The symptoms of the menopause can vary from woman to woman. Some women sail though the menopause without any symptoms and the only thing they notice is that their periods have stopped. Some of the women we see in clinic report being completely drenched in sweat day and night and getting up to change their night clothes two or three times, or even taking a shower in the middle of the night.

Symptoms of the menopause can include hot flushes, night sweats, vaginal dryness, mood swings, declining libido, osteoporosis, ageing skin, lack of energy, joint pains, weight gain, headaches and changes in hair quality. Interestingly, men also experience a lot of these symptoms, with irritability, a declining libido, changes in weight, ageing skin and hair, depression and anxiety.

How Nutrition Can Help

Your diet at this time can significantly affect the severity of your symptoms. We have excellent success with patients in our clinic suffering from the menopause – we just wish that more people knew they didn’t have to put up with these symptoms.

Hot flushes and night sweats are among the most common and uncomfortable symptoms and their frequency and severity can vary from woman to woman. Certain foods and situations can trigger some hot flushes and these can include spicy foods, caffeinated drinks, alcohol and stressful situations.

Phytoestrogens can help alleviate menopausal symptoms so make sure you include plenty in your diet. Phytoestrogens are found in almost all fruit, vegetables and wholegrains but they are most beneficial when they are found in legumes, such as soya, lentil, peas and chickpeas.

Ideally all women would begin preparing for the menopause before it starts by adopting a healthy diet and lifestyle to help ease into the change. Supplements and herbs can be very beneficial in the short term until your hormones are balanced. 

Nutrients

So as well as eating a healthy diet, supplementation is beneficial during the menopause not only to ensure adequate nutrients for maintaining healthy bones but many can also help with the menopausal symptoms.

A good quality multivitamin and mineral, specifically designed for the menopause, should form the foundation of the supplement programme. This supplement should contain vital nutrients for bone health, good levels of antioxidants to help slow down the ageing process, and other important vitamins and minerals, such as the B vitamins and chromium, to help keep blood-sugar levels balanced. It should also contain calcium, magnesium, manganese, boron and vitamin D for good bone health.

The Glenville Nutrition Clinic

Dr Marilyn Glenville who founded The Glenville Nutrition Clinics has been in clinical practice for over 30 years and knows that you need to be able to trust the nutritional advice you have been given and know that any tests that are being recommended are important to help you through the menopause and beyond.

At The Glenville Nutrition Clinic we have the experience to support you with dietary advice, supplements and nutritional tests that can help you not only through the menopause but also improve your general health and wellbeing.

Our aim is to provide help, support and information that can make a real difference to your health.

When you come for a consultation, you will be in the hands of one of Dr Marilyn Glenville’s highly qualified nutritionists.

All of our nutritionists are hand-picked and trained to follow Dr Glenville’s high standards.

If you’re ready to improve your health and eliminate menopause symptoms, please do give us a call and we can set up a telephone or Skype consultation for you.

So make the call now, and take your first step towards achieving your goal.

There are many laboratory tests that are extremely helpful around the menopause.

These tests can give you invaluable insights into understanding what is going on in your body at the moment and can tell you what vitamin and mineral deficiencies you may have.

The interpretation of these results lets you know what supplements you need to take and what amounts of specific nutrients are needed in order to help you through the menopause but also for prevention of osteoporosis and supporting your general health.

In the clinic we use an exclusive Nutritional Test that checks whether you have any deficiencies or imbalances in 15 different vitamins, mineral and essential fatty acids from one blood sample:

Minerals – calcium, chromium, copper, magnesium, manganese, selenium and zinc
Vitamins – A, C, B12, D, E, folate and beta-carotene
Essential fatty acids – your ratio of omega 6 to 3 fats

We can also test how stressed you are by measuring cortisol with saliva samples which is convenient and accurate, and the sample is collected at home and then posted back to the lab.

We can also look at digestion with a stool sample to check for efficient absorption and digestion of nutrients, levels of beneficial bacteria, candida overgrowth, parasites, inflammation etc. and possible causes of digestive symptoms like bloating, flatulence, IBS etc.

In the clinic we also use a urine test to measure bone turnover, how fast or slow your bone is breaking down. While a bone density scan is the gold standard of diagnosing established osteoporosis, identifying your current rate of bone loss, how fast your bone is turning over, is the key to preventative treatment.

With a bone density scan you might have to wait up to two years for a repeat scan and you won’t know until that time whether changes you have made to your diet, exercise and supplements have actually worked.

With the bone turnover test you can repeat the test again in three months’ time to make sure that the level is going down and you know then that the changes you have made are working to reduce a high bone turnover.

You can also do this test if you are on medication for osteoporosis to see whether it is actually working as you should have a low bone turnover if the medication is effective for you.

All the tests we use in the clinic are carried out by accredited scientific laboratories in the UK and the USA.

Your nutritionist will interpret the findings of these tests for you and provide you with tailored recommendations based on your results.

Founded by Dr. Marilyn Glenville PhD, the UK’s leading nutritionist and authority on womens health issues. 

Author of 16 internationally best-selling books and former President of The Food and Health Forum at The Royal Society of Medicine.

For more than 30 years, The Glenville Nutrition Clinics have been supporting patients naturally and is the longest established nutrition clinic in the UK today with a particular expertise for women's health.

Once you’ve booked your consultation my reception will call you in the next few days to book your appointment on a date that’s convenient for you.

The prices above are for a consultation with one of Dr Glenville’s highly qualified nutritionists who have been practicing with me for many years and are all personally trained by me.