Menopause, the final reproductive stage of a woman’s life, is a pivotal and often difficult transition for half of the population, and yet it remains poorly understood.
Women often suffer from myriad symptoms during menopause – hot flashes, bone loss, weight gain, depression and brain fog, among them – and their long-term quality of life can be affected by an increased risk of serious illness, including diabetes, osteoporosis and heart disease.
“We need more clinical trials that are well-targeted,” said Nanette Santoro, MD, professor and E. Stewart Taylor Chair in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine (SOM). “We need to understand better what happens during the menopause transition and how we can follow all of those health markers for women, because it is a pretty dramatic change in hormones.”
On this episode of the Health Science Radio podcast, two leading women’s health researchers provide a wide-ranging discussion on menopause – from basic science concepts and historical perspectives to hormone therapies and other clinical implications. Our guests are Santoro and Joshua Johnson, PhD, an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the CU SOM.
Both Santoro and Johnson have provided their expertise in our ongoing menopause series, and in this podcast, they offer an engaging discussion about where research has been and where it’s going in this still-understudied area.
“This area is under-funded nationally and internationally,” Johnson said. “Not enough attention is paid to women’s health, broadly, and menopause and menopausal transitions, specifically.”
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