Could the Gut Help Explain Some of the Changes We Experience During Menopause?

Brain fog. Anxiety. Changes in mood. Bloating. New food sensitivities. Constipation. Changes in blood sugar and cholesterol.

For many women, the transition through perimenopause can feel as though several different systems in the body suddenly begin changing at once.

And this is something I see very frequently in clinical practice.

Women in their forties and fifties will often say to me:

"I never used to react to foods like this."

"I've suddenly become bloated all the time."

"My digestion just isn't what it used to be."

And often these symptoms don't occur alone.

The same woman may also be experiencing brain fog, poorer concentration, anxiety, changes in mood, fatigue, disrupted sleep, changes in blood sugar or increasing cholesterol.

We tend to put these symptoms into separate boxes. The bloating is a gut problem. The brain fog is a menopause problem. The anxiety is a mood problem. The cholesterol is a cardiovascular problem.

But the body doesn't work like that.

The ovaries aren't separate from the brain. The brain isn't separate from the gut. The gut isn't separate from the immune system. And the immune system isn't separate from our metabolic or cardiovascular health.

They are constantly communicating.

So when our hormones begin to change during perimenopause, the effects can ripple through multiple interconnected systems.

And this is why a fascinating new study published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation caught my attention.

It may shine a light on one of the biological changes that could be occurring behind the scenes during menopause: changes to the integrity of the gut barrier.

Researchers found that markers associated with damage to the intestinal lining and exposure of the immune system to microbial products begin to rise specifically during the menopausal transition.

This doesn't mean that changes in the gut are responsible for all the symptoms of menopause. Far from it.

But it does raise a fascinating question:

Could changes in the gut during menopause be influencing some of the other changes we experience — from inflammation and metabolic health to mood and brain fog?

And, if they are, perhaps perimenopause is a time when we should be paying more attention to looking after our gut, not less.

What did the researchers find?

The researchers analysed data from 964 women participating in the long-running Study of Women's Health Across the Nation (SWAN).

This is important because they weren't simply comparing younger women with older women.

They had 3,586 measurements taken over time, allowing them to follow women as they moved through the menopausal transition.

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