Partnerships for Environmental Public Health (PEPH)
Menopause and the Environment
August 14, 2024
Interviewee: Jodi Flaws, Ph.D.
In this episode, Jodi Flaws, Ph.D., provides a brief overview of menopause and discusses her NIEHS-funded research, which examines how exposure to chemicals called phthalates may affect women’s reproductive aging. She also discusses gaps in what we know about menopause, and how research can inform clinical care to help women manage and treat their symptoms during the transition to menopause.
Menopause and the Environment
Menopause occurs 12 months after a woman’s last menstrual period and is a normal part of aging for women. In the years leading up to menopause, called perimenopause or the menopausal transition, the body’s production of reproductive hormones changes significantly. These hormonal changes have wide-ranging effects on health, with many women experiencing symptoms like hot flashes, sleep problems, weight gain, memory problems, and anxiety. Changes in the body around and after menopause can also increase the risk for health problems such as heart disease, stroke, and osteoporosis.
Although menopause affects half the world’s population, there are still gaps in our understanding of how this major life event shapes women’s health. To help address this lack of knowledge, researchers funded by NIEHS are studying how environmental exposures may influence women’s health in the years leading up to and following menopause.
In this episode, Jodi Flaws, Ph.D., provides a brief overview of menopause and discusses her NIEHS-funded research, which examines how exposure to chemicals called phthalates may affect women’s reproductive aging. She also discusses gaps in what we know about menopause, and how research can inform clinical care to help women manage and treat their symptoms during the transition to menopause.
Interviewee
Jodi Flaws, Ph.D., is a professor of comparative biosciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). Her research examines how chemicals, such as pesticides and plasticizers, affect female reproductive development and menopausal outcomes. She has many years of experience studying how genetic and environmental factors alter the developing and adult ovary, and the entire female reproductive system. Flaws also leads two NIEHS-funded training programs at UIUC, one for pre- and postdoctoral students, and a second focused on providing high quality research experiences for under-represented minority undergraduate students.
Resources
- Learn more about menopause from the National Institute on Aging and the Office on Women’s Research.