Your diet could be all you need to change to deal with the menopause, writes Kathryn Holmquist
Menopause is as hormonally turbulent as adolescence, except that it's in reverse. The night sweats, irritability, ageing skin, lack of energy and joint pains can be severe enough to harm the quality of some women's lives.
Many opt for hormone-replacement therapy, or HRT, to alleviate their symptoms - yet 95 per cent of them could manage without it, according to Marilyn Glenville, a nutritionist and menopause expert. She says that most, if not all, of the symptoms of menopause can be treated nutritionally.
Glenville believes too many women are being given HRT, even before they have their last period, the official beginning of the menopause. Doctors may confuse the symptoms of the menopause with psychological stress, such as empty-nest syndrome, and prescribe HRT as a cure-all.
HRT has the power to help the one in 20 women who suffers premature menopause, but the vast majority of women do not need it, she says.
HRT increases the risk of breast cancer but protects against bowel cancer. Research published last summer rubbished a previous claim that therapy could help prevent heart disease; a clinical trial of women using HRT to prevent heart disease was then halted.
HRT appears to be of no benefit for Alzheimer's and memory loss but may help ease depression - but only if the depression is triggered by hot flushes, night sweats and sleep disturbances. Most of the claims made for HRT are myths, according to Glenville.
So how should women be coping with the menopause? In her latest book, New Natural Alternatives To HRT, Glenville says six essential ingredients can make all the difference: phytoestrogens (see panel); oily foods, including fish, nuts, seeds and oils; fruit and vegetables; complex carbohydrates, including oats, brown rice and wholemeal bread; fibre; and fluids.
Women should ideally begin to eat more healthily at about 35, although it's not too late to start once the menopause begins, usually after the age of 50.
Phytoestrogens are the big news. They can raise oestrogen levels and so tackle menopausal symptoms. They are particularly common in the Japanese diet, which is why Japanese women have so few problems with the menopause and breast cancer- and why, when Japanese women adopt a Western diet, they get as much breast cancer as Western women and develop menopausal symptoms.
The abundance of fermented soya in their diet - from soy sauce, tamari and miso, for example - means Japanese women eat between 20mg and 80mg a day of isoflavones, the most beneficial phytoestrogen. Irish women probably eat no more than 3mg a day.
To be beneficial, however, soya must come from whole soybeans, not from soy protein isolate, which has been linked to Alzheimer's disease. Soy protein isolate is created when soybeans are left to soak in aluminium tanks, absorbing the metal.
Soy isolates are also in up to 60 per cent of convenience foods, turning up as hydrolysed vegetable protein, lecithin (a thickener) and textured vegetable protein.
They may even turn up in formulas, children's snacks and some soya milks. So avoid them by reading the label.
Oils - especially olive oil and butter - are the best choices for cooking. To prevent dryness in the hair, skin and vagina, eat lots of fatty acids, found in evening primrose oil and oily fish.
New Natural Alternatives To HRT is published by Kyle Cathie, £10.99 in UK. Glenville has also written Eat Your Way Through The Menopause, a cookbook
Finding phytoestrogens
• Legumes, such as soya, lentils and
chickpeas; seeds, including linseed, sesame and poppy; grains, such as rice, oats, wheat, barley and rye; fruit, especially apples, plums and
cherries; vegetables, such as broccoli, celery, carrots, rhubarb and potatoes; also alfalfa, mung bean sprouts, cinnamon, sage, garlic, red clover, hops, fennel and parsley
• But avoid caffeine, as it leaches calcium and can cause mood swings, fizzy drinks (other than water), as they leach calcium; sugar, as it causes a blood-sugar roller coaster; and saturated and hydrogenated fat