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

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 becomes, 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 factors. 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) (Assist Forte Retard® 1 cp in the evening) for four months. The following psychological questionnaires were administrated at the beginning and after four months: Zung depression scale, (ZDS); 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 come out from the results. Results: After four months: women (D+N) achieved a statistically significant improvement in both tests (ZDS 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 ZDS did not show an improvement in mood. JCQ analysis showed: women (D+N) had a moderate 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 tiny 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.