Hey, this is Flora Lichten, and you're listening to Science Friday.

Today in the show, what do we know about the science of menopause?

It always makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck when I hear, we don't know anything about

menopause. There's no research. That's absolutely not true.

Menopause is kind of having a moment.

Everybody, we are here with the one and only Hallie Berry, and we have one big thing in common.

We are both in perimenopause. Actress Naomi Watts was among the first to speak openly about menopause. I had never heard that heart palpitations was a symptom of menopause.

I wanted to do this because when I was going through it, there was nothing.

There was nobody.

I felt literally like I was going to it. There was nothing. There was nobody. I felt literally like I was going to die.

Besides the celebrity testimonials in Oprah special, there have been a bunch of books that make

menopause or perimenopause a plotline. All this to say, menopause at last has gone mainstream.

But it wasn't until about three decades ago that menopause research really kicked into gear. And since then, we've made big progress

in understanding this basic biological process that affects half of the population. But there

are still many more questions to be answered. Here to help sort through the

science of menopause are my guests, Dr. Monica Christmas, Associate Professor of Obstetrics

and Gynecology at the University of Chicago, and Director of the Menopause Program at

UChicago Medicine, and Dr. Carey Carvinan Gutierrez, Associate Professor of Epidemiology,

and the Director of the Center for Midlife Science

at the University of Michigan based in Ann Arbor. Welcome to you both to Science Friday.

I'm excited to be here. Thanks for having us. Carrie, let's start with some basics. What is physiologically

causing menopause? Yeah, that's a really good question. So

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