ArticleBMC women's health2020
Is menopause still evolving? Evidence from a longitudinal study of multiethnic populations and its relevance to women's health.
Article in BMC women's health, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 34 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
34 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 45 citations in OpenAlex.
- The impacts of climate change on women's reproductive and sexual health: a systematic review.Reproductive health · 2026Pooled it
- Identifying causal associations between women's reproductive traits and risk of schizophrenia: a multivariate validated two-sample Mendelian randomization analysis.BMC psychiatry · 2024Pooled it
- Childhood maltreatment and adult blood pressure-based outcomes: age- and sex-specific associations in the German National Cohort (NAKO).BMC public health · 2026Article
- Olanzapine Dosing in Women with First-Episode Psychosis: An Age-Based Proxy for Menopausal Status.Schizophrenia bulletin · 2026Article
- Evolution of the highest fidelity DNA replication systems.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Estrogen Deficiency in Menopause: A Major Contributor to Cartilage Degeneration and Osteoarthritis: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Journal of menopausal medicine · 2026Review
- Profiling Sociodemographic Risk Factors and Clinical Outcomes of Women with Endometrial Cancer in Puerto Rico: The Central Role of Obesity and Obstetric Features.Journal of racial and ethnic health disparities · 2026Article
- Postmortem tissue biomarkers of menopausal transition.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Article
- Comparisons of iron phenotypes and reports of menses, pregnancies, and live births in women withmedRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2026Article
- Article
- Experiences of hot flashes, urinary incontinence and mood among South Asian American women: the MASALA study.Climacteric : the journal of the International Menopause Society · 2025Observational
- Cardiovascular Care in Women Veterans: An Updated Profile.Current cardiology reports · 2025Review
- Developmental life history transitions can be shaped by structural inequities: Insights from the sociology of race.Developmental biology · 2025Review
- Insights into Perimenopause: A Survey of Perceptions, Opinions on Treatment, and Potential Approaches.Women (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Depression is associated with lower diet quality in both pre- and post-menopausal U.S. women: NHANES 2007-2018.Nutrition research (New York, N.Y.) · 2025Article
- Higher blood lipid levels after the transition to menopause in two forager-horticulturalist populations.Evolution, medicine, and public health · 2025Article
- Breast cancer and the steadily increasing maternal age: are they colliding?BMC women's health · 2024Article
- Challenges and Implications for Menopausal Health and Help-Seeking Behaviors in Midlife Women From the United States and China in Light of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Web-Based Panel Surveys.JMIR public health and surveillance · 2024Article
- Phenome-wide association study of population-differentiating genetic variants around geneEvolution, medicine, and public health · 2024Article
- Exploration of first onsets of mania, schizophrenia spectrum disorders and major depressive disorder in perimenopause.Nature. Mental health · 2024Article
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundTo reflect on the impact of changing patterns of delayed marriage and reproduction and to seek evidence as to whether menopause is still evolving, characteristics of the menopause transition were investigated within and between ethnic populations in this study.
methodsA cross-sectional analysis was conducted using data on 747 middle-aged women obtained from the Study of Women's Health Across the Nation (SWAN) from 1996 to 2008. The ethnic groups included: Afro-American, Chinese, Japanese, Caucasian, and Hispanic. Perimenopause age and duration, menopause age, and hormonal indicators of menopause were examined across five ethnicities.
resultsWe found a similar window of menopause age within populations, but no significant difference in perimenopause and menopause age between populations. The rate of increase of follicle-stimulating hormone and testosterone differed significantly in Hispanics and African-Americans during the menopause transition period.
conclusionsThe broad window of variation in age at menopause within the population and the absence of significant differences between populations, in combination with population variation in menopause symptoms, suggest that menopause is a relatively recently evolved and still evolving trait. Under the mate choice theory of menopause, menopause is the result of the accumulation of infertility mutations in older women due to men's preference for younger mates. We propose a shifting mate choice-shifting menopause model which posits that, as the age of mate choice/marriage shifts to older ages, so will the age at menopause, and that menopause is a transient phase of female fertility; it can de-evolve, be delayed, if not disappear completely. Integrated longitudinal menopausal studies linked with genomics and hormonal studies on diverse ethnic populations can provide valuable information bearing on women's health and personalized medicine.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.