Jerilynn C. Prior MD, FRCPC, ABIM, ABEM

Jerilynn C. Prior BA, MD, FRCPC (former ABIM, ABEM) is a Professor of Endocrinology and Metabolism at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, BC. She has spent her career studying menstrual cycles and the effects of the cycle’s changing estrogen and progesterone hormone levels on women’s health. She is the founder (2002) and Scientific Director of the Centre for Menstrual Cycle and Ovulation Research (CeMCOR).

CeMCOR is actively researching women’s health and has a very accessible, informative website that receives on average between 3500-7000 page views per day. She is also Director of the BC Centre of the Canadian Multicentre Osteoporosis Study that is studying osteoporosis, fractures and bone mineral density and has followed over 9000 adult women and men across the country for over 19 years, plus about a 1000 younger women and men aged 16-24 for two years.

Dr. Prior has studied women’s menstrual cycles, perimenopause, menopause and the causes for and treatment of osteoporosis. She has shown that regular cycles (with enough estrogen) commonly do not produce sufficient progesterone (anovulation or short luteal phases). She first discovered and has since proven by meta-analysis that more versus fewer ovulatory disturbances within regular cycles are related to significant spinal bone loss in healthy women ages 20-45. She has shown in controlled trials that the ovarian hormone, progesterone, is effective treatment for menopausal hot flushes and, given cyclically increases bone mineral density in healthy women with hypothalamic amenorrhea.

She also proved in a randomized controlled trial that progesterone is effective for menopause hot flushes/flashes and night sweat treamtent and has short term cardiovascular safety. Dr. Prior is internationally known for her cumulative studies that now support progesterone as causing women’s increased bone formation through progesterone-specific osteoblast receptors. She has documented that estrogen levels, besides being unpredictable, are significantly higher than normal in perimenopause, the 3-10 years of changes before menopause.