Prepping for menopause – the power of plant food

What gives women the best chance of breezing through menopause with few or even no symptoms? Eating more plant food and less highly processed food at mid-life is a good start, as evidence grows that the kind of diet that helps cool the planet could help tame hot flushes too.

Earlier this year, a Brazilian study of menopause symptoms and lifestyle factors found that women eating the most ultra-processed food – a major contributor to greenhouse gases – had the worst hot flushes, while those eating the most vegetables had milder symptoms. It followed a 2021 US study of the effects of a vegan diet that included half a cup of cooked soybeans daily in women having hot flushes. After 12 weeks, the hot flushes had dropped by 79 per cent and most women had no moderate to severe hot flushes at all.

“The interest in plant-based diets and menopause is growing,” says advanced accredited dietitian Dr Sue Radd, author of Food as Medicine: Cooking for Your Best Health. ”In 2020 the European Menopause and Andropause Society issued a position statement saying that a plant dominant Mediterranean diet has benefits, not just for menopause symptoms in the short term, but for long-term health too, helping reduce the risk of problems like heart disease and breast cancer that increase after menopause.”

It reflects what she sees in her Sydney practice.

“I often see women who want to lose weight or reduce cholesterol, and once they’ve adopted a more plant-based diet, they’ll say, ‘by the way, my hot flushes are better too’. I see a big difference in their wellbeing once women start eating more vegetables, nuts, seeds, legumes and wholegrains – and that doesn’t necessarily mean becoming vegetarian or vegan,” she adds.

It’s no secret that healthier eating helps prevent problems like heart disease and some cancers but how can plants cool hot flushes?

The reason the vegan diet with soybeans worked well in the US trial is thought to lie in the interaction between isoflavones from soy food and microbes in the gut, says Radd.

“Isoflavones belong to a category of food compounds called phytoestrogens. Phytoestrogens are in most unrefined plant foods, generally in small amounts, but soy is a particularly good source. They can act like weak oestrogens, especially if isoflavones are converted by certain gut microbes into equol – a more bioactive compound that’s been found to reduce hot flushes,” she explains. “There’s still more to learn about equol, including why not everyone has the right gut bacteria to produce it, but the evidence that it helps hot flushes is strengthening.”

“We already know that when you eat more whole plant foods like vegetables, fruit, grains and legumes you grow more of the gut microbes that help prevent disease, and fewer of those that promote it. Some emerging research has also linked a higher fibre diet from these foods to a greater chance of being able to make equol in your gut.”