Perimenopause, menopause and beyond – A nutritional therapist’s approach with Paula Jones

Explore 'Perimenopause, menopause and beyond' with nutritional therapist Paula Jones. Discover how DUTCH testing and personalised diet and lifestyle support can help with your transition.

Finally, we are talking, listening and sharing personal experiences to help one another understand and navigate our way through what, for many, can be an unsettling and challenging stage of life. Through discussion highlighting a plethora of symptoms, women are recognising, relating, and reaching out for help. Talk around successful dietary changes, key supplementation, medications, and lifestyle interventions is encouraging women to explore what they need to get back in the driving seat of their well-being. Women feel empowered by choice, and this can only be fabulous for welcoming back the va va voom!

What is the menopause?

Essentially, menopause is the permanent loss of ovarian oestrogen and progesterone; both hormones have profound effects throughout a women’s body. It may surprise you to know that there are receptors for these hormones in nearly every organ; their delicate balance is responsible for multiple tasks. It’s no wonder that when these hormones decline, the impact for many is profound, affecting biochemistry, multiple tissues, and organs.

Much focus is placed on declining oestrogen and progesterone, but the reality is testosterone frequently declines alongside them. Does this matter? Yes, absolutely. Testosterone is vital for bone health, mood, muscle mass, immune regulation, libido, memory, and much more. For many women, HRT involves replacing both oestrogen and progesterone with testosterone, overlooked alongside its precursor DHEA (affected by chronic stress). Both DHEA and testosterone can be supported using nutritional intervention once there is an understanding of hormone levels and metabolism (breakdown).

What is perimenopause?

To be clear, signs and symptoms of perimenopause do overlap with menopause. The difference? Perimenopause involves changes in menstrual flow, regulation, and duration. Menopause is when a woman’s menstrual cycle has stopped consistently for 12 months.

Menopause symptoms may include:

• Hot flushes

• Reduced memory and/or brain fog

• Dysregulated mood

• Sleep disruption 

• Increased anxiety

• Heart palpitations

• Increased histamine reactivity (the onset of menopause can trigger histamine intolerance and related symptoms and conditions)

• Muscle and joint pain

• Loss of bone mass

• Dry skin and/or itchy skin

• Vaginal itchiness/dryness 

• Recurring urinary tract infections (UTIs)

• Stress incontinence 

Are any of these symptoms familiar? 

Perimenopause, menopause and beyond: The good news

Nutritional therapists (such as myself) can help you navigate your personal hormone transition using tailored dietary advice, therapeutic supplementation, and lifestyle considerations facilitated by not just blood testing, but the revolutionary Dried Urine Test for Comprehensive Hormones, known as the DUTCH test.

Meet the revolutionary DUTCH test

Traditionally, sex hormone levels during perimenopause/menopause are assessed via blood testing, incredibly important, but this only provides us with part of the hormone picture: circulating hormone levels. What we really want to understand is not just circulatory hormone levels but what the body is doing with them. This is where the DUTCH test comes in. Sample collection is dried urine (4-5 paper strip collections); sometimes, I may request saliva sampling for stress hormone assessment. The test provides invaluable detail regarding personal hormone pathways (not all are favourable!); we see whether oestrogen clearance and deactivation is optimal, if testosterone is low because there is increased conversion to oestrogen (aromatisation) or if testosterone breakdown is favouring a more potent androgen pathway, is the breakdown of progesterone potentially influencing anxiety, the list goes on!

More amazing news…HRT can be monitored using the DUTCH. The test will tell us your unique physiological response to this method of intervention. Is it working for you in the best way possible?

Stressed? The DUTCH provides us with key information not just about sex hormones but stress hormones and adrenal gland demand. My clinical experience has shown that chronically stressed women are more likely to experience challenging perimenopause and menopause.

The DUTCH test allows for the identification of nutritional and nutrient needs, not only deficiencies but herbs and nutrients which can favourably influence hormone pathways. I create tailored recommendations for each unique woman I work with. 

---

Work with me

I’ve over 16 years’ extensive experience as a Registered Nutritional Therapist in private practice, student education and practitioner support. Through the holistic lens of Functional Medicine, I view the human body as a complex, integrated system, acknowledging that environment, diet, lifestyle, emotional well-being, genetics, and biochemical uniqueness all play a role in wellness and vitality. 

The beauty of this approach means dietary modification, therapeutic supplementation, and lifestyle changes can bring health results in isolation or alongside traditional medicine, including HRT. 

I offer 60-minute consultations; complex cases may require an initial 90-minute consultation. 

An initial consultation allows for information gathering, facilitating targeted decision-making. This includes dietary changes, supplementation, and test selection. There are a variety of DUTCH test options, blood panels, UTI/interstitial cystitis testing, food panels, and stool tests which may be important to consider. My role, through careful questioning and information gathering, is to narrow down which test/s panels will provide us with the most pertinent information with which to begin reinstating wellness, vitality, and va va voom! 

I’m sure you have questions. Click here to find out how you can schedule your free 15-minute consultation and ask questions before we begin.

This post was originally published on paulajonesnutrition.com and republished with permission.