Women who have gone or are going through the menopause can now try a novel, effective, delicious and healthy treatment for a range of uncomfortable symptoms: piling their plates high with 30 different plants per week.
A new report by King’s College London and the nutrition company Zoe has found that dining out on a variety of veg and pulses can help curb the hot flushes and mood swings associated with the menopause, which typically happens between the ages of 45 and 55, when a woman’s periods stop as a result of lower hormone levels.
The negative effect of those hormonal changes, the analysis of health data of 70,000 women found, can be mitigated with a diet that is high in fibre and leafy greens. In fact the severity of symptoms including flushes, feeling low, gaining weight and a decrease in sex drive fell by a third within months of a switch to a more plant-based diet.
Researchers asked more than 4,200 women in the UK to eat 30 plants a week for seven months and to score out of 100 the effect on their lives of 20 key menopause symptoms. They found a significant fall in symptoms for both perimenopausal women (who are still having periods but experiencing hormonal changes) and postmenopausal women (those whose periods have stopped).
The first group saw a 35 per cent drop in psychological symptoms (mood swings, depression, anxiety and so on) and a 30 per cent drop in physical symptoms, such as hot flushes and night sweats. For postmenopausal women the figures were 44 per cent and 32 per cent respectively. The positive changes happened regardless of whether or not medication such as hormone replacement therapy was being administered.
Researchers described as a “breakthrough for women’s health” their discovery that menopause can affect the way the body responds to food, with hormone depletion affecting the composition of the gut microbiome. Some species of gut bacteria dine out on oestrogen, for example, so less of the sex hormone means less bacteria.
“The gut microbiome is an ecosystem and if an entire population of microbes start to suffer and die, due to lack of oestrogen, there’s a gap in the ecosystem,” said study co-author Dr Federica Amati. “So we want to make sure that gap is plugged with good, helpful microbes, not with unhelpful microbes. Eating a varied, plant-based diet is the best way to achieve this.”
She added that if women seeking to get their 30 a week focused on “protein-rich whole plants” such as beans, lentils, nuts and seeds, “you’re going to be in a good place”.