A study by the Eurecat technology centre has shown that a bioactive compound multi-ingredient supplement containing phytosterols and the polyphenols hesperidin and curcumin has beneficial effects similar to hormone replacement treatments in tackling metabolic and cardiovascular alterations which can occur in the menopause, meaning that it could be an alternative therapy to improve women’s health in this biological stage.

The study results have been published in the scientific journal “Food and Function” and demonstrate that the effects of the multi-ingredient supplement treatment are very similar to a pharmacological treatment based on injections of the hormone oestradiol, which simulates a hormone replacement therapy followed by some post-menopausal women.

The research team suggests that multi-ingredient supplementation might be a potentially useful alternative therapy to hormone replacement to address obesity and metabolic disturbances which may occur in women associated with menopause, pending human studies to validate these results.

“Although prescribing hormone replacement therapy is still the most effective solution for dealing with the symptoms or metabolic alterations which may occur in post-menopausal women in response to the cessation of oestrogen production, in recent years there has been growing interest in finding alternative therapies to combat obesity, associated metabolic alterations and osteoporosis which can arise in menopause,” points out Dr Antoni Caimari, director of the Biotechnology Area at Eurecat.

In the menopausal stage, the gradual decline in oestrogen production may lead to various vasomotor symptoms such as hot flashes, sleep disorders and night sweats. Furthermore, this ageing process might be associated with osteoporosis, increased body weight and a change in body fat distribution with greater build-up of abdominal fat. The latter can lead to metabolic disorders such as hypercholesterolaemia, high blood pressure and insulin resistance, increasing the risk of cardiovascular disease which accounts for 47 percent of deaths in women worldwide.

“In this study we showed that this oral multi-ingredient supplement decreased body fat content and increased the amount of lean mass, suggesting that the combination of hesperidin, curcumin and phytosterols generates a change in body composition towards a healthier profile,” says Julio Baudín, a Eurecat Nutrition and Health Unit researcher and first author of the paper. “This treatment also improved insulin sensitivity and a risk marker for cardiometabolic disease.”

The study, which is part of the She Health project, was conducted using a preclinical model that simulates weight gain and body fat together with obesity-related metabolic alterations which may occur in post-menopausal women.

The paper in the scientific journal “Food and Function”, which has an impact factor of 6.1, also features as co-authors Dr Francesc Puiggròs, the scientific director of the Biotechnology Area at Eurecat, and Dr Julia Hernández-Baixauli and Dr Sergio Quesada-Vázquez, researchers in Eurecat’s Nutrition and Health Unit. The study was carried out as part of researcher Julio Baudín’s thesis, jointly supervised by Dr Antoni Caimari, director of Eurecat’s Biotechnology Area, and Dr Lluís Arola, from the Nutrigenomics Research Group at Rovira i Virgili University. Dr Francisca Mulero from the Molecular Imaging Unit at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO) also contributed to it.