The Menopause Gold Rush

A £25 billion market, constantly evolving research, and consumers waiting for answers… could we finally be on the verge of understanding how supplements affect menopause?

For decades, menopause was something women were expected to get on with quietly. Now, finally, it is having its cultural moment… and there is a £25 billion market waiting to meet it. The latest study from researchers at UCL and Oxford offers a glimpse at what happens when a long-overlooked area of women’s health becomes a booming consumer category. Researchers analysed 201 menopause supplements sold across nine major UK retailers and online outlets, and found an extraordinary amount of variation: 80% contained herbs, 77% contained vitamins, and 74% contained phytoestrogens such as red clover and soy derivatives, while prices ranged from £1.50 to £95 a month. There wasn't even one ingredient that appeared consistently across all of them.

That doesn't make every menopause supplement a sham, but it does make the deciding what we pick up off our high street shelves worth looking at a little more critically. Almost half of the products studied didn't contain vitamin D, while just 24% contained calcium. This is despite these being the only vitamins and minerals routinely recommended by major menopause societies specifically for maintaining bone health and helping prevent osteoporosis after menopause. Meanwhile, ingredients such as sage and red clover appear frequently despite the evidence for many menopause-specific supplements remaining limited. The researchers are calling for more clinical research to establish which ingredients actually work, in what doses, and for whom.

Enter the menopause gold rush. The supplement aisle reflects this shift, as menopause has gone from something barely discussed to a full-blown wellness category, complete with podcasts, books, private clinics, hormone specialists, nutritionists, influencers, and brands promising to solve everything from brain fog to poor sleep, oh and don’t even get them started on the hacks to stop hot flushes.

That attention is, in many ways, overdue. Around 13 million women in the UK are currently perimenopausal or menopausal, and most of those women experience symptoms that can affect everyday life. But has this information vacuum created a space for people to sell the answer?

There are, thankfully, voices in the space doing something more useful than creating a new miracle pill to add to your nightstand. Professor Joyce Harper, who led the new UCL research, has spent years translating reproductive health research for the public, while dietitian Sophie Medlin and nutritionist Shefalee Loth are among the experts pushing women towards evidence. Loth's recent Which? investigation into 21 menopause supplements found huge differences in the evidence behind their 78-plus active ingredients, while also questioning whether some expensive products offer anything that a much cheaper multivitamin couldn't.

The answer to the menopause supplement boom, then, probably isn't to tell women to stop buying things, but to make the market and ingredient list way less mysterious. Menopause deserves investment, research, and products designed around women's actual needs. But being told that something is ‘for menopause’ isn't the same as being told that it works, and that distinction is something worth noting.