Health food the first choice for alleviating female menopause symptoms: Japanese survey
The survey was conducted by Kirei Lab, a website which conducts studies on female well-being.
In a survey involving 475 participants, it was found that consuming health food was the top choice for alleviating menopause symptoms for women aged 41 to 45 and 56 to 60.
Specifically, consuming health food was the first choice for 23% of women aged 41 to 45 and 20% of women aged 56 to 60.
In contrast, bed rest was the first choice for most women (12%) aged 46 to 50.
On the other hand, most women (23%) aged 51 to 55 preferred outdoor activities or social activities, such as conversations with friends to counter menopause symptoms.
For women aged 46 to 50 and 51 to 55, consumption of health foods was seemed as the second best choice.
Compared to younger women, older women tend to see the aforementioned coping mechanisms as beneficial.
For instance, most women who reported an improvement in well-being came from the 56 to 60 age group (64%). This was followed by those aged 51 to 55 (57%), and those aged 46 to 50 (44%).
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Low knowledge of menopause symptoms
Knowledge of menopause symptoms was relatively low in women across all age groups, the survey results showed.
In another related survey involving 1,210 women aged 36 and above, the women were supposed to rate their knowledge of menopause symptoms in the following: 1) I do not know; 2) I have some knowledge; 3) I know most of it and 4) I understand it very well.
Although the number of women who claimed to have a good understanding of menopause (option 3) increased with age, most of the women admitted to only having some knowledge (option 2) of menopause symptoms.
61% of women between the age of 36 to 40 and 46 to 50 fell into the category of having only some knowledge of menopause symptoms.
The number of women who fell into this category was slightly lower in the following age groups: 41 to 45 years old (57%), 51 to 55 years old (59%) and 56 to 60 years old (48%).
For each age group, less than 10% of women have a very good understanding of menopause symptoms.
Sources of information
Friends and magazines were some of the main sources for gaining knowledge on ways to cope with menopause.
For most women over the age of 41 years old, their knowledge on how to cope with menopause came from friends.
This was especially so for women aged 51 to 60 – more than 30% of them gained knowledge from their friends.
Magazine was the next most popular information source for women of this age group. More than 10% of women aged 51 to 55 and 20% of women aged 56 to 60 referred to magazine for information.
