Women’s Health: Why We Still Don’t Understand the Female Body — And What the Latest Science Is Showing
Last week was International Women’s Day, and like many of you, I saw countless posts calling for better recognition of women’s health issues.
But here’s the uncomfortable truth:
Even with growing awareness, our scientific understanding of women’s physiology — especially across adulthood — is still shockingly incomplete.
Not because researchers don’t care — but because historical research models were optimized for simplicity, not for complexity.
And in women, complexity matters.
Why Women’s Physiology Has Been Understudied
Historically, clinical research often excluded women of reproductive age because fluctuating hormones were seen as “noise” in data. This led to:
Health recommendations based on male physiology as the default
A lack of reliable reference ranges for hormone-related metrics
Misinterpretation of symptoms as “normal aging” rather than physiological signals
Only in the past decade have major funding bodies and journals incentivised sex-specific research. But translating that into actionable understanding takes time.
This means millions of women are navigating life’s biggest shifts — perimenopause, menopause, metabolic change — without clear, evidence-based guidance.
New Insights from the Latest Data
Here are some of the most interesting findings emerging from current research on women’s health — data that rarely gets discussed outside academic circles:
1. Perimenopause Begins Years Before “Official” Menopause
Menopause is defined as 12 months without a period — but the physiological transition begins much earlier.
Recent longitudinal studies show that:
Fluctuations in estrogen, progesterone, and other hormones can begin 5–10 years before menopause
These shifts correlate with changes in sleep, energy, mood, and metabolism
Many women start experiencing symptoms long before they or their clinicians recognise the underlying hormonal transition
This helps explain why so many women in their late 30s and early 40s report unexplained fatigue, mood changes, or weight gain — even when their cycles are still regular.
2. Temperature Regulation Is a Window Into Hormonal Health
