Menopause: disease state or state of nature? Implications for molecular medicine

Menopause is a universal transition for women who live along enough, yet even today surprisingly little is known about the range of normal experience or the factors that might affect it. The associated physical changes can result in temporary symptoms for some women and an increase in the risk factors for common diseases in most postmenopausal women. These deserve investigation by molecular medicine, but the use of therapies or screening derived from these data will also depend on cultural views of whether menopause is 'a disease to be treated in all women'.