Night sweats
I am 48 and just starting to suffer from night sweats. I presume this marks the start of the menopause and would like to take something natural to make this passage easier. Can you help?
One of my all-time favourite quotes comes from Dr Jen Tan, a qualified doctor and medical director of the herbal company, Bioforce (UK) who once told me: “Using HRT to treat hot flushes is like using a steamroller to crush a cat.”
A better solution, according to Dr Tan, is to use sage - which may not be the best-known of the herbs commonly used to treat menopause - but is the only one that is specific for the treatment of hot flushes. It has a long empirical history in the treatment of TB and is enjoying something of a renaissance after Italian researchers showed how it could help dramatically reduce the number of hot flushes from 10 to just two a day. What this tells you, of course, is that nobody is claiming this is a cure - it is simply a way of managing and reducing the symptoms.
It may sound obvious, but lots of people overlook the fact that if you want the same results that have been reported in research trials, you need to take the same dosage of a herb or nutrient. In this case, the dosage was the equivalent of 120mg of sage each day. The story, though, was further complicated by the fact the women in this trial were also given 60mg of alfalfa which, like sage, has a mild oestrogenic action in the body.
Experts concluded that the alfalfa dosage was too low to bring about the dramatic results the volunteers reported - but it is possible the two herbs worked synergistically and so until someone proves otherwise, I would take 120mg of sage and 60mg of alfalfa together. That said, it can be difficult to find standardised extracts of herbs - so for this problem, I am going to recommend a combination remedy that also includes other adaptogenic herbs such as Agnus castus and Dong Quai that can help with all the symptoms of menopause.
Menotune is made by Herbs of Grace and each capsule includes 57mg of sage and 19mg of alfalfa. Mail order from the Nutricentre (0800-587 2290) where it costs £14.85 for 120 capsules, and take one capsule, three times a day.