PEN® eNews 15(10) October 2025 - Updates to our (Peri)Menopause Content

Nutritional Interventions for Sleep: Are They Helpful During (Peri)Menopause? 

Can nutritional interventions (including dietary or herbal supplements) improve sleep during perimenopause and/or menopause?

Evidence does not suggest that any nutrition intervention objectively improves sleep in perimenopausal/ menopausal women. 

However, the following interventions showed subjective (e.g. questionnaires, sleep diaries, estimated sleep duration) improvements in sleep in some studies:

• Combined nutrition interventions (e.g. multiple concurrent interventions, such as omega-3 supplements plus yoga; 10/14 studies)

• Combined herbal interventions (e.g. herbal formulas including more than one active ingredient, such as Panax ginseng, black cohosh, soy, and green tea extract; 8/11 studies) 

• Isoflavones (4/8 studies)

• Soy (2/5 studies)

• Black cohosh (2/3 studies)

• Pollen (2/3 studies) 

• Melatonin (1/2 studies)

• Purple yam (1/1 study)

• Pomegranate seed oil (1/1 study)

• JuicePLUS (1/1 study)

• Jujube seed capsule (1/1 study)

• Maca (1/1 study)

• Proanthocyanin (1/1 study)

• Salvia extract (1/1 study)

Overall, the evidence on this topic is of low methodological quality and results should be interpreted with caution.

Remarks

The composition of many combined nutrition and herbal interventions were not defined.

The term “menopause” refers to the permanent end of menstruation. Specifically, menopause is established when 12 consecutive menstruation-free months have passed. “Perimenopause”, or the “menopausal transition”, is the time surrounding menopause, beginning at the onset of menopause symptoms and ending when menopause has been established.

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Protein Needs During (Peri)Menopause

Should dietary protein intake increase during perimenopause and/or menopause?

There is insufficient evidence to make a menopause-specific recommendation for protein intake in women. It would be prudent to encourage perimenopausal and menopausal women to meet national recommendations regarding protein intake.

Remarks

Risk of developing sarcopenia (i.e. age related loss of muscle mass, strength and function) has been estimated at 20% higher in women than in men. Risk of sarcopenia has been independently associated with menopause; changes in diet (e.g. decreased protein, restricted caloric intake leading to decreased macro- or micronutrient intake) and decreases in exercise that have also been associated with menopause and sarcopenia. Despite these associations, optimal dietary intervention strategies (e.g. optimal amounts of specific foods or nutrients) are not clear. 

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Nutritional Interventions for Managing Body Changes During Pre-, Peri- and Post-Menopause

Should dietary interventions to manage body composition/ body weight changes differ for pre- peri- and postmenopausal women?

Pre- and postmenopausal women who choose hypocaloric weight loss diets (with or without exercise) appear to achieve similar weight loss and reduced fat mass, suggesting that dietary interventions do not need to be tailored to a women’s menopausal status.

Remarks

Weight gain and changes in fat mass may occur during the menopause transition; however it is unclear whether these body composition changes are due to age, hormonal changes or other factors. See Additional Content: What is the impact of menopause on body weight and body composition?

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The NiMe Diet: What is it, and How Might it Affect Dietetic Practice?

Nutrition researchers and dietitians at the University of Alberta recently published a crossover randomized controlled trial (RCT) evaluating the effect of a diet they created to investigate whether they could restore industrialized gut microbiomes to an “ancestral” state. The NiMe Diet (Non-industrialized Microbiome Restore) is based on the traditional diet of people living in non-industrialized societies, modified to include only foods available in Canada. 

Additionally, the authors aimed to use L. reuteri to colonize the gut microbiomes of study participants. The authors chose L. reuteri as a target because it is not typically found in people with industrialized gut microbiomes but is dominant in the gut microbiomes of people from Papua New Guinea, who have non-industrialized gut microbiomes. 

To find out what foods were included in the NiMe Diet and whether the diet changed participants’ microbiome, read the Trending Topic here!