“If you open an endocrinology textbook and look at what hormone patterns look like across the menopause transition, that is data from SWAN ... SWAN is by far the largest, longest, most in-depth study of women traversing the midlife and menopausal transition and then following them into late adulthood” — Carrie Karvonen-Gutierrez, PhD, MPH (Associate Chair for Faculty Affairs, Epidemiology and Director, Center for Lifecourse Epidemiology and Aging Research)
The Center for Midlife Science is now the Center for Lifecourse Epidemiology and Aging Research (CLEAR). Stay tuned!
“Cardiovascular comorbidities such as high blood pressure, obesity, and diabetes may also cause hot flashes way before a woman’s transition begins. It is likely that underlying cardiovascular conditions may increase risk of hot flashes, and frequent, high intensity hot flashes experienced for a long duration may increase cardiovascular risk.”
“We need to understand better how those changes in physiologic health outcomes, including brain health, cardiovascular health, metabolic health... are persistent and associated with long-term health outcomes for major age-related diseases. And those changes that we might be looking at during the menopause include things like the timing of the menopausal transition, how quickly one goes through the menopausal transition, and how symptomatic their transition is.”
Jillian Baker is the 2025-2026 recipient of the A. Regula Herzog Young Investigators Fund, an award designed to support research and training for junior researchers on women and aging. The Herzog Fund is part of the ISR Next Generation Awards from the Institute for Social Research. Jillian is excited to further her research on how intimate partner violence influences aging trajectories for women.
Congratulations to Center Doctoral Student Jiaxin Wu, MPH, on her first publication as a lead author in Seminars in Reproductive Medicine.
“Female reproductive aging often affects women's emotional, physical, and physiological well-being. Ovarian aging is characterized by fluctuations in reproductive hormones and determines the age at which menopause occurs. Understanding potentially modifiable factors that influence this process is essential for addressing health disparities, improving quality of life, and informing relevant public health strategies. ”
“We are finding exploitative conditions that are unique for women farmworkers around issues of sexual harassment, exposures during pregnancy, challenges with obtaining and having access to proper hygiene and sanitation, particularly during menstruation, and also really important aspects of work-life balance and child care issues that women farmworkers in particular face-” — Alexis J. Handal, PhD, MPH (Co-Study Lead, Michigan Farmworker Project).
Initiated in 2013, MiLES is a newly established cohort study which creates and maintains the MiLES Longitudinal Cohort & Biobank, including lupus cases from the southeast Michigan surveillance registry as well as population-based controls.
SWAN Genomic Analyses performed dense genome-wide genotyping and imputation of genetic variants throughout the genome to the Haplotype Reference Consortium (HRC) reference panel in 1538 SWAN participants. This project enables SWAN to participate in genetic consortia focused on reproductive aging as well as risk factors for health and disease in women with data uploaded to dbGaP. We are also conducting gene-based analyses to assess the association of menopausal traits, including vasomotor symptoms, with genetic loci previously identified to be associated with age at menarche and menopause. (AG 017719)
The SWAN Multi-Pollutant Study (MPS) was initiated in 2016 to examine health effects of multiple environmental chemical exposures, including perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), organochlorine pesticides, polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), metals, phenols, phthalates, and organophosphate pesticide among midlife women. Funded through two R01 grants by the National Institute of Environmental Health and Sciences (NIEHS), the SWAN MPS specifically investigates 1) obesity, type-2 diabetes and related metabolic endpoints; and 2) reproductive health including sex steroid hormones, age at menopause and ovarian aging).