ORIGINAL INVESTIGATION Menopause and the Metabolic Syndrome The Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation

lence of the metabolic syndrome (MetS) increases from premenopause to postmenopause in women, indepen-dent of age. Little is known about why. We hypoth-esized that the incidence of the MetS increases with pro-gression through menopause and that this increase is explained by the progressive androgenicity of the hor-monal milieu. Methods: This longitudinal, 9-year study of 949 partici-pants in the Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation investigates the natural history of the menopausal transi-tion. Participants of 5 ethnicities at 7 geographic sites were recruited when they were premenopausal or early peri-menopausal and were eligible for this study if they (1) reached menopause during the study; (2) had never taken hormone therapy, and (3) did not have diabetes mellitu