Some facts about perimenopause knowledge in 2026
-
Building new knowledge takes time. Most of the longitudinal studies about midlife women began in the 1990s.
-
Education about women’s health for both healthcare providers and women themselves is dependent on this research. This article explains the history.
-
Building a body of evidence about perimenopause will require replicating outcomes from studies before changes are made to how perimenopause is treated and this takes time.
-
This knowledge gap creates a vacuum and the vacuum often gets filled by people who go beyond the available data or select a specific outcome from one study but ignore other similar studies that yield contradictory outcomes (often referred to as “cherry picking”).
-
It’s nearly impossible to be wise to all of this as there is a great deal of nuance in interpreting research. In this post we share some ways to be a wise consumer of research. We also offer Dr. Nanette Santoro’s article about ways to spot misinformation.
-
Below we explain specific research relevant to perimenopause. We also explain the Women’s Health Initiative although participants were postmenopausal.