Overview
- Researchers analyzed over 300 million lab results from more than one million women in the US and Israel to reconstruct the timing of the last menstrual period and map average physiological changes around menopause.
- Key sex‑hormone changes were detected long before the final period: AMH declines from roughly 15 years prior, FSH rises from about 14 years prior, and estradiol falls from about 12 years prior.
- Around the year of the last period many nonreproductive markers shift sharply — in the US data 52 of 90 tested parameters showed abrupt changes in bone metabolism, liver and kidney function, blood chemistry and lipids.
- Women on menopausal hormone therapy had smaller or less abrupt changes on many measures, especially bone, liver and kidney markers, but the data are observational and cannot prove that therapy caused the differences.
- Authors and outside experts say the findings support earlier midlife screening for bone and cardiovascular risk and call for prospective and randomized trials to test whether hormone treatment or other interventions can prevent long‑term harm.