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Menopause Triggers Sudden Shifts in Body Systems, Study Finds

8:02 PM ETConfirmed

Science Desk

In Short: According to the study, which analyzed more than 300 million lab tests from over one million women, menopause triggers sudden 'jumps' in various body systems, including bone density, liver function, and blood fats.

According to the study, which analyzed more than 300 million lab tests from over one million women, menopause triggers sudden 'jumps' in various body systems, including bone density, liver function, and blood fats.

The research, led by molecular cell biologist Glen Pridham from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, found that 52 out of 90 laboratory tests showed a statistically significant and sudden change with menopause.

"While prior longitudinal studies have established bone loss and specific hormonal surges, the scale of this study, covering 90 types of tests, demonstrates that this transition is sharp and systemic," the authors conclude.

In a separate development, a study published in Menopause, the journal of The Menopause Society, found that women who reach menopause before the age of 40 years face a meaningfully higher risk of developing high blood pressure compared with those who go through menopause after the age of 45 years.

This study, which analyzed data from 107,836 postmenopausal women who enrolled in the UK Biobank between 2006 and 2010, with a median follow-up period of 14.5 years, highlights the importance of understanding the timing of menopause.

Public health researchers from Flinders University in Australia analyzed the tea- and coffee-drinking habits of roughly 9,700 US women aged over 65 years, as part of a broader osteoporosis study published in 2025.

"Even small improvements in bone density can translate into fewer fractures across large groups," said Flinders epidemiologist Enwu Liu.

The study suggests that daily decisions, such as choosing tea over coffee, could make a big difference to women's bone health.

"While calcium and vitamin D remain cornerstones of bone health, what's in your cup could play a role too. For older women, enjoying a daily cup of tea may be more than a comforting ritual, it could be a small step toward stronger bones," he said.

The study found that compounds in tea called catechins could offer a boost to the cells responsible for building bones, potentially offsetting the negative effects of caffeine on bone density.

"Coffee’s caffeine content, by contrast, has been shown in laboratory studies to interfere with calcium absorption and bone metabolism, though these effects are small and can be offset by adding milk," said co-author Ryan Liu from Flinders University.

"This study provides the first direct longitudinal comparison of brain structural changes across all three major female hormonal transitions," Magdalena Martínez-García, a neuroscientist at the University of California, Santa Barbara who was not involved in the work, tells the outlet.

What this adds

Background

What's confirmed

• The paper "Puberty, pregnancy, and menopause show shared and distinct structural changes across the lifespan". was published in Nature Communications in 2026.
• "While prior longitudinal studies… have established bone loss and specific hormonal surges, the scale of this study, covering 90 types of tests, demonstrates that this transition is sharp and systemic," the authors conclude.
• The pre- and post-menopause data represent only two time points per person following a long period called perimenopause, where “the dialogue between the ovary and the brain is already readjusting to the progressive decline of the ovarian reserve,” Susana Carmona, a neuroscientist at Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria Gregorio Marañón in Spain who wasn’t involved in the study, tells Science News.
• "Even small improvements in bone density can translate into fewer fractures across large groups," said Flinders epidemiologist Enwu Liu.
• “The exact implications are very difficult at this stage,” van ’t Hof said at the press conference.

What's still developing

• A new study, published in Nature Medicine, argues that the end of menstruation is not a gradual part of aging, as previously assumed, but an abrupt physiological transition.
• "This shows that systemic changes experienced during menopause could be predicted by hormone changes much sooner than originally thought," says Schaumberg.
• "Menopause, in other words, is defined not by what changes," wrote van 't Hof, "but by what does not." During puberty and pregnancy, the female body experiences profound hormonal changes, and there is an especially steep rise in estrogens and progesterone, which can bind to receptors in the brain.
• New analyses to be presented at the Annual Meeting of The European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) in Milan, Italy (Sept 28 – Oct 2) show that the new daily oral weight loss / type 2 diabetes medication orforglipron was associated with similar weight loss for women of different ages and at different life stages – premenopausal, experiencing menopause, or post-menopausal.
• Female participants with obesity (BMI ≥30 kg/m²) or overweight (BMI ≥27 kg/m²) with at least one weight-related medical condition in ATTAIN-1 and -2 were analysed by menopausal status: pre-, peri-, or post-menopause, with the number of women in each category receiving orforglipron or placebo ranging from 142 to 225.
• Obesity, a chronic progressive disease, is exacerbated by oestrogen deficiency during menopause.
• The study found that earlier menopause was associated with faster cognitive decline, earlier Alzheimer's onset, and greater white matter hyperintensity accumulation.
• In women who went through natural menopause, menopause five years earlier was associated with roughly 15 percent greater WMH volume over the next 10 years.
• White matter hyperintensities (WMHs) are bright spots on brain scans that indicate damage to small blood vessels.
• Poorna Bell: I gradually started to forget things at an increasing and alarming rate That fear remained in the background until 18 months ago, when I started to experience the first flickers of peri-menopause in the form of brain fog.
• When I interviewed author and journalist Mariella Frostrup, who is also the Government’s Menopause Employment Ambassador, something she said stuck with me.
• But what we also need is a greater understanding of perimenopause and menopause, combined with better education of doctors.

Sources

• Nature Communicationslink
• ABC News & Headlines – Australian Broadcasting Corporationlink
• Pharmaceutical Journallink
• ScienceAlertlink
• Warpbeatlink
• Smithsonianmaglink
• ScienceAlertlink
• News-Medicallink
• Inewslink
• Science Newslink
• Warpbeatlink
• WarpBeat — background on Study finds simulation game helps students grasp complex health economics concepts link