The impact of combined nutraceutical supplementation on Work-related stress, mood and eating disorders during the menopausal transition: a pilot study. Work-related stress, mood and eating disorders during the menopausal transition

Abstract

Objectives: Menopause represents a “window of vulnerability” in women’s life. This transition   comprehends many changes: physical, metabolical and psychological. It could, also, cause difficulties at work and the most problematic symptoms are poor concentration and  memory, tiredness,  feeling depressed and lowered confidence. Moreover food became, often, a practical, easy and fast solution to manage negative emotions.

The aims of this pilot study were:  to analyze the existence of a possible link between menopausal transition, mood, eating behavior and well-being perception on the workplace and to verify the possible influence of  nutraceutical supplementation on  the above mentioned disorders.

Method:

 40 women, with mean  age 52 years old and mean  BMI 33.27 were enrolled  and  divided into two groups: diet + behavioral advices  (D), or diet + behavioral advices  and a nutraceutical compound   (D+N) for four months.

The following psychological questionnaires  were administrated at the beginning and after four months:   

Zung  depression scale, (ZUNG);  Binge Eating Scale (BES): Job Content Questionnaire (JCQ)  used to measure the investigate job  related stress.  After the test, each woman had an individual psychological interview aimed to investigate her personal experiences, related to what arose  from the results.

Results:

After four months: women (D+N) achieved a statistically significant improvement in both tests (Zung p <0.0001 Bes p <0.0083). The women  (D) had no statistically significant changes in BES, even if there was better management of feeding behavior, and  Zung did not show  an improvement in mood.

JCQ analysis showed:   women (D+N)  had a slight increase of decision-making capacity (DL 64 to 66) compared with an unchanged workload (JD 33 to 33.5); social-support perception (SS ) showed a   slight improvement even if it remained below the median line of the reference sample. In the (D) group we observed a slight increase of the workload , accompanied by  a reduction of the decision-making capacity (DL 74 to 69) and by  a slight lowering of the perception of the social support (SS).

Conclusions: the combination of a diet  program, behavioural advice  and  nutraceuticals, compared  to the sole diet,  made it possible to relieve the emotional and eating disturbs related to the menopause and to improve the perception of a satisfactory work.