In middle-aged women, visceral fat, more commonly called belly fat, is known to be a significant risk factor for cardiovascular disease, but what causes visceral fat to accumulate?

Doctors once thought that hormone therapy, or HRT, could protect women from chronic diseases, especially heart disease. However, a new study by U.S researchers released on Saturday indicated that the use of hormone-replacement therapy by menopausal women increases their risk of death from lung cancer by 60 percent after five years.

For the first time, scientists have been able to identify genetic factors that influence the age at which natural menopause occurs in women. Ms Lisette Stolk, a researcher from Erasmus MC, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, told the annual conference of the European Society of Human Genetics today ( Monday 25 May) that a greater understanding of the factors influencing age at menopause might eventually help to improve the clinical treatment of infertile women.

Omega-3s ease psychological distress and depressive symptoms often suffered by menopausal and perimenopausal women, according to researchers at Université Laval's Faculty of Medicine.

Difficulty falling asleep and staying asleep increase as women go through menopause according to research by Rush University Medical Center. Waking up earlier than planned also increases through late perimenopause but decreases when women become postmenopausal. The study is published in the July 1 issue of the journal SLEEP.

Women in midlife underreport the number of hot flashes that they experience by more than 40 percent, and these hot flashes are linked to poor verbal memory, according to a study by researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Many women experience menopausal changes in their body including hot flashes, moodiness and fatigue, but the changes they don’t notice can be more dangerous. In a new study, researchers at the University of Missouri have discovered significant changes in the brain’s vascular system when the ovaries stop producing estrogen.

An international group of menopause experts has concluded that HRT in the early postmenopausal period is safe, and healthy women going through the first few years of menopause who need HRT to relieve symptoms should have no fears about its use

Women with fibroids and endometriosis facing the possibility of hysterectomy may now choose less invasive treatment options to preserve fertility, according to Yale professor Aydin Arici, M.D., who will direct a scientific session exploring these alternatives at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) Annual Clinical Meeting May 3-7 in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Age at menopause may now be predicted more realistically according to a new study accepted for publication in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM). The study revealed that anti-Mьllerian hormone (AMH) levels are related to the onset of menopause and are able to specify a woman’s reproductive age more accurately than chronological age alone.

Insight into why females of some species undergo menopause while others do not has proven elusive despite an understanding of the biological mechanisms behind the change.

Women who take hormone replacement therapy to ease menopause symptoms have abnormal mammogram results. This makes breast biopsies hard to be detected by doctors.