Overview
- The peer‑reviewed paper published on October 12, 2026 analyzed more than 300 million laboratory tests from over 1 million women in the United States and Israel and reconstructed each woman’s timing of her final menstrual period.
- Researchers found a clustered, rapid change in many systems around the final bleed, with 52 of 90 measured parameters in the U.S. data showing statistically significant abrupt shifts in hormones, bone markers, liver and kidney tests, blood chemistry and lipids.
- Key reproductive hormones began shifting years before the last period: anti‑Müllerian hormone fell about 15 years prior, follicle‑stimulating hormone rose about 14 years prior, and estradiol began to decline about 12 years before menopause.
- Women recorded as receiving menopausal hormone therapy showed smaller and less abrupt lab changes—especially for bone, liver and kidney markers—but the analysis is observational, uses retrospectively reconstructed timelines, and cannot prove that therapy caused those differences.
- The findings raise practical questions for screening, prevention and workplace support by signalling higher population risks for osteoporosis and cardiovascular disease after menopause and by underlining the need for prospective and randomized trials to guide clinical decisions.