Every week in my newsletters I try to come up with a topic that I hope will not only interest you, but help you continue your problem-solving conversations with your midlife clients.
Sometimes it’s because of a topic in my coaching group, causing me to remember the issues that I struggled with when transitioning through menopause as well and no Health Professional mentioned.
My goal in the MyMT™ Education community is to change that!
The conversation in my coaching group, that has sparked this article, was about supplements targeted at midlife women going through menopause. My client was asking about the supplements that she was taking. As they were from America, I googled the ingredients, because this enables me to better understand what the main compounds are and what they do.
When I googled the ingredients in this particular brand of supplements, they were all ingredients that are used in gut health repair – not one ingredient was to do with menopause … but then again, one could argue that they actually were.
Did you know that gut health changes occur as oestrogen and progesterone levels decline? Has this happened to you or your clients? And if your clients are experiencing insomnia, then did you realise that gut health (and liver health) suffers too – afterall, the digestive system works on a 24 hour circadian rhythm as well.
The state of your client’s gut health as well as the billions of microbes that make up the gut microbiome, is an important consideration in managing menopause symptoms and/or weight gain.
That’s why I like this research which has a spotlight on changing gut health in midlife women. (Peters et al, 2022).
The menopause transition is a time when numerous women develop Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) or constipation or feel bloated. If you have a client who has a distended stomach, then you will know what I mean by this.
With so much going on in the lives of women in their peri-menopause to post-menopause years, increased stress and workloads, also contribute to gut health concerns.
The result of all this, as well as the changes to the gut microbiome and the fact that peristalsis (gut motility) also changes, means that bloating and discomfort can be a daily distraction.
That’s why in this post I have my 4 Factors to Forget Bloating – I hope you can share these with your clients.
1. TEACH CLIENTS TO MOVE and STRETCH IN WAYS TO REDUCE BLOATING
If your clients are feeling bloated then add gentle stretches to their routine. The stretch in the image below, is known to gently massage the abdominal organs and gallbladder, thus releasing tension. Yoga Instructors call it Pavanamuktasana (pah-van-ah-mook-TAHS-uh-nuh) — or the Wind-Relieving Pose. These types of stretches also help the lymphatic system which changes as women age, with lymphatic vessels losing some of their elasticity. Helping your clients understand how to move trapped air and gas through the colon via gentle movement and stretching is important.
As women move through menopause, our changing oestrogen levels impact the tiny microvilli that line our digestive system, causing ‘gaps’ to increase between them. This is known as leaky gut syndrome. It can lead to IBS.
That’s why stretching is important.
With increased stretching, bile moves more efficiently from the gallbladder into the small intestine. This assists waste products to move along the intestines. Menopause hormonal changes impact a lower production of bile and storage, hence this can be part of the reason for feeling bloated as menopause arrives.

2. EDUCATE CLIENTS TO INCREASE VITAMIN C LEVELS
Gut health research suggests that our Vitamin C status has a greater influence that we think on the gut-liver axis and this in turn, influences metabolic syndrome (Traber et al, 2019). This condition that can lead to weight gain and cardiovascular problems as well as Type 2 diabetes.

3. RESTING THE GUT OVERNIGHT AND SLEEPING IMPROVES GUT REPAIR AND ABSORPTION OF NUTRIENTS
I encourage women as much as possible to allow their digestive system to rest for 12 hours overnight. This means that the timing of food and fluid is important. If we can avoid food for around 12 hours overnight (this changes obviously for shift-workers), then the digestive system gets the chance to actually digest and absorb the food that women eat during the day.
The gut microbiome is one of the largest organs in the body (along with the skin), and we need to factor it into menopause symptom management for clients, especially if their energy is low. Gut health researcher, Professor Thomas Borody from Australia, reports that the gut is responsible for producing 70% of our energy.
There is also a powerful connection between the gut and brain health (which is why our gut is now referred to as our ‘second brain’).
Numerous menopause symptoms are now linked to the health of the microbiome during menopause, including foggy brain, depression, anxiety, insomnia and mood swings.

4. YOUR CLIENT’S FOOD QUALITY AND VEGETABLE DIVERSITY MATTERS DURING MENOPAUSE
Professor Rosemary Stanton of Australia has been studying the health of the population in Australia for over four decades now. As she mentions,
“The way to heal the gut is to have diversity in vegetable intake and increase fibre. This is what the gut has been designed for. Decades of low fibre, processed foods have resulted in worsening health of the population and a plethora of diseases which are mainly related to our changing food environment.”

Knowledge of the gut-brain-microbiome connection has increased 10-fold over the past decade.
This has been due to improved brain research as well as genetic research into the gut microbiome. Both have opened the door to better understanding gut health and the link to disease, especially the effect of the accumulation of inflammatory changes as women get older.
With menopause heralding in the transition towards post-menopause and the ageing of organs, this is a critical time of life to sleep all night, restore health to the body and support improved gut health, including weight loss.
Functional disorders of the digestive tract, such as Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) is four times more common in women living in Western countries during and after menopause. In Japan, China, India and other parts of Asia, the ratio is the opposite. (Glezerman, 2016).
That’s why, all of this information and so much more, is in the MyMT™ Practitioner Course and the Menopause Weight Loss Coach Course. Both courses are certified with various organisations for CPD approval.
I hope you can join me sometime. It’s my privilege to share this vital information with you.

References:
Glezerman, M. (2016). Gender Medicine. Duckworth & Co Publ.
Nie, X., Xie, R. & Tuo, B. (2018). Effects of Estrogen on the Gastrointestinal Tract. Dig Dis Sci 63, 583–596
Peters BA, Santoro N, Kaplan RC, Qi Q. Spotlight on the Gut Microbiome in Menopause: Current Insights. Int J Womens Health. 2022 Aug 10;14:1059-1072.
Qin R, Tian G, Liu J, Cao L. The gut microbiota and endometriosis: From pathogenesis to diagnosis and treatment. Front Cell Infect Microbiol. 2022 Nov 24;12:1069557.
Sarmiento-Andrade Yoredy , Suárez Rosario , Quintero Beatriz , Garrochamba Kleber , Chapela Sebastián Pablo. (2022). Gut microbiota and obesity: New insights. Frontiers in Nutrition (9) https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/nutrition/articles/10.3389/fnut.2022.101821
Traber MG, Buettner GR, Bruno RS. (2019). The relationship between vitamin C status, the gut-liver axis, and metabolic syndrome. Redox Biol. 21:101091. doi: 10.1016/j.redox.2018.101091.
Veira, A., Castelo, P. et al, (2017). Influence of oral and gut microbiota in the health of menopausal women. Front. Microbiol. 8, 1884. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2017.01884
Wicaksono WA, Cernava T, Wassermann B, Abdelfattah A, Soto-Giron MJ, Toledo GV, Virtanen SM, Knip M, Hyöty H, Berg G. The edible plant microbiome: evidence for the occurrence of fruit and vegetable bacteria in the human gut. Gut Microbes. 2023 Dec;15(2):2258565. doi: 10.1080/19490976.2023.2258565.
