40% of women will have noticeable hair loss by age 50.

Both women and men begin to lose some bone density after age 35, on average. But, for the first decade after menopause, women lose bone more rapidly due to the significantly decreased levels of estrogen, putting women at heightened risk of osteoporosis and related bone fractures.

An estimated 25 million women pass through menopause annually, with a projected increase in the number of women in menopause in both lower-resource and higher-income populations in the years ahead, highlighting the social and economic value of focusing on menopause care.

The fallout of studies in the early 2000s linking hormone therapy for menopause and elevated cancer, stroke, and other health risks meant that even decades later—yet before the FDA removed its black box warning in 2025—use of HRT remained extremely uncommon.

Women going through these aging transitions may experience some common physical and mental symptoms to varying degrees, including hot flashes, bladder control issues, brain fog, and vaginal dryness. This article dives into some of the most common symptoms women might expect during perimenopause, plus what they can do to relieve them.

Some potential causes of early menopause include autoimmune disorders, chemotherapy, smoking, and certain surgeries that cause the body to produce lower levels of estrogen and progesterone.

Defined as when a woman starts to experience perimenopause after age 55, late-onset menopause is linked to an elevated risk of developing breast, ovarian, and uterine cancers.

Although it's rare, some women may experience menopause early. Early menopause describes women that are menopausal between the ages of 40 and 45. Women that go through menopause before age 40 experience premature menopause. Early experiences of menopause impact under 6% of women, and doctors can’t point to a specific reason why it happens. Learn about what we do know about the conditions here.

For instance, among people who visit hair salons or barber shops, 62% of female respondents said they always tipped. Only 45% of men said the same. This article includes more takeaways and stats about how Americans tip, and who receives them.

Nearly all studies (99%) researching the biology of aging don’t consider menopause in their setup. A Harvard professor noted that about 75% of aging-related diseases are likely influenced by menopause. In this article, she discusses how gaps in research are negatively impacting how the medical system can effectively treat aging women. Read her analysis of the issue here.

Cuts to human skin take twice as long to heal compared to chimps and other mammals. Scientists argue this is due to the reduced number of hair follicles on human bodies. Hair follicles contain stem cells which help repair skin cells faster, so as humanity shed its hair over time, so to speak, it also slowed its wound healing.

Postmenopause is the final stage of menopause, occurring once a woman hasn't had any vaginal bleeding for a full year. She is then considered postmenopausal for the rest of her life. While some of the intense symptoms she might experience during postmenopause will decline, her risk for certain conditions and diseases will increase.

Yet it's still unanswered what may account for that difference. To better understand this disparity researchers are exploring factors including hormonal changes that occur around puberty, pregnancy, and menopause, as well as gut microbe differences, and aspects of X-chromosome protein-coding genes.

The menopause transition may begin in one's mid-40s with erratic periods and a decrease in estrogen. It can trigger health complications, including hot flashes, palpitations, and elevated risks of osteoporosis.

Menopause, a natural biological process, occurs in three stages: perimenopause (hormone fluctuations), menopause (end of menstrual cycles), and postmenopause (12 months without menstruation). Hormonal shifts during this time can affect neurotransmitters, increasing the risk of mood disorders.

Perimenopause typically lasts about four years, beginning at around age 45; however, some women experience it as early as their 30s. Smoking and thyroid disease are factors that can trigger early perimenopause. Early menopause, which can increase health risks, occurs in about 5% of women. Researchers are still investigating why it occurs.

There’s actually some truth to the idea that you should look at your mother’s father. But genetic research tells us that the full picture is somewhat more complicated. An interesting read on how to use genetics to figure out if you'll go bald (with illustrations).

Sometimes referred to as the menopausal transition, perimenopause often lasts around four years as the ovaries' production of the reproductive hormones progesterone and estrogen decline. It may be accompanied by mental and physical symptoms, including irregular periods, hot flashes, sleep issues, mood swings, and alterations to a woman's sex drive.

Studies in the US and the UK, though conducted decades ago, have underscored that autoimmune diseases, when grouped together, are a top killer of women.

In the early 2000s, Women's Health Initiative studies indicated HRT increased risk of breast cancer, heart disease, and stroke in some women—so many physicians stopped prescribing it to help with menopause symptoms. But further research has concluded that much of the elevated risk was overblown and that it was also disproportionately seen in women in their 70s who had been taking an older HRT formulation.

Girls are born with an estimated 1 million to 2 million eggs in their bodies, but around 10,000 die monthly before girls hit puberty. Scientists have not yet figured out why there's such an excessive number of eggs prior to menstruation, but they've calculated that there are roughly 300,000 to 400,000 eggs left at puberty.

Nearly all studies researching the biology of aging don't consider menopause in their setup. In part, that's because menopause is difficult to emulate in animal models. Menopause is uncommon in the animal world beyond humans and whales. This presents a problem for medicine and science because about 75% of aging-related diseases are likely influenced by menopause.

Fueled in part by the lifting of the FDA's black box warning about HRT risks, sales of estradiol patches in the US have shot upward. More than 142 million units of the patches were sold in 2025 versus 46.5 million in 2020. Suppliers are failing to keep up with demand—11 patch products were in short supply in early 2026.

Menopause has long been a topic left out of film and TV. But some shows, like "The Change," and celebrities, like Jennie Garth, are now openly talking about it. This article breaks down how Hollywood is starting to come around to the menopause conversation and how celebrities are talking about their own personal experiences, as well as advocating on Capitol Hill.

This prevalence trend mirrors the broader incidence of depression among women and is well-documented. Researchers suggest the disparity stems from differences in hormones, social role expectations, coping mechanisms, and more. Men may also present with depression differently, and seek help less.

Symptoms of menopause and perimenopause (the premenopause period) can be varied enough that clinicians dismiss them in patients in their mid-30s and onward as just a symptom of hormone level change. In this story, a woman's itching was dismissed as a hormonal change, but after two years and 11 separate doctor consultations, was diagnosed as cancer.

This difference helps women better combat infectious diseases, but this more turbo-charged response may also make women more vulnerable to autoimmune diseases by potentially priming their immune systems to overreact to their own cells and tissues and label them as invaders that must be destroyed. Roughly 80% of American women have autoimmune conditions.

Health conditions that affect women more than men get less research funding. This interactive collection of graphs details the gendered gap in health research funding. Of the conditions that affect one sex more than another, those that create the...

Chemotherapy and radiation, as well as oophorectomy (a surgical procedure to remove one or both ovaries) and a radical hysterectomy, can cause a woman to become menopausal. Women who go through medical menopause experience the same symptoms as women who go through menopause caused by natural hormonal cycles.

While there is no cure for menopause, there are ways to treat some of the intense symptoms women experience during perimenopause. There are two main hormone therapies used, one in the form of a pill, gel, or patch to treat symptoms like hot flashes, and another in the form of a cream or ring to treat symptoms like vaginal dryness. Read this article to learn more about the different hormone therapies available for menopausal women.

Lisa Mosconi, a neuroscientist studying the impact of menopause on the brain, explains in this video how menopause directly impacts a woman's brain health and explores why this is an important and often overlooked area in menopause and women's aging healthcare discussions.