Imagine a study conducted for twenty years on a sample of nearly fifty thousand women with different health conditions, in premenopausal and menopause.

And that a group of scientists and researchers from various US clinics are trying to figure out whether a low-fat diet or a low-carbohydrate diet is better for these women as the ideal menopause diet.

Imagine now that scientists discover that a low-fat diet has done much better in women over the years.

Breast cancer risk reduction, body weight reduction, cardiovascular risk reduction, blood sugar reduction and diabetes.
What would you think?

The first thing is that carbohydrates are not enemies of women .
As long as fats are kept very low, postmenopausal women are better off on a higher carbohydrate diet.
But does this mean pizza, biscuits and sweets? Not exactly.

Here’s what it says and how one of the largest studies on diet for menopause , the WHI Dietary Modification Trial  , was conducted .

WHI DIETARY MODIFICATION TRIAL
THE STUDY THAT REWARDS THE DIET FOR LOW FAT MENOPAUSE

The women involved in the study consumed 23 to 27 grams of fat per day.

This means that every day they had the following sample foods available as a percentage of fat.

• Two teaspoons of olive oil or 10 grams of butter + 5 grams of dark chocolate or 3 almonds + the naturally occurring fats in food.
• Or: two teaspoons of olive oil or 10 grams of butter a day + an egg or 20 grams of aged cheese + the fats naturally present in food.

The rest of the diet was composed as follows, based on about 1000 foods to choose from.

• Sources of carbohydrates: fruit, vegetables, breakfast cereals with no added sugar, oat flakes, rice, durum wheat pasta, wholemeal pasta, legumes, tubers, grains, fruit compotes, jams, dehydrated fruit without added fats, juices without added fruit or vegetable sugars, organic cereal flours, chestnut flour, legume flours, vegetable milk from cereal sources, wholemeal bread with no added fats (as seeds), durum wheat bread with no added fats (as with butter, with oil).
• Lean proteins: defatted chicken or turkey meat, defatted cooked ham, bresaola, egg whites, white fish of all types, crustaceans and molluscs of all types, egg whites, skimmed milk, soy milk, natural tofu, seitan, tempeh, skimmed yogurt, kefir, skimmed Greek yogurt, light ricotta, light cottage cheese, skimmed quark.
• Portions of fruit: 80 grams minimum. Minimum three portions per day.
• Quantity of vegetables: minimum 200 grams, maximum choice. Tubers: 100 grams.
• Portions of carbohydrates: 40 grams to 60-70 grams per meal. For juices: 200 ml.
• Protein, servings: 200 ml of liquid, 100-150 of skimmed dairy product, 80-100 of protein from boiled meat or legumes or tofu / seitan, 100-150 of fish and shellfish.

• Evaluation of nutrition labels.

  Free choice of foods provided with 1-2 grams of fat per 100 grams.
  Let’s look at an example menu on page two and diets that have a similar amount of fat and can be useful as a menopause diet.