Effects of Sugar Intake on Menopause Symptoms
The menopause transition brings with it many physical and emotional symptoms for some women. There are many factors at play that seemingly happen all at once, some we can control, and some are a little more challenging. Sugar intake has been associated with hot flushes and night sweats (collectively known as vasomotor symptoms), both in the research and what menopausal women report. Read on to learn more about added sugar in foods the effect they have on menopause symptoms, and how you can manage your hot flushes and night sweats better by reducing added sugar intake.
The Link between Sugar, Hormones and Symptoms
Hot flushes and night sweats are experienced by about eighty percent of menopausal women and can negatively affect relationships, sleep and work, especially if they are persistent over a long period of time. There is a connection between blood sugar (glucose), the hormones insulin and oestrogen and the incidence of hot flushes and night sweats.
When carbohydrates are eaten, blood sugar levels increase as the carbohydrates are broken down into sugar molecules (glucose) via digestion and absorption. The pancreas is then called to release insulin. Insulin is a hormone that takes sugar out of the blood and delivers it to the cells for energy or storage.
When foods high in added sugar are eaten, this increases the blood sugar level rapidly, resulting in a lot of insulin being released to bring the blood sugar level down. Eating a lot of foods that are high in added sugars means that our blood sugar is high often and the pancreas is pumping out insulin at a high rate. When this happens over a long period of time, eventually the cells no longer respond to the insulin when it delivers the sugar. The pancreas will also be unable to keep up with the demands of producing so much insulin, so the sugar remains in the blood and the blood sugar levels remain high.
Oestrogen makes the cells more sensitive to insulin, meaning that insulin can do its job in delivering sugar to the cells. In the menopause years when oestrogen decreases, the cells are not as sensitive to insulin anymore, which can cause higher blood sugar levels and subsequently more hot flushes and night sweats. This can lead to what is called insulin resistance, or pre-diabetes. So, in menopause, reduced dietary intake of added sugars is important to keep the pancreas working optimally in releasing insulin and delivering sugar to the cells.
The exact mechanism between vasomotor symptoms and high blood sugar levels is not fully known, but a proposed model suggests that hot flushes are a result of changes to glucose delivery to the brain due to decreased oestrogen. Glucose is the preferred energy source of the brain and nervous system. It proposes that a decline in oestrogen results in the brain being unable to maintain its glucose levels, resulting in hot flushes and night sweats due to increased blood flow in an attempt to deliver glucose to the brain.
Managing Sugar Intake to Reduce Vasomotor Symptoms
In order to reduce the risk of insulin resistance (pre-diabetes) and reduce vasomotor symptoms, managing added sugar intake and understanding where added sugar is found in different foods is key. I want to highlight here that this is not about cutting out carbohydrates but is about reducing simple carbohydrates in order to balance blood sugar levels in the menopause years. Added sugars are exactly what it means, not the naturally occurring sugars found in whole, natural foods.
So how do we know where added sugars are in what we eat?
In packaged foods, the information you need can be found on the nutrition information panel and the ingredients list. In Australia, the recommendation for added sugars per day is no more than 6 teaspoons, which is 24g. When looking at the ingredients list on a packaged food, those items first on the list are in the highest concentrations, so if sugar is at the beginning (first 3 ingredients) the product is very high in sugar.
The tricky thing is that sugar comes in a variety of different forms and names, and knowing what they are will help you identify the sugars in these foods.
The names of sugars that can be found on packaged foods include:
Sucrose, fructose, agave syrup, cane sugar, brown sugar, molasses, caramel, coconut sugar, confectioner’s sugar (powdered sugar), fruit juice concentrate, golden syrup, honey, maple syrup, icing sugar, invert syrup, raw sugar, treacle, barley malt, brown rice syrup, dextrin, dextrose, glucose, lactose, malt syrup, maltodextrin, maltose and rice syrup.
When looking at the nutrition information panel on the packaged food (usually above or below the ingredients list) you will find “sugars”. It will have a value per serve (determined by the manufacturer) and per 100g. When comparing products that are similar, you always want to be looking at the “per 100g” column. The recommendation is to choose a product that has less than 15g of sugar per 100g.
Understanding how to identify foods that are high in added sugars and in turn, decrease how often you eat them will help with symptom relief and the prevention of type 2 diabetes and other metabolic diseases in the menopause years.
References:
1 Dormire S, Chularet H, The Effect of Dietary Intake on Hot Flashes in Menopausal Women, J Obstet Gynecol Neonatal Nurs, 2007; 36(3):255-262
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2765999/
2 Gennev, Sugar and Menopause
https://www.gennev.com/education/sugar-and-menopaus
3 HCF, Understanding Food Labels and Nutritional Information
https://www.hcf.com.au/health-agenda/food-diet/nutrition/food-labelling
4 Healthline, The 56 Most Common Names for Sugar
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/56-different-names-for-sugar
5 Herber-Gast G, Mishra GD, Fruit, Mediterranean-Style, and high fat- and sugar- diets are associated with the risk of night sweats and hot flushes in midlife: results form a prospective cohort study, Am J Clin Nutr, 2013;97:1092-9
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0002916523055181?via%3Dihub
6 Menopause Better, Sugar and Hot Flashes: Is there a link
https://menopausebetter.com/sugar-and-hot-flashes/
7 Noll P et al, Life habits of postmenopausal women: Association of menopause symptom intensity and food consumption by degree of food processing, Maturitas, 2022 Feb; 156: 1-11 (Abstract only)
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35033227/
8 World Health Organization, Healthy Diet Fact Sheet
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/healthy-diet
