Jessica Rachel Starr, MD, endocrinologist at HSS, shares insight with The New York Times on the many ways this midlife transition can affect your body and what you can do about it. Menopause can cause hot flashes, dry mouth, heart palpitations and recurring urinary tract infections. 

Though only a handful of them get much attention, there are more than two dozen known symptoms of menopause and perimenopause, the time leading up to and immediately following your last period.

The symptoms are so varied because your ovaries are ramping down production of estrogen and progesterone, sex hormones that have played key roles in all kinds of physiological processes since puberty. Estrogen is the biggest factor: As it declines, tissues in many parts of your body get drier, your bone density decreases and your body changes in lots of other ways.

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