首席执行官法蒂玛·戈斯·格雷夫斯说，我们应该将友谊视为“健康福利”。 格雷夫斯经常给她父母发送一项研究，该研究表明，与孙子孙女共度时光可以降低患认知障碍的风险。与此同时，惠特曼引用了哈佛大学的一项最大规模的研究，该研究发现，在整个生命中“拥有非常牢固的关系和友谊”的参与者拥有最好的健康和衰老结果。 格雷夫斯说，支持对努力平衡照顾年迈父母和孩子的夹心层一代人来说尤其重要。 格雷夫斯告诉财富杂志，能够更长寿的一部分原因是拥有切实可行的想法和解决方案，使衰老不那么可怕，这将减轻那些试图平衡照顾孩子、父母和自己（他们在衰老的同时也试图平衡照顾孩子、父母和自己）的人的压力。“这在一定程度上缓解了人们每天都经历的那种未被承认、未得到解决且未被讨论的深层压力。”

Women are reclaiming many once-taboo topics about their health, and two go hand-in-hand: aging and menopause. With more women like Melinda French Gates talking about aging as something to be celebrated, it’s becoming easier to see how women can thrive as they age with the right health care, mindset, and support system.The women leading these conversations spoke to Fortune at its Most Powerful Women Summit on Tuesday, deepening awareness for sex- and age-based discrimination while normalizing discussions about making the second half of women’s lives as healthy and fulfilling as possible. Executive leaders in health care said the following are things to look out for as you age.1. Hormone replacement therapy is key to menopause treatmentMenopause is a time of intense hormonal, emotional, and physical changes for women, often accepted to be universally terrible. Joanna Strober, cofounder and CEO of Midi Health, a menopause care company, wants women to feel in control of a time that largely feels out of their control.“While perimenopause and menopause is inevitable, suffering is not,” Strober told Fortune at the MPW Summit. “You don’t have to suffer through this time. And for me, that is incredibly empowering.”Women could be living with menopausal symptoms including brain fog, sleep disturbance, anxiety, and depression, Strober said, which are all related to estrogen levels. “There’s like 65 symptoms that are related to estrogen changing,” she said.   Strober said that 85% of women will have severe menopause symptoms, and for 90% of those women, hormone replacement therapy is the answer. “That means 75% of women in perimenopause and menopause should be on hormone replacement therapy,” Strober said. Yet only 1.8% of women are, she added. “There is so much misinformation and fear and lack of knowledge. And the doctors have that too, which means that women are just not getting the right treatments,” Strober said. “If you deny them the one treatment that is best for them, then you really are denying them the ability to thrive.”2. Age discrimination is real—and bad for the workplaceWomen of all ages are a core part of the workforce, with more older people working than ever before, said Debra Whitman, executive vice president and chief public policy officer at AARP and author of The Second Fifty: Answers to the 7 Big Questions of Midlife and Beyond, at the MPW Summit. Yet these women face ageism that pushes them out of jobs—income they need as they age due to gender and race-based pay gaps that leave them with less money in the long run, Whitman said.“So many women have to work longer,” Whitman told Fortune. “Age discrimination is pretty real and it affects women more. Ageism times sexism equals loss.”Whitman has found that workforces thrive with multigenerational teams. Not only are age-diverse teams more productive, according to Whitman, but people actually want to work with people of all ages. “This is the first time that we have five generations working together,” Whitman said. She encouraged leaders to create workplaces that foster more multigenerational engagement, while ensuring that older workers are not being pushed out. This is especially important for aging women, who historically have dealt with lower incomes and more difficulty in being hired.Age discrimination is not just bad for the women who face it, but for the economy as well, Whitman said. With an aging population and declining birth rates, it is inevitable that the workforce will include and need older adults.“We’re going to need older workers,” Whitman said.3. Friends are a ‘health benefit’Loneliness and isolation can be detrimental for older adults. Fatima Goss Graves, president and CEO of the National Women’s Law Center, says we should treat friendships as a “health benefit.”Graves frequently sends her parents a study showing how spending time with your grandchildren reduces your risk of cognitive decline. Meanwhile, Whitman cited one of the largest Harvard studies which found that participants with the best health and aging outcomes “had really strong relationships and friendships” throughout their lives.Graves said support is especially important for the sandwich generation that tries to balance caring for aging parents and children.Graves told Fortune that part of being able to live longer is having practical ideas and solutions that make aging less scary, which will take the pressure off of those trying to balance caregiving for children, parents, and themselves as they age too. “It’s alleviating that deep stress that people are experiencing every day that’s sort of unacknowledged, unaddressed and not discussed.”For more on Most Powerful Women: