For decades — or centuries — the best way for a woman to determine whether she was entering menopause was to pay attention to her body and discuss her symptoms with her doctor. Menopause is when a woman stops having periods and can no longer become pregnant. It’s caused by a drop in hormones (estrogen and progesterone) and it usually occurs in a woman’s late forties. Sometimes the transition is obvious, and sometimes it’s not.
Symptoms of menopause are rather predictable, but the experience may be different for each woman. For example, irregular periods can be a sign of perimenopause, the stage before menopause that lasts an average of four years, but this isn’t particularly helpful for women who’ve always had irregular periods. A recently developed test is trying to make that determination less hazy, and it received approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2018. The test works by measuring the level of Anti-Müllerian Hormone (AMH) in the blood. AMH is frequently used to determine a woman’s “ovarian reserve,” which is the ability of the ovary to continue producing eggs.
References
Kruszynska, A., et al. (2017). Anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH) as a good predictor of time of menopause. Przeglad Menopauzalny.
Office on Women’s Health, U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. (2021). Menopause.
Office on Women’s Health, U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. (2023). Menopause and your health.
U.S. Food and Drug Administration. (2018). FDA permits marketing of a diagnostic test to aid in the determination of menopausal status.
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