U of C professors work to fill the gaps in women’s health research through a menopause study
By Laura Beldor, July 14 2026—
Though menopause affects almost half of the population, it is a process that is stigmatized and under-researched. MOvement, MENopause, and opTimUM health or MOMENTUM is a collaborative research study at the University of Calgary created in order to better understand the impact of lifestyle and fitness on menopause. Kinesiology professors Dr. Meghan McDonough and Dr. Leigh Gabel, two researchers currently working on the project, spoke with the Gauntlet about MOMENTUM.
Menopause is defined as a point in time where an individual experiences a permanent loss of menstruation due to a natural decline in estrogen and progesterone production. Around 10 million women in Canada over the age of 40 are currently being impacted by menopause. Though common this experience is, centuries of women’s reproductive health being perceived as taboo has made it so that it has made it difficult to discuss and learn more about menopause and the symptoms individuals impacted by the experience. This has resulted in menopause being understudied and many aspects of the process still not being well understood.
“There’s not enough information or knowledge about what people can do to manage their symptoms or manage the experience,” said McDonough. “There are some things that are known, but there are lots of gaps within that knowledge.”
MOMENTUM first launched in 2024 to better understand how the symptoms and changes experienced by individuals before, during or after menopause are impacted by variables such as nutrition, exercise and stress. The study involves following a cohort of over 2000 women from ages 40-60 who are in premenopause, perimenopause, or post menopause for a period of five or more years. During the first year of the study, researchers collected a variety of data from each participant, including blood samples, body scans, and cognitive tests.
“There’s a lot of interest in looking at those peri-menopause and first couple years postmenopause because a lot of change is happening during that time,” said McDonough. “So in terms of doing a longitudinal study examining that change and capturing those transitions is really interesting to us.”
MOMENTUM is a transdisciplinary project where researchers from various disciplines collaborate in the creation of the study, and in assessing the relationship between the variables being measured. The core team of the project include kinesiology professors from different areas of specialization, with McDonough’s area of interest being the psychological well-being outcomes for women experiencing menopause and Gabel’s focus being the changes in bone health, muscle and body composition during the transition. McDonough and Gabel discuss how the project has been an opportunity to learn from each other as they try to investigate the various impacts of menopause on women’s health.
“I think that one of the best things is the new connections made,” Gabel said when discussing her collaboration with other researchers. “We’re all in fairly different areas around health research, but we’re all bringing something unique to the table.”
The MOMENTUM team has just begun their second year of data collection. For the future direction of the project, the group wishes to observe how the original cohort changes over various years. They also wish to incorporate more substudies that focus on specific experiences of those who are a part of racialized minorities. Though a substudy is currently being conducted that focuses on menopause in Cree women, Gabel and McDonough describe how their study could be improved if they were able to include more participants of diverse backgrounds.
“We are actively trying to get funding to broaden out the group to women who identify as South Asian heritage,” said Gabel. “They are one of the largest minority groups in the city. “We’re trying to diversify [the cohort] in a way that would be more reflective of Calgary.”
Altogether, the researchers at MOMENTUM are taking significant strides to better understand menopause and the various factors that can affect women’s experience before, during or after the transition. You can find more information about MOMENTUM on their Instagram page here.