It’s an unfortunate (and infuriating) reality that despite women making up roughly half of the global population, only a small fraction of biomedical research funding goes toward female-specific conditions beyond cancer and fertility issues. One 2025 analysis suggests that less than 1 percent of pharmaceutical research dollars go to non-cancer women’s health issues. As a result, so many of the health concerns that uniquely affect us remain poorly understood and hard to treat.
When it comes to menopause, the research status quo is finally starting to change, in part because it has become harder to ignore. (Kudos to Gen Xers and older Millennials who refuse to navigate this transition in silence.) None of this fixes decades of neglect overnight, but it does change what’s possible. More funding means better data, better tools, and more ambitious questions — not just about symptoms, but about long-term health trajectories. Here’s what some experts predict will change about how women will experience the menopause transition.
Harnessing AI to predict perimenopause
One of the most frustrating parts of perimenopause is that a woman won’t know when it will start, how long it will last, or what specific symptoms she will experience until she’s in it. Even then, it can be confusing: Is it The Change, or is it stress, illness, infection, an autoimmune disorder, thyroid issues…or even a surprise pregnancy?!
But experts hope soon to harness the power of technology to predict when perimenopause will strike. Last year, neuroscientist Frida Polli, PhD, launched Female Medicine Through Machine Learning (FMML), a research program that aims to leverage artificial intelligence to rapidly comb through massive data sets of real-world biological data — 50 percent of which come from women. One use of this tech is to look for patterns that show unexpected signifiers of perimenopause, says David Pépin, PhD, the head of ovarian research at FMML. Since AI makes it easier and faster to analyze large sets of data, “you can just look at everything — not just hormones or other signs of aging, but all kinds of health indicators you wouldn’t necessarily think of,” says Pépin, who is also an associate professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School and the associate director of the Pediatric Surgical Research Laboratories at Massachusetts General Hospital.
A hypothetical example: We know that the menopause transition is a time when a woman’s cardiovascular risk increases, Polli says; retinal scanning is showing some promise in predicting that kind of risk. In the future, we could incorporate information from a routine retinal scan, along with a myriad of other factors (say, blood cholesterol data) to help a woman understand how menopause is affecting her and what symptoms to expect. Her doctor could use that information to help guide interventions and treatment. “This is the power of machine learning: aggregating disparate data into clinically actionable predictions that, in conjunction with doctors’ oversight, will revolutionize treatment,” says Polli.
“The therapeutic part is farther in the future,” Pépin adds, “but many clinics are already starting to experiment with AI.” He predicts that more health care centers will start using algorithms for this purpose within the next two years.
A hot flash treatment that sounds like science fiction
It seems almost insulting to ask a woman engulfed in a hot flash to imagine she’s standing in the cold. But what if she could step into an immersive experience designed not just to cool the senses, but to teach the brain how to respond differently to hot flashes when they strike? That’s the idea behind a program in development by women’s health researchers from the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida, and VR experts at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles. Their program incorporates cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) into an immersive experience using a virtual reality headset that offers 360-degree views of a snowy landscape and the sound of the winter wind. Through eight weeks of at-home VR experiences, users learn how to regulate stress responses and bodily sensations associated with hot flashes so it doesn’t feel like a five-alarm fire when one happens.
“The goal is not simply distraction, but helping the brain reinterpret internal signals so hot flashes feel less intense and disruptive,” says Stephanie Faubion, MD, the director of the Mayo Clinic’s Center for Women’s Health, medical director for the Menopause Society, and one of the project leaders. There is strong scientific evidence that CBT is an effective way to deal with hot flashes and night sweats; VR has already shown promise in delivering self-administered CBT for acute and chronic pain, sleep, and mood disorders.
The research team will soon conduct a pilot study, says Dr. Faubion; after safety and preliminary efficacy have been established, it will do a randomized controlled trial. The researchers will also test to see if this type of program works with other perimenopause symptoms, including compromised mood, sleep, and sexual function. No hormones, no drugs — just a novel way to help the mind and body work together during menopause.
Excerpted with permission from The Book of Menopause, from the editors of Oprah Daily
