Highlights
- •Enhancing the quality of dietary carbohydrate intake may alleviate menopausal symptoms.
- •Higher fiber intake, lower intake of liquid carbohydrates and a lower value of the dietary glycemic index are associated with lower rates of hot flashes and night sweats during menopause.
- •Urogenital symptoms do not seem to be associated with the quality of carbohydrate intake.
Abstract
Objective
The aim of this study was to determine the relationship between carbohydrate quality
intake and menopausal symptoms.
Study design
This is a cross-sectional study of 393 postmenopausal women attending municipality
health houses and health centers in the south of Tehran, Iran, from September 2016
to January 2017.
Main outcome measures
The dietary intake and menopausal symptoms of the participants were assessed with
a validated food frequency questionnaire and a menopause rating scale (MRS) carbohydrate
quality index (CQI) was calculated using three indices: dietary fiber, glycemic index,
and the ratio of solid carbohydrates to total carbohydrates. Linear and logistic regressions
were used to assess the relationship between CQI and menopausal symptoms.
Results
After adjustment for age, education, time passed since menopause, body mass index,
physical activity and energy intake, an inverse association was found between CQI
and total MRS score (TMRSS) (β -0.61; p <0.001), somatic score (SS) (β -0.27; p <0.001) and psychological score (PS) (β -0.37; p <0.001) in multivariable linear regression. In addition, logistic regression analysis
revealed that compared with the lowest quartile of CQI, participants in the highest
quartile of CQI had a lower TMRSS (odds ratio (OR) 0.36, 95% confidence interval (CI)
0.19-0.68). Moreover, CQI was inversely related to SS (OR 0.34; 95% CI 0.17-0.68)
and PS (OR 0.32; 95% CI 0.16-0.61). However, there was no significant association
between CQI and urogenital score (US).
Conclusions
Higher-quality carbohydrate intake was found to be associated with lower somatic and
psychological symptoms of menopause. These findings suggest that CQI may be an important
basis for developing an effective dietary modification for reducing menopausal symptoms.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: May 28, 2021
Accepted:
May 21,
2021
Received in revised form:
May 20,
2021
Received:
February 25,
2021
Identification
Copyright
© 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
