Menopause before 40: premature ovarian insufficiency
Before 40, periods that disappear or go haywire are not just stress, and you are too young for that is not a diagnosis. This video first puts the right words on it: premature ovarian insufficiency before 40 is not the same thing as early menopause between 40 and 45, and it is not always permanent. It explains what should trigger testing (four months of absent or clearly irregular periods before 40) and the dosing rule that changed: the 2024 international recommendation, co-signed by the European, American and international societies, now accepts a single FSH measurement above 25 IU/l. It reviews the causes (genetic including the FMR1 gene, autoimmune, iatrogenic after a cancer treated in childhood), the reasonable workup to ask for, and what the literature documents for bone and heart, with absolute risk and not only relative risk. The heart of the topic is an inversion of the hormonal reasoning: at fifty-two, taking hormone therapy means adding something to a body that stopped producing it at the age when that is normal; at thirty-five, not taking it means letting a thirty-five-year-old body run without what it should have. It is no longer a comfort treatment, it is a replacement, and the guidelines say to continue it at least until the usual age of menopause. The video finally addresses fertility without promises and without fatalism, and the shock of the diagnosis, which is part of the picture and not beside it. In French with English subtitles.
menopause
13 min · August 13, 2026 · 20 PubMed studies
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