Yes, your ovaries continue producing hormones after menopause, though the type and amount shift dramatically. The most significant output is testosterone. While estrogen production drops to very low levels once your follicles are depleted, the ovaries remain an active source of androgens for years, sometimes decades, after your last period.
What the Ovaries Still Produce
Before menopause, the ovaries are your body’s primary source of estradiol, the most potent form of estrogen. That production depends on follicles, the tiny fluid-filled sacs that release eggs each cycle. Once those follicles are gone, estradiol levels fall sharply, typically dropping below 20 pg/ml.
But the ovaries don’t go silent. Research measuring hormone levels directly from the ovarian vein (the blood vessel draining the ovary) compared to blood elsewhere in the body has found significant concentrations of testosterone flowing out of the postmenopausal ovary. This gradient between ovarian and peripheral blood was still present in women who had been menopausal for more than 10 years. When researchers studied women who then had their ovaries removed, circulating testosterone dropped significantly after surgery, confirming the ovaries were the source.
The ovaries also release smaller amounts of androstenedione and DHEA, two other androgens. However, testosterone appears to be their most consistent and clinically meaningful product after menopause.
How This Hormone Production Works
The mechanism behind postmenopausal ovarian activity is different from premenopausal hormone production. Without follicles, there are no developing eggs, no corpus luteum, and no cyclical rise and fall of estrogen and progesterone. Instead, specialized cells in the ovarian tissue, particularly in the central core of the ovary, take over.
These cells respond to luteinizing hormone (LH), which your pituitary gland releases in much higher amounts after menopause. Before menopause, estrogen keeps LH in check through a feedback loop. Once estrogen drops, LH levels surge and stay elevated, sometimes exceeding 50 mU/ml. That constant LH stimulation drives the remaining ovarian cells to produce androgens. It’s a less efficient system than what existed before, but it keeps working for years.
The bulk of ovarian stromal cells (the connective tissue that makes up most of the postmenopausal ovary) don’t appear to be the main androgen factories. Lab studies have shown these cells lack the key enzyme needed to convert cholesterol into androgens. Instead, the androgen production likely comes from residual theca-like cells and hilar cells, which retain the enzymatic machinery even after follicles disappear.
How Your Body Uses These Androgens
Testosterone from the ovaries serves your body directly, playing a role in libido, energy, muscle maintenance, and bone strength. But it also functions as a raw material. Fat tissue contains an enzyme called aromatase that converts androgens into estrone, a weaker form of estrogen that becomes your body’s dominant estrogen after menopause. This process, called peripheral aromatization, happens primarily in adipose tissue and is the main reason postmenopausal women still have measurable estrogen levels at all.
The amount of estrone your body produces through this pathway depends partly on how much androgen raw material is available and partly on body composition. More adipose tissue generally means more aromatase activity and higher estrone levels. This is one reason body weight influences postmenopausal health risks in complex ways, affecting everything from bone density to the likelihood of certain estrogen-sensitive cancers.
What Happens When the Ovaries Are Removed
The clearest evidence that postmenopausal ovaries matter comes from studying women who have them removed. Bilateral oophorectomy (removal of both ovaries) after menopause eliminates the body’s ovarian androgen supply, and the health consequences can be significant.
Research has linked postmenopausal oophorectomy to higher risks of coronary heart disease, stroke, hip fracture, Parkinsonism, dementia, cognitive impairment, depression, and anxiety. To put the scale in perspective: ovarian cancer causes roughly 14,800 deaths per year in the United States, while coronary heart disease causes 350,000. An estimated 100,000 cases of dementia annually may be attributable to prior bilateral oophorectomy. Observational data suggests that for most women, removing the ovaries after menopause may do more harm than good.
Current medical consensus reflects this. For women at average risk of ovarian cancer, ovarian conservation is strongly recommended, even during hysterectomy, because of the cardiovascular, bone, and cognitive benefits of keeping the ovaries intact. The exception is women with a known genetic predisposition like BRCA1/2 mutations or Lynch syndrome, where the cancer risk is high enough to justify removal. For women over 55 without genetic risk factors, the mortality difference between keeping and removing ovaries narrows, but surgical decisions are still made on a case-by-case basis.
How Long the Ovaries Stay Active
There’s no precise cutoff age when the postmenopausal ovary stops producing hormones entirely. The research showing a testosterone gradient in the ovarian vein included women more than a decade past menopause, and the signal was still detectable in most of them. Testosterone levels do decline gradually with age, but the drop is slower and steadier than the sharp estrogen cliff that defines menopause itself.
Several years after menopause, ovaries continue releasing meaningful quantities of androgens, driven by persistently elevated LH. The production likely tapers over time as the remaining hormone-producing cells diminish, but the timeline varies from person to person. This ongoing activity is exactly why the health consequences of ovary removal are measurable even in older postmenopausal women.
Signs of Low Androgen Levels
Because the postmenopausal ovary’s main contribution is testosterone, a decline in ovarian function (or surgical removal) can produce symptoms tied to androgen insufficiency. The most commonly recognized pattern includes low libido, persistent fatigue, and a general decrease in sense of well-being. These symptoms overlap with other aspects of aging and menopause, which makes them easy to dismiss or misattribute.
A clinical consensus definition of female androgen insufficiency describes it as a combination of these symptoms alongside measurably low bioavailable testosterone, in a woman whose estrogen levels are otherwise adequate. In practice, this means the symptoms are most noticeable in women who are already on hormone therapy for estrogen but still feel that something is off. Recognizing the ovary’s ongoing role in androgen production helps explain why menopause symptoms aren’t solely an estrogen story.