BUFFALO, N.Y. — Last week, President Joe Biden signed an executive order that aims to expand and improve research on women’s health. The order included a plan to create a comprehensive research agenda on menopause. 

Menopause is a point in time 12 months after a woman’s last menstrual period, but experts say symptoms can start 7 to 10 years before a woman’s final period. It happens when the ovaries are winding down their estrogen production, causing symptoms like hot flashes, mood changes, and weight gain. 

As part of that executive order, the NIH will start something called the "Pathways to Prevention" series for menopause and menopausal symptoms. The report will combine where we are now in research on the subject, where there are gaps and what we can do to fill those gaps in moving forward.

Brittanny Keeler, a physician and Menopause Society Practitioner, joins Spectrum News 1 to chat about the need for such research. She says a lot of current research focuses on men. 

"Another practitioner had put it one way like women are not little men, they're not and everything is different. And so to have this just huge gap in knowledge is just it's it's almost laughable to think about it like that, that we just don't know these things because we don't we haven't been looking," Keeler said.

Keeler says women’s health has come to the forefront, thanks to social media and news and stresses the importance for women to know that they’re not alone in this pivotal period of theirs and for women to be advocates for their own health.

If you’re interested in finding a menopause specialist, you can do so on the Menopause Society’s website.