Written by Lauren Robinson, January 2025.
Late last year our Australian and New Zealand teams were lucky enough to attend a session with menopause expert, Niki Bezzant. Niki is a bestselling author who is passionate about women’s health, with a particular interest in menopause education and empowering midlife women. While this talk was naturally very interesting for all of our female colleagues, Niki made a point that we all need to get more comfortable talking about menopause - regardless of our sex!
We’ve summarised Niki’s presentation to us in this short blog article, but be sure to look her up for more resources on menopause.
Menopause and Peri-menopause Symptoms
There is a stubborn old assumption that menopause is something that only affects older women. This just isn’t true, as Niki reminded us. Actually, menopause and peri-menopause affect women in their 40s and 50s – or in other words, women in the primes of their lives!
Technically, menopause is defined as “the last or final menstrual period,” which occurs on average in Australia and New Zealand at age 51. Peri-menopause is defined as the time leading up to menopause, and it can start anywhere from 2 years to 10 years before your last period.
Women’s hormones are generally predictable until their late 30s or early 40s, and then things can start to change quite rapidly. Our hormones don’t just gradually decline though – instead, there’s a bit of a “rollercoaster ride” of hormones, causing the symptoms that we associate with peri-menopause and menopause. Some of the symptoms include:
- Changes in cycle
- Bleeding
- Hot flushes
- Night sweats
- Brain fog
- Lack of concentration
- Memory issues
- Depression
- Anxiety
- Low mood
- Insomnia
- Joint pain
- Weight gain
- Headaches
- Bloating
- Gut issues
- Dry vagina
- UTIs
- Dry skin
- Eyesight changes
- Fatigue
- Thinning hair
- Racing heart
Thankfully, Niki reminds us that menopausal women won’t experience all of these symptoms at once! In fact, some lucky women go through menopause without experiencing any symptoms at all. However, the more common symptoms include sleep issues (experienced by 63% of women), hot flushes (experienced by 62% of women), weight changes (experienced by 53% of women) and fatigue (experienced by 46% of women).
Because oestrogen affects every system in the body, these menopause symptoms are extremely wide-ranging. Oestrogen even has a role to play in the brain, meaning that your brain is actually undergoing structural changes as you move through peri-menopause. Niki notes that mood symptoms are very commonly reported, with low mood and anxiety spiking in women navigating menopause. As Niki rightly points out, for many women, their 40s are an extremely busy time of life. Your career is likely at its peak, you may have a mortgage, you might be caring for children or aging parents, and you yourself may be experiencing some new health issues. All of this as well as peri-menopausal hormonal changes is a lot to handle, and we all need to help support women going through this life stage.
How Does Menopause Impact Work?
While menopause can affect every part of a woman’s life, an area that often isn’t considered is her working life. From a survey conducted by Niki for her book, This Changes Everything, women reported the following impacts from menopause on their work life:
- 55% reported menopause having an impact on their self-image
- 48% reported lower confidence
- 42% reported an impact on their mental health
- 30% reported an impact on their ability to work
- 14% reported an impact on their relationships with colleagues
- 14% reported a negative effect on their career progression
Perhaps even more shockingly, 1 in 12 women in New Zealand have left their job because of menopause symptoms. Clearly, many working environments are not well set up to accommodate women going through menopause. Niki encouraged us to consider the different ways that positive change could be made here. She tabled the idea of menopause leave, a hot topic in Australia at the moment. There is a lot of buzz in the media currently around the idea of introducing reproductive leave, which would be provided as paid leave and cover the management of conditions including peri-menopause and menopause.
Midlife Health Boosters
So, what are some actions that women approaching menopause can take to improve their health and help reduce potential symptoms? Niki was full of advice on this front, but emphasised that one of the most beneficial things that midlife women can do to reduce symptom severity is movement. For example, if sleep is being impacted, getting outside in the mornings for a brisk walk can help to normalise sleep. The morning sun and exercise helps to boost serotonin, which in turn later converts into melatonin, which assists in normal sleeping patterns.
Much is also said about how diet can impact menopause. Niki was quick to shut down the idea that any one specific diet is proven to reduce symptoms in peri-menopause. There is no one diet that will improve symptoms for all women. However, she suggested that focusing on healthy patterns of eating is, as always, a good approach. Eating lots of vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, grains and protein is the best idea. She noted that women often underestimate how much protein they need in midlife, so focusing on high-quality protein intake is important. She also spoke about how fibre is often overlooked but is vitally important since it benefits gut health, which is known to impact peri-menopausal symptoms. Her final note on diet was that reducing alcohol is key, and that for women looking for a ‘quick win’, significantly cutting back or even removing alcohol from your diet would provide symptom relief.
Hormone Replacement Therapy, or HRT, is a contentious subject for many people. Niki however was enthusiastic about the benefits of HRT. Many women are nervous about HRT due to concerns about a link between HRT use and breast cancer. While there is evidence that there is a link between certain types of HRT and breast cancer, Niki pointed out that there is an equivalent risk when you drink 1 unit of alcohol a day or are physically inactive. Her view is that it is a low-risk treatment that significantly enhances women’s lives, providing relief from many peri-menopause symptoms. Of course, any woman considering HRT should speak with her doctor and weigh up the pros and cons of her individual situation.
Innovation to Support Menopause
When asked what food, beverage and health brands can do to support women going through menopause, Niki offered the following advice. She warned brands of the ‘menopause gold rush’, noting that brands need to ensure they have solid scientific evidence in place before they make any claims about their products supporting women’s health. She does not believe that there is a ‘silver bullet’ pill that can relieve all symptoms of menopause and was somewhat wary of brands making grand claims to this effect. She did, however, suggest that innovations in the following areas could be useful:
- Menopausal gut-health-focused products
- Protein and fibre-fortified products targeted to midlife women
- Products that could support women as they go through HRT
- Products that offer targeted support for the symptoms of menopause such as stress, sleep, and mood.
Niki encouraged brands to do the work and ensure their NPD was scientifically backed but said that there was certainly space on the shelves for more products supporting women through menopause.
Want to Know More?
If this short summary of Niki’s presentation to us has piqued your interest, make sure you check out her website and Instagram - linked below. She is a real fount of knowledge about all things menopause! And if you think your team could benefit from hearing Niki speak in person, please reach out to her as she is available to hire for speaking engagements.
If you are interested in formulating products for the women’s health space, make sure to get in touch with our team. We offer a wide variety of health and nutrition ingredients that would be suitable for a menopause-support product, and have a team of experienced food technologists available to work with you on your project. Our Health & Nutrition team would love to chat to you about how we can help.
