What: Vox has a deep dive on rapamycin, the “drug we already know is generally safe could be used to delay menopause and extend the healthy lifespans of people with ovaries. Bérénice Benayoun, a scientist studying sex differences in aging at the University of Southern California’s Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, is optimistic about the study’s potential. ‘For most women, delaying menopause will be nothing short of a health miracle.’”

Why it matters: “Jennifer Garrison, professor at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging, thinks of ovaries as the master architects of health for people assigned female at birth. (Trans men, intersex people, and nonbinary people can have ovaries, too.) ‘Essentially, we have allowed women’s health as a whole to be pigeonholed through the lens of fertility,’ she said. But the ovaries sit at the center of a complex molecular signaling network that doesn’t just guide the creation of new life; Garrison views them as ‘the pacemaker for aging in women’s bodies.’”

Source: Vox