Ovary Function Post Menopause: Scientists Discover New Health Role After Menopause

If you are anything like me, you likely assumed that after menopause, ovaries no longer served a purpose in female bodies. Much like an appendix, they just kind of… hang around.

Well, reproductive biologist Francesca Duncan believed this to be true, too. However, following research by her team at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, it has been uncovered that actually, the ovaries shift into a new job once their reproductive purpose is finished.

In fact, Duncan’s team found that ovaries continue to undergo molecular changes following menopause and appear to take on the role of an immune-like inflammatory organ.

Science Alert explains that when the team studied on mice: “Though old and post-reproductive ovaries looked and functioned very differently from those of young mice, they also had distinct transcriptome profiles, much like what Duncan saw in postmenopausal women.”

Put simply, transcriptome profiles are genes that a cell is actively using right now

“These findings challenge the assumption that the post-reproductive ovary is inert, instead indicating that it acquires an immune identity with potential endocrine and paracrine influence on whole-body aging,” Duncan and team conclude.

Duncan speculates that this finding could explain why women tend to be less healthy than men as they age, even if they tend to live longer. The ovaries post reproduction could secrete molecules that predispose people to chronic inflammation in their menopausal years.

As if menopause wasn’t stressful enough.

Menopause is still, much like many women’s health issues, chronically misunderstood and under-researched. More and more studies suggest that menopause is a full-body experience and has lasting effects on women way beyond the initial experience of the condition.

The gap in knowledge of the ovary’s biology after menopause is “a little bit frightening,” Duncan says to the publication Science. “We really owe it to women’s health to study this period of time.”