Excessive bloating and gas plague women throughout the menopause transition

A study involving more than 1,800 women aged 40 to 60 found that excessive bloating and gas were the most prevalent gastrointestinal symptoms throughout the menopause transition, with 65.6% of participants scoring above the normal severity range. The results, released ahead of a presentation at the 2026 Annual Meeting of The Menopause Society, also showed that gastrointestinal symptom severity did not differ significantly among premenopause, perimenopause and postmenopause. Anxiety followed a different pattern: 17.5% of participants reported moderate-to-severe anxiety, with the highest prevalence in perimenopause and rates remaining elevated in postmenopause.

Researchers in the MOMENTUM Canadian menopause cohort examined gastrointestinal symptom burden and anxiety severity across the three stages of the menopause transition. The study population included more than 1,800 women between 40 and 60 years old. Based on the released results, excessive bloating and gas were the only gastrointestinal symptoms that exceeded the normal severity range during the transition.

No other gastrointestinal domain differed significantly by menopause stage. The release does not identify every symptom included in the broader assessment, although it notes that commonly discussed problems include constipation, diarrhea, pain and nausea. Because the reported analysis compares symptom severity by stage rather than reporting change within individuals over time, the findings do not establish that an individual woman’s symptoms will remain constant as she moves through menopause.

Anxiety scores differed across the stages studied. Moderate-to-severe anxiety affected 14.6% of participants in premenopause, 19.2% in perimenopause and 19.0% in postmenopause, compared with 17.5% overall. The prevalence therefore rose as participants progressed from premenopause to perimenopause and remained elevated in postmenopause, rather than falling back to the lower premenopausal level after the transition.

The study was designed to examine the relationship between gastrointestinal symptoms and anxiety as well as their distribution across menopause stages, but the released results do not provide a statistical estimate of that association. Consequently, the data support differences in anxiety prevalence among the three groups, not a conclusion that gastrointestinal distress and anxiety were statistically linked or that one caused the other. The mechanism behind the stage-related anxiety pattern also was not established in the results.

Lead author Sanjana Solomon of the University of Calgary said the study provides menopause-specific evidence about the connection between the gut and brain and that the newly established cohort can support further investigation. The researchers are now assessing gut microbiota profiles and their relationship to both gastrointestinal symptoms and anxiety. Year-two testing is underway, and future analyses will use the cohort data to examine changes over time in microbiota, gastrointestinal symptoms and anxiety.

Those planned analyses may clarify whether gut microbial characteristics, digestive symptoms and psychological distress change together within the same participants, but the current release provides no findings about microbiota profiles or their role in the observed symptoms. The released summary also does not describe all measurement instruments, statistical adjustments or possible confounding factors, limiting interpretation of the stage comparisons. Overall, the supported result is that excessive bloating and gas were widespread across all three menopause stages, while moderate-to-severe anxiety was more prevalent in perimenopause and postmenopause than in premenopause; further longitudinal work is needed to establish how these measures change and whether they are related over time.

Subject of Research: Menopause-stage patterns in gastrointestinal symptoms and anxiety among women aged 40 to 60

Article Title: Excessive bloating and gas plague women throughout the menopause transition

Article References: Excessive bloating and gas plague women throughout the menopause transition. Original publication (Bibliographic details unavailable.)

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Keywords: menopause transition, bloating, intestinal gas, gastrointestinal symptoms, anxiety, perimenopause, postmenopause, gut microbiota, MOMENTUM cohort, women's health, Excessive, plague