When estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone drop during menopause, your body uses less cholesterol to make these hormones. Your cholesterol production stays high at first, so levels spike temporarily until your body catches up. It's normal, not a reason to panic.
Your cholesterol numbers are going to increase when you go into menopause. Your ovaries are no longer making all of the estrogen and progesterone and testosterone that they were. Your cholesterol numbers go up because you're not using the cholesterol to make the sex hormones. So it takes a while for your body to go, oh, she doesn't need this much cholesterol production anymore because she's not going to take it and make hormones anymore. And so there's a major adjustment period where you stop making the hormones, but you're still making the cholesterol levels to the same amount. And so your cholesterol levels look higher. You don't need to freak out about that, I promise. We just need to optimize what your body's doing with that cholesterol.
