A Menopause Study Found Excess Bloating in Two of Three Women, at Every Stage

Picture the end of a long day at 47: the waistband that fit at breakfast now digs in, and the top button comes undone on the sofa. It is the kind of thing most women never mention at an appointment, because it seems too ordinary to count. On Tuesday, as The Menopause Society opened its annual meeting in San Diego, researchers put a number on it. We read the study release, the society’s gut finding from last year’s meeting and the published research behind them, to answer one question: how common is bloating around menopause, and does it ease once the transition is over?

The short version: in more than 1,800 Canadian women aged 40 to 60, about two in three had more bloating and gas than the normal range, it was the most common gut complaint at every stage, and it did not fade after menopause. Below are the numbers, what may sit behind them, and what the study did not test.

The finding: Two in three women had above-normal bloating and gas, before, during and after menopause

The study comes from MOMENTUM, a Canadian menopause cohort, and is led by Sanjana Solomon of the University of Calgary. According to The Menopause Society’s release, the team measured gut symptoms and anxiety in more than 1,800 women aged 40 to 60, grouped as premenopausal, perimenopausal or postmenopausal. Bloating and gas came out as the most common gastrointestinal symptom in all three groups, with 65.6% of women scoring above the normal severity range. By our arithmetic, that is at least about 1,180 women.

The part that stands out is the shape of the curve, or the lack of one. The release says gut symptom severity stayed consistent across all menopause stages. Bloating did not spike in perimenopause and then settle; women after menopause scored about the same as women before it. No other gut symptom in the study averaged outside the normal range, which puts bloating and gas in a category of their own for this age group.

The work is being presented at the 2026 Annual Meeting, which runs October 20 to 24 in San Diego, under the title “Gastrointestinal symptoms are associated with anxiety across the menopause trajectory: findings from the MOMENTUM Canadian menopause cohort.” It is a conference presentation, not yet a full peer-reviewed paper, and the release does not name the questionnaire used to score symptoms.

The second number: Anxiety was highest in perimenopause, and the researchers tie it to the gut

The same women were also scored for anxiety. In the Menopause Society release, 17.5% overall reported moderate to severe anxiety: 14.6% in premenopause, 19.2% in perimenopause and 19.0% in postmenopause. That is a gap of 4.6 percentage points between the first two groups, by our arithmetic. The study title says gut symptoms were associated with anxiety across the transition; an association is not proof that one causes the other.

Dr Stephanie Faubion, the society’s medical director, framed it in the release as a two-way street: “Understanding GI symptoms and anxiety during menopause is important because fluctuating and declining hormone levels” can set off a loop in which gut distress and anxiety feed each other, in our summary of her remarks. The researchers recommend that clinicians ask about both gut symptoms and anxiety whatever a woman’s stage, and say their next step is to study the gut microbiota in the same cohort; year 2 testing is under way.

Not the first time: Last year’s meeting heard that 77% of women in a UK study reported bloating

This is the second year running that bloating has led the gut findings at the society’s meeting. In October 2025, a UK study led by the London dietitian Nigel Denby surveyed nearly 600 women aged 44 to 73, according to the society’s 2025 release. 94% reported digestive symptoms; bloating was the most common at 77%, then constipation at 54%, stomach pain at 50% and acid reflux at 49%. 82% said their symptoms started or worsened at perimenopause or menopause, yet only 33% had a formal diagnosis of irritable bowel syndrome, and 58% of those who sought professional help found it inadequate.

A published US study points the same way. In the Seattle Midlife Women’s Health Study, which followed 291 women through health diaries (Kamp and colleagues, Journal of Women’s Health, 2026), both the early and late stages of the menopause transition were linked to more severe bloating, while older age and higher testosterone were linked to less. Day-to-day tension was linked to more bloating, which fits the gut-brain thread in this year’s Canadian data.

The mechanism: Hormones talk to the gut, and the gut’s bacteria change after menopause

Why would bloating track the menopause years? Two lines of research help. First, oestrogen and progesterone act on the gut itself. A 2014 review in the World Journal of Gastroenterology found that ovarian hormones shift how fast the gut moves and how sensitive it is, change how gut pain is processed, and alter how strongly the body responds to stress. That review also notes that about twice as many women as men have IBS in western countries. Bloating is partly about gas and partly about how much the gut notices it, so a change in sensitivity matters as much as a change in gas.

Second, the gut’s bacteria appear to shift. In a 2022 mSystems study of stool from 2,300 people in the Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos (295 premenopausal women, 1,027 postmenopausal women and 978 men), postmenopausal women trended toward lower gut microbiome diversity, with a mix of bacteria more like men’s. The authors linked this to the low-oestrogen, low-progesterone state after menopause. That may help explain why, in this week’s data, bloating did not simply stop once periods did. Our reading: it is a plausible thread, not a proven cause, and the Calgary team’s own microbiota work is the test.

What it means: A common symptom that is worth naming, not putting down to age

None of this means bloating in midlife is nothing; it means it is common, and the society’s point is that it is under-asked about. Bloating has many causes, from what and how fast we eat to constipation, food intolerances and conditions that need a proper look, so a new, persistent or changing pattern is worth raising with a clinician, with anxiety or low mood mentioned in the same visit if it is there. Our bloating explainer covers the common causes. What the studies here do not test is any treatment: they count symptoms, they do not compare diets, hormone therapy or supplements.

The limits are worth stating plainly. The Canadian results are a first-year snapshot presented at a meeting, from one country, with the scoring tool unnamed in the release. The UK figures come from an online survey of women who chose to answer. The Seattle work is a few hundred women. Together they agree on the headline: bloating is the gut symptom of the menopause years, and it does not wait for one stage.

How we checked this: Sources and method

We read The Menopause Society’s October 20, 2026 release on the MOMENTUM study and its 2026 Annual Meeting page, and the society’s October 21, 2025 release on the UK survey, at source on October 20, 2026. We read three papers on PubMed and matched each PMID to its title: 42200334 (Kamp et al., Journal of Women’s Health, 2026), 35675542 (Peters et al., mSystems, 2022) and 24944465 (Meleine and Matricon, World Journal of Gastroenterology, 2014). The count of about 1,180 women and the 4.6-point anxiety gap are our arithmetic from the published percentages. The researchers’ words are quoted only from the society’s release. This article is educational, describes what the cited sources say, and is not medical advice.