Why nobody can legally tell you a supplement eases hot flushes

Spend an evening looking at menopause supplements and you will read a lot of sentences that sound like they mean something. Supports hormonal balance. Helps you through the change. Formulated for the menopause journey.

Here is what is actually going on behind them.

There is a register, and it is quite short

In Great Britain, a food supplement may only carry a health claim that appears on the GB Nutrition and Health Claims Register, maintained by the Department of Health and Social Care. Every claim on it is tied to a specific nutrient, and the product has to contain enough of that nutrient to count as a meaningful source before the claim may be used at all.

It is not a long list, and it is not written in marketing language. It says things like vitamin B6 contributes to the regulation of hormonal activity, or magnesium contributes to a reduction of tiredness and fatigue. Careful, narrow, and much less exciting than the front of the box.

(Northern Ireland follows the EU register instead, under the Windsor Framework. Everything below describes Great Britain.)

What is not on it

There is no authorised claim about hot flushes. None about night sweats. None about menopausal symptoms of any kind, for any food supplement.

Keep the word authorised in that sentence, because the full picture has a wrinkle in it that most shops never explain.

The wrinkle: claims that are neither approved nor banned

When the rules came in, thousands of claims about plant extracts were submitted and never assessed. They sit in a category officially described as “on hold” — and, awkwardly, on-hold claims may still be used in Great Britain while they wait, under transitional arrangements.

So a business selling black cohosh, red clover or sage can point to an on-hold entry and use wording along those lines. That is not the same as approval. Nobody has ever assessed whether the evidence stacks up, the business has to be able to justify the claim itself, and the government's own list carries a warning that some of these wordings “may be construed as medicinal claims and must not be made on foods”.

One important exception: soy isoflavones is not on hold. It was assessed and rejected. The menopause claim for soy isoflavones sits on the register marked non-authorised, which means there is no transitional route and no lawful way to use it. It is worth knowing that the four botanicals people lump together are not in the same legal position at all.

Where relief claims can lawfully come from

Two routes, and both involve a regulator first.

A registered traditional herbal medicine. The MHRA runs a scheme for herbal products with a long history of use, and registered products may state what they relieve — but only with a mandatory qualifier saying the claim rests “exclusively upon long-standing use as a traditional remedy” rather than on clinical trials. Real examples exist: several black cohosh tablets are registered for relief of menopausal symptoms including hot flushes and night sweats, and sage products are registered for excessive sweating associated with the menopause.

The catch is that the registration belongs to a specific product at a specific dose and extract. A food supplement containing the same herb may not borrow that wording. Same plant, two completely different legal positions, depending entirely on whether somebody went through the process.

Notably, no red clover or soy product holds one of these registrations in the UK — so for those two there is no lawful route to a menopause claim at all.

A licensed medicine or a registered medical device. Different category, different rulebook, and a device may make claims within its approved purpose that a supplement never could. When you see one, it will say so.

The line underneath all of this

If a product is presented as preventing or treating disease, it becomes a medicinal product in the eyes of the law — an unlicensed one. It does not matter whether it works. Presentation alone is enough.

That is why “a natural alternative to HRT” is a sentence no supplement can lawfully use, however it is hedged, and why the Advertising Standards Authority treats claims to relieve menopausal symptoms as disease claims.

This is not theoretical. In March 2026 the ASA published a coordinated batch of rulings against menopause supplement advertisers, found using automated ad monitoring, and it has ruled against well-known brands before that. The regulator is actively looking.

What is allowed to mention menopause

Exactly one thing, and almost nobody uses it.

There are authorised claims stating that calcium and vitamin D help to reduce the loss of bone mineral in post-menopausal women, and that low bone mineral density is a risk factor for osteoporotic fractures. They come with real conditions — a supplement has to provide at least 400mg of calcium and 15µg of vitamin D per daily portion, and the consumer has to be told the claim is meant for women aged 50 and over.

It is the only place on the entire register where menopause is named. It is about bones, not hot flushes. And it is genuinely useful, which is more than can be said for most of what gets shouted about.

What this means when you are shopping

One habit is enough. When a product tells you what it will do to your symptoms, ask what it is.

A licensed medicine or a registered device will say so, because that status is hard-won. A registered traditional herbal remedy will carry the “long-standing use” qualifier — and if a seller has quietly dropped that qualifier, that tells you something too. And a plain food supplement promising you relief is a seller who has decided the rules are for other people.

What we do instead

On every product here we set out the formulation: what is in it, at what dose, and which of those ingredients carry a claim that is actually authorised. Where nothing is authorised, we say so, rather than reaching for a vaguer sentence that means the same thing.

It makes for less thrilling product pages. It also means that when we do tell you something, it is worth something.

This is general information about how products are regulated, not medical advice. Food supplements are not a substitute for a varied, balanced diet and a healthy lifestyle. For anything about your own health, speak to your GP or pharmacist.