Peptide Therapy for Menopause

Menopause brings many symptoms that can affect how you feel every day. Hot flashes, night sweats, mood swings, and trouble sleeping are among the challenges you might face during this transition.

Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) is typically the primary solution for managing these symptoms. It can work well, but it also has risks and side effects. An effective alternative to HRT is peptide therapy, which uses these short chains of amino acids to help balance hormones, improve sleep, lift your mood, support skin health, and more.^1,2

What Are Peptides?

Peptides help regulate hormones, immune response, and cell repair. In peptide therapy, scientists create synthetic peptides that mimic the natural ones made by your body to perform specific tasks, such as producing hormones, healing faster, and addressing menopausal symptoms.³

One key advantage of peptide therapy is its ability to target symptoms at their source. For instance, your body produces growth hormone for muscle growth, cell repair, metabolism, and more. Specific peptides can boost growth-hormone production, which naturally decreases as you age and during menopause.⁴ This can improve energy, sleep, and muscle and bone health. Other peptides can affect your neurotransmitters, helping reduce mood swings, anxiety, and depression that often come with menopause.

Peptide therapy and traditional hormone replacement therapy (HRT) both offer valuable options for managing menopausal symptoms. HRT has been effective for many women, providing relief from symptoms such as hot flashes, night sweats, and mood swings by using hormones to balance the body’s levels. However, peptide therapy presents an alternative that some may find more appealing due to its more natural approach. Peptides target specific functions or pathways, potentially reducing the risk of side effects and hormonal imbalances. Both therapies have their benefits, and peptide therapy offers an option for those seeking a targeted and potentially safer approach to symptom relief.

Peptide Therapy for Menopausal Symptoms

Various types of peptide therapy exist. One example you’ve likely heard of is semaglutide, marketed under the name Ozempic. This metabolic peptide therapy helps improve how your body processes glucose, makes you more sensitive to insulin, and regulates your appetite.⁶

For menopause, hormonal peptide therapy is most common and helps manage estrogen and other hormones, reducing hot flashes, night sweats, and mood swings and dramatically improving your quality of life during menopause.^{7, 8}

Peptides can be taken as oral supplements, applied to your skin as creams or patches, sprayed into the nose, or injected. Most peptides are unstable and can break down in supplements or creams, and don’t reach the bloodstream intact when taken orally as they are digested like food. Injections are most common because they allow peptides to enter the bloodstream directly, making them more effective.⁹

Some of the most common peptides used during menopause include:

Sermorelin: Helps your body produce more growth hormone, which boosts your energy, mood, and sleep. This is especially helpful for women who feel tired and have trouble sleeping during menopause.¹⁰
Thymosin Beta-4: Helps repair tissues and reduce inflammation, which can help manage joint pain and other inflammation-related issues during menopause.¹¹
BPC-157: Well-known for its healing abilities, especially in your gut and muscles. It supports digestive health and helps repair tissues.¹²
Ipamorelin: Boosts growth-hormone levels with fewer side effects than other growth-hormone therapies. This peptide improves skin elasticity, muscle tone, and energy, helping you look and feel more youthful and vibrant.¹³
Kisspeptin: Helps manage menopause symptoms like hot flashes and mood swings by influencing reproductive hormone levels. By regulating these hormones, kisspeptin provides relief from some of the most disruptive symptoms of menopause.¹⁴

Benefits of Peptide Therapy for Menopausal Symptoms

Peptide therapy offers a range of advantages for navigating the challenges of menopause. By utilizing your body’s natural processes, this innovative approach provides a holistic solution to improve overall well-being during this transitional period. Among those benefits include:

Hormone balance: Peptides can stimulate your body’s hormone production, providing a natural way to regulate hormones. This leads to a more balanced hormonal state without synthetic hormones, reducing potential side effects and promoting overall health.¹⁵
Menopause symptom reduction: Peptide therapy can target specific menopausal symptoms, providing relief from uncomfortable hot flashes and stabilizing mood swings. Additionally, peptides can help combat fatigue often associated with menopause.^{16, 17}
Better sleep and energy levels: Hormone balance through peptide therapy can lead to more restful and consistent sleep patterns. Better sleep makes you feel refreshed and revitalized, increasing your energy, and helping you stay active and healthy during menopause.^{18, 19}
Skin health: Peptides like ipamorelin can improve skin elasticity and muscle tone, giving you a more youthful appearance.²⁰
Brain function: Specific peptides can support brain health by influencing neurotransmitters, which help improve memory, focus, and overall cognitive function. This can counteract the mental decline that sometimes occurs with the hormonal changes during menopause.²¹
Bone and muscle health: Peptides that stimulate growth-hormone production can enhance muscle and bone health, reducing the risk of osteoporosis and muscle loss often linked to menopause.²² This helps you maintain strength and mobility, supporting an active and healthy lifestyle.
Digestive health: Peptides like BPC-157 offer significant gut-healing benefits like accelerating tissue repair, reducing inflammation, improving blood flow for faster recovery, protecting against ulcer formation, and strengthening the gut barrier to prevent leaky gut and improve nutrient absorption.²³
Insulin sensitivity: Peptide therapy can improve insulin sensitivity during menopause by helping the body use insulin more effectively. This can better regulate blood-sugar levels, reduce your risk of diabetes, and support overall metabolic health.²⁴

Peptide Therapy vs. Other Treatments for Menopause

Peptide therapy targets specific menopausal symptoms with fewer side effects and offers a more natural approach compared to other treatments. Since peptide therapy works with your body’s natural processes, it is generally well-tolerated and has a lower risk of adverse reactions.²⁵ However, it may be more expensive and less widely available, require ongoing medical supervision and regular treatments, and may vary in effectiveness for some women.

HRT, on the other hand, uses synthetic hormones to replace those that decline during menopause, helping with many symptoms. However, HRT can have risks like a higher chance of breast cancer, blood clots, and heart problems.²⁶ You’ll want to weigh these risks against the benefits with your functional-medicine doctor or other healthcare provider.

Taking a protein-first meal approach, resistance training, and managing your stress and sleep can go a long way to support overall health and reduce menopausal symptoms.^27-30This approach will help maintain muscle mass, balance blood-sugar levels, and improve mood and energy. While powerful, for some women these adjustments might not be enough to fully alleviate more severe menopausal symptoms. In that case, talk with your healthcare practitioner about combining these strategies with peptide therapy or HRT.

Non-hormonal medications, such as antidepressants or blood pressure medications, can help manage and provide relief for specific menopausal symptoms like mood swings or hot flashes.³¹ While they provide some relief, they often fail to address the full spectrum of symptoms—and many have side effects.

Considerations & Precautions of Peptide Therapy

If you’re considering peptide therapy, talk with your healthcare practitioner about the pros and cons, combining it with other treatments, and how lifestyle and diet changes can complement this therapy and help manage menopause symptoms. To make the best decision about managing menopausal symptoms, consider the following steps:

Consult with a healthcare provider: Discuss your symptoms, health history, and treatment options with your doctor. They can help you weigh the benefits and risks of each treatment.
Evaluate your symptoms: Identify which symptoms are most bothersome and which treatments are most effective for those issues.
Consider your health: Consider any underlying health conditions that might affect your treatment choice. For example, if you have a history of cardiovascular disease, your healthcare provider might recommend avoiding HRT.
Assess your lifestyle: Consider how treatments fit into your lifestyle and daily routine. Some treatments may require more commitment and consistency than others.
Stay informed: Keep up-to-date with the latest research and treatment options. The field of menopausal treatment is constantly evolving, and new therapies may become available.

A guided conversation with your functional-medicine doctor or healthcare practitioner can help you make the most informed decision about peptide therapy for managing menopausal symptoms. Some key questions to ask include:

Suitability: Is peptide therapy suitable for my specific symptoms?
Side effects: What potential side effects should I be aware of?
Duration: How long will I need to be on peptide therapy?
Medication interactions: Are there any interactions between peptide therapy and my current medications?

Move Through Menopause as Your Best Self

I moved through menopause looking and feeling better than ever – and I want to help you do the same. I created Inner Wellness, Outer Beauty: Your Anti-Aging Cheat Sheet to share my tried-and-true strategies. This guide offers my best tips, including the top foods, nutrients, and lifestyle factors that complement and enhance other therapies, including peptide therapy. These strategies can help you find your healthy weight, build strength and power, manage menopausal symptoms, and age gracefully.

Get your FREE copy of Inner Wellness, Outer Beauty: Your Anti-Aging Cheat Sheet here.

References:

Forbes J, Krishnamurthy K. Biochemistry, Peptide. [Updated 2023 Aug 28]. In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; 2024 Jan-. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK562260/
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Mayo Clinic Minute: Managing sleep during menopause
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These statements have not been evaluated by the Food & Drug Administration. Products mentioned are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. The views in this blog by JJ Virgin should never be used as a substitute for professional medical advice. Please work with a healthcare practitioner concerning any medical problem or concern.