Diet guru Professor Tim Spector has today launched a new feature of his popular Zoe app that aims to help women improve the debilitating symptoms of menopause.
Announcing the tool on X, the scientist said it would give mid-life women ‘agency when discussing their health’, having ‘been broadly overlooked’.
The first-of-its kind symptom tracker called the MenoScale aims to help women eat to beat their hot flushes with dietary changes.
It includes a nutrition guide that breaks down the types of food which are beneficial for those experiencing severe symptoms — and those which are not.
Prof Spector told MailOnline the new specialist feature can help reduce menopausal symptoms my 44 per cent, and perimenopausal symptoms by 35 per cent, according to Zoe’s preliminary studies.
Diet guru Tim Spector (pictured) has today launched a new health app aimed at helping women improve the debilitating symptoms of menopause
The research tracked the symptoms of 4,000 women who followed the ZOE diet for 200 days.
The data reported a significant reduction in the most challenging and prevalent menopause symptoms, including a reduction in depression and anxiety.
The biggest impact was on mood swings, with a 44 per cent reduction among menopausal women, compared to the period prior to beginning the diet.
For perimenopausal women — those in the early stages of the menopause — there was a 35 per cent cut in mood swings.
The severity of fatigue and disrupted sleep symptoms that postmenopausal participants experienced fell by around 38 per cent.
Meanwhile, perimenopausal women saw the intensity of these symptoms fall by 32 per cent.
Postmenopausal women who followed the ZOE diet plan also claimed the number of nights sweats, hot flushes and chills they experienced reduced by more than a third.
‘Becoming a ZOE member and following ZOE’s dietary advice has now been shown to help reduce the ZOE MenoScale score [menopause symptoms] in both perimenopause and post menopause,’ Professor Spector told MailOnline.
‘I am especially excited to see the reduction in scores in the psychological symptoms group which have shown a 35 per cent reduction in perimenopause and 44.2 per cent reduction in post-menopausal scores.’
The new menopause features will be included as part of the existing £25-a-month ZOE diet subscription. It will help women to access medically-backed advice on how changes to the diet that can tackle both the perimenopause and menopause.
As with the main ZOE programme, users who sign up are sent a blood sugar monitor which is worn for up to two weeks to see how their bodies react to carbohydrates in their diet.
There’s also a DIY finger-prick blood test and stool-sample kit which users send to a lab for analysis. The results are used to measure their gut health and metabolism.
Based on these results, ZOE scientists then provide a personalised nutrition guide that might include cutting down on meat and eating more oily fish or consuming more pulses, vegetables and nuts.
For the new menopause feature, users answer 20 questions about their symptoms and menoscale calculator provides a numerical score out of 100. This is used to help understand the frequency and impact of your symptoms.
Postmenopausal women who followed the ZOE diet plan also claimed the number of nights sweats, hot flushes and chills they experienced reduced by more than a third
The NHS suggests eating a calcium rich diet, full of food such as milk, yoghurt and kale to keep bones healthy. This is because the menopause increases the risk of the brittle-bone disease osteoporosis
Speaking about the new feature Professor Spector wrote on X: ‘When women have spoken up about the challenges of mid-life, they have been broadly overlooked.
‘With this new tool developed by our female scientists, women can have agency again when discussing their health.’
For most women the menopause begins between the ages of 45 and 55. It causes periods to stop and the levels of the female sex hormones oestrogen and progesterone to fall.
Although some women only get a few, if any, symptoms, others do experience hot flushes, sleeping difficulties, mood swings and brain fog, which can last for months or years and might change over time.
To help combat this, about two million women are prescribed HRT, which contains identical hormones to those produced by their bodies, on the NHS.
Usually given via patches or as a gel, spray, or tablets, HRT has been shown to be safe and effective.
But the NHS also recommends regular exercise and a healthy diet to hep control symptoms.
The NHS suggests eating a calcium rich diet, full of food such as milk, yoghurt and kale to keep bones healthy. This is because the menopause increases the risk of the brittle-bone disease osteoporosis.
It also recommends including exercises such as walking, running and dancing and resistance training such as lifting weights, to help protect against weak bones.
