Women who reach menopause later in life tend to have lower risks of conditions like heart disease and osteoporosis—and, on average, even live longer. That connection has fueled growing interest in a provocative question: If menopause is linked to healthier aging, is it possible to delay it in the first place?

Longevity influencer Kayla Barnes-Lentz, who’s in her mid-thirties, recently told Business Insider about her efforts trying to delay menopause until age 60 through a combination of healthy lifestyle habits and experimental treatments. Meanwhile, users on Reddit are asking whether certain habits or products can help stave off the permanent loss of periods. So where does the research stand?

Why Delaying Menopause Is Getting Attention

While delaying menopause can extend the window for starting a family, the idea has also received attention for reasons that have little to do with pregnancy. “I think one of the biggest misconceptions around menopause is that it’s just a problem of fertility,” said Berenice Benayoun, PhD, an associate professor of gerontology and biological sciences at the University of Southern California’s Leonard Davis School of Gerontology.

In reality, menopause timing is also closely tied to overall health. During perimenopause and menopause, the ovaries gradually reduce their production of hormones like estrogen and progesterone, which have protective functions throughout the body. That decline in hormone levels is thought to contribute to the growing list of health conditions associated with menopause, such as heart disease, stroke, and osteoporosis. The role of these hormones may also help explain why reaching menopause at a later age has been linked to a lower lifetime risk of those conditions, and even a longer life expectancy.

Factors That Influence Menopause Timing

Despite the buzz around delaying menopause, there are currently no proven strategies that can do so. However, researchers have identified a number of factors that influence when menopause begins. Some are non-modifiable, including the biggest contributor: genetics. “A mom’s age of menopause is highly correlated with her daughter’s age of menopause,” said Kara Goldman, MD, a reproductive endocrinologist at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

Environmental factors, including exposure to chemotherapy and adverse childhood experiences, can also accelerate ovarian aging and contribute to earlier menopause onset. Still, some factors linked to menopause timing are controllable, including healthy lifestyle habits like following the Mediterranean diet or exercising frequently. While these behaviors haven’t been shown to push back menopause, they may be associated with a lower risk of early menopause because of their ability to support metabolic health.

As Goldman explained, poor metabolic health—or a reduced ability to regulate blood sugar and process fats efficiently—can increase activation in a pathway called mTOR (mammalian target of rapamycin), which is involved in growth and reproduction. Higher mTOR activity can cause follicle loss in the ovaries, speeding up their aging process. By contrast, habits that improve metabolic health may reduce this activity and protect against accelerated ovarian aging. Smoking is another major factor linked to ovarian aging. “Women who smoke should understand that, of course it increases the risk to every part of their body, but specifically their ovaries,” Goldman said.

What About Experimental Options?

Several trendy treatments have been promoted as ways to delay menopause, but they have little scientific backing. The most promising intervention is rapamycin, a drug that inhibits the mTOR pathway and has been shown to protect against ovarian aging in mice. Researchers are currently investigating whether rapamycin could delay menopause in humans, but studies are still in the early stages, making it too soon for clinicians to safely prescribe the drug for that purpose.

In addition to taking rapamycin, Barnes-Lentz said she’s trying red light therapy and hyperbaric oxygen therapy—breathing pure oxygen in a pressurized chamber—as a way to slow ovarian aging. But Goldman said there’s no solid evidence that these strategies can affect menopause timing. They also come with safety risks, albeit rare ones, and not everyone is a good candidate for them. “I don’t want someone to be spending money and time and potentially risking their health if we don’t have data to support their use,” Goldman said.

Shifting the Focus

Instead of focusing on delaying menopause, experts recommend concentrating on ways to mitigate the health risks that can crop up during this stage of life. While the timing of menopause is largely out of our control, the lifestyle choices we make—not smoking, staying metabolically healthy, and prioritizing regular exercise—can meaningfully influence how the transition affects long-term health.