Menopause is one of the most significant physiological transitions in human life. It affects more than half the population; it rewires hormones, metabolism, and long-term health risk. And yet in medicine and technology it is still an afterthought.
Menopause is one of the most significant physiological transitions in human life. It affects more than half the population; it rewires hormones, metabolism, and long-term health risk. And yet in medicine and technology it is still an afterthought.
That has to change. Menopause is not just a phase. It is a vital sign, a milestone, and a metric that belongs in every model of health.
On average, women spend more than a third of life postmenopausal. In that time, risks rise: cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, insulin resistance, cognitive decline. Ignoring menopause is not just oversight; it is a gap in public health.
Despite this, menopause is almost never included in studies of aging. More than 99 percent of biological aging studies skip menopause status. The result: data that is skewed, treatments that miss, millions of women erased from research that claims to be universal.
Even when risks are known — cardiovascular, metabolic, skeletal — they are not built into health screening protocols. The omission is systemic.
Menopause is not only a hormonal shift. It is a systemic one. Estrogen loss changes:
The North American Menopause Society calls this a critical inflection point in cardiometabolic health. Monitoring is not optional. It is essential.
What if menopause status was treated like blood pressure or BMI?
Precision medicine claims to treat the individual. But if it ignores whether someone is pre-, peri-, or postmenopausal, it is not precision; it is approximation. Treating menopause as a core metric is equity. It is relevance. It is better care.
Not optional. Not just a women’s issue. It is a central part of human health and aging.
It is time to track it. To measure it. To study it. To center it.
The data is waiting. All we need is the will to collect it.
