--- title: "Xand van Tulleken says bin your menopause supplements. Here is what the labels say" canonical_url: https://www.de-influenced.com/blog/menopause-supplements-label-check last_updated: 2026-09-09 author: Liz Whittaker --- # Xand van Tulleken says bin your menopause supplements. Here is what the labels say A TV doctor says menopause supplements are a waste of money. We read the labels of four UK best sellers: what is in them, at what dose, and what the evidence behind the claim actually looks like. Dr Xand van Tulleken has spent the week telling the country to bin its supplements. The Times ran the interview under exactly that headline. The Daily Mail serialised the menopause chapter of his new book, Make Me Well, under a headline about an industry preying on midlife women. He is not wrong about much of it. He is also a doctor with a book to sell, and "bin the lot" is a headline, not a shopping decision. Most women reading it will not bin anything. They will keep taking the thing in the cupboard and feel slightly worse about it. So here is the other half of the job. What did he actually find, and what do the labels of the menopause supplements British women are actually buying say when you read them the way he does? ## What he found The menopause chapter is based on a review of supplements marketed for menopause, carried out with a pharmacist he calls Poppy. The Daily Mail serialised the findings on 7 September: - Vitamin B6 was in almost 70 per cent of the products. The highest dose was 50mg, which he puts at 4,167 per cent of the UK recommended daily amount of 1.2mg. The lowest was 0.21mg, a 240-fold spread for the same vitamin. - Vitamin B12 doses ranged from 15 per cent to 20,000 per cent of the recommendation. - Red clover, a phytoestrogen, was the most common botanical, but present in only 39 per cent. - Black cohosh was in 8 per cent. He says it has been linked to cases of acute liver injury. - Two products exceeded the generally recommended upper daily limit for zinc. - He concludes that no evidence supports any of these ingredients for menopause other than vitamin D and calcium, and that even those are only recommended by some menopause societies. That is a label argument, not a chemistry argument. His point is that the same shelf holds doses that differ 240-fold under the same word on the front, and that the front of the pack tells you nothing about which one you are holding. That is the thing we check. ## Four UK menopause supplements, label by label These four have public claim checks on De-Influenced. We read every figure below from the label the brand publishes, not from marketing copy. Prices are what the brand charged when we checked, so treat them as a snapshot. ### Menopace Original (Vitabiotics) This is the mass-market one, at about 25p a day. - **Vitamin B6: 10mg.** That is roughly 830 per cent of the 1.2mg figure Van Tulleken uses, and it sits exactly on the NHS line. The NHS says taking 10mg or less a day is unlikely to cause harm, and not to take more than 10mg a day unless a doctor advises it. - **Zinc: 15mg.** Under the NHS's 25mg a day ceiling. - **Vitamin D3: 10µg (400 IU).** The one ingredient he concedes has any support. - **Soya isoflavones: 20mg.** - All 22 active ingredients carry a printed dose. Nothing is hidden in a blend. We read the headline claim, "menopause support", as mixed and limited. The human evidence is positive in places but not consistent enough to count the claim as established. [Full label check](https://www.de-influenced.com/products/menopace-original). ### Health & Her Menopause Multi-Nutrient Support This is the one you see on Instagram, at about 73p a day. - **Vitamin B6: 2.8mg.** Roughly 230 per cent of the recommendation, and well inside the NHS guidance. On B6 this is the most restrained of the four. - **Vitamin B12: 500µg.** The recommended intake for an adult is around 1.5µg. This is the kind of spread he was describing. - **Zinc: 10mg.** - **Red clover extract: 400mg**, alongside sage leaf extract 55mg and ashwagandha root extract 100mg. That is the most common botanical in his review, here at a disclosed dose. - All 20 actives disclosed. We read "designed to support nutrition during menopause in 9 ways" as mixed and limited overall, and only part of the formula carries the menopause pitch at all. [Full label check](https://www.de-influenced.com/products/healthandher-health-her-menopause-multi-nutrient-support-supplement). ### PuroLabs Menopause Complex This is the premium one, at about £1.17 a day. - **Vitamin B6: 14mg.** Around 1,170 per cent of the recommendation, and above the NHS's 10mg a day figure for unsupervised use. Not the 50mg he found at the top of the range, but the highest of these four. - **Zinc: 6.2mg.** - **Vitamin D3: 600 IU.** - **Sage extract: 67mg**, soya bean extract 40mg. - All 15 actives disclosed. We read "supports wellbeing during menopause" as mixed and limited. [Full label check](https://www.de-influenced.com/products/purolabs-menopause-complex). ### Wild Nutrition SRI-81 Shatavari Plus This is the single-botanical one, at about 57p a day. - **Shatavari extract (SRI-81): 300mg** and zinc 3mg. Two actives, both disclosed. - No B6 at all, no black cohosh, no red clover. The claim is "a clinically studied extract supporting hormonal balance and overall vitality for women at every stage". We cannot tell whether this product delivers hormonal balance as sold. A clinically studied extract is a statement about a study existing, not about the outcome you are buying it for. [Full label check](https://www.de-influenced.com/products/wild-nutrition-ltd-sri-81tm-shatavari-plus). ## What the four labels have in common None of them is the 50mg B6 product. None contains black cohosh. All four print every dose, which many products on the shelf do not. And not one of them has evidence that establishes the claim on the front. Three come back mixed and limited. One comes back with no direct evidence for the thing it is sold for. On that point, Van Tulleken and our label checks agree completely. Where the headline goes further than the evidence is the word "bin". A 25p-a-day multivitamin with 10mg of B6 and 400 IU of vitamin D is not the same purchase as a £35 complex with 14mg of B6 and a phytoestrogen, and neither is the same as a single botanical with no vitamins in it at all. Treating them as one thing is what the front of the pack does. It is the mistake he is warning against, applied in reverse. ## Where the botanicals were actually tested This is the part the headline flattens. "No evidence for menopause" is true if menopause means the 9 ways, 18 outcomes and 26 claims on a typical pack. It is less true if you narrow the question to the one symptom the herbs were actually trialled for, which is hot flushes. Our evidence corpus, which is what every claim check on this site reads from, puts it like this: - **Soy isoflavones** have the strongest hot-flush evidence of the common menopause herbs. A dose-matched product, around 50mg of isoflavones a day, reduces hot flushes modestly, roughly a fifth more than a dummy pill, and slowly. Pooled trials did not show a clear effect on night sweats, on overall menopause symptom scores, or on mood. They are weak plant oestrogens, not hormone therapy, and "natural HRT" is inaccurate. - **Red clover** at around 80mg of isoflavones a day may modestly cut hot flushes, and pooled analyses lean positive, especially for women having them often. The better independent trials found it no better than placebo, so it is dose-specific and the evidence splits along funding lines. The anxiety, mood, sleep and skin claims rest on one branded-product cohort nobody independent has repeated. - **Black cohosh** is one of the few menopause herbs with real trials. The newest pooled analysis suggests a modest improvement in hot flushes and overall symptoms, but several large independent trials found it no better than placebo, and the benefit is tied to specific extracts. It is not a phytoestrogen and does not change hormone levels. None of the four products above contains it. - **Sage** has been studied for hot flushes, and the useful question is whether the label's extract and dose match the studied preparation, not whether sage is good for menopause in general. Now hold those doses against the labels. Menopace prints 20mg of soya isoflavones, under half the studied amount. PuroLabs prints 40mg of soya bean extract without saying how much of that is isoflavones. Health & Her prints red clover as a 400mg plant equivalent, which is not an isoflavone figure at all, so it cannot be compared with the studied 80mg. Sage at 55mg and 67mg in two of them is a preparation question the labels do not answer. So the honest version of his claim is narrower and more useful. A few of these herbs have modest evidence for hot flushes at a stated isoflavone dose. The packs do not usually state that dose in comparable terms, and the other eight or seventeen outcomes on the front are not what the trials measured. On that narrow point our corpus is slightly kinder than he is. On everything else it agrees with him. ## How to read the one in your cupboard If you do nothing else, do this. It takes two minutes. 1. **Find the B6 line.** The UK recommendation is 1.2mg a day for women. The NHS says not to exceed 10mg a day without medical advice. Anything above that number on a supplement you take indefinitely is worth a conversation with a pharmacist. 2. **Find the zinc line.** The NHS ceiling is 25mg a day. 3. **Look for black cohosh.** If it is there, look for a dose. If there is no dose, that is the answer. 4. **Look for the word "blend".** A proprietary blend means the amounts are not stated. That is not automatically bad, but it means nobody, including the brand's own marketing team, can tell you whether the dose matches any study. 5. **Separate the claim from the ingredient.** A study on red clover extract at a stated dose in a stated group of women is not a study of the product in your hand. It is the beginning of a question, not the end of one. That is the whole method. He is right that the front of the pack is marketing. The back of the pack is data, and it is data most people never read. ## What we do not know Van Tulleken's review covered a sample of products we have not seen, so we cannot check his percentages. Our four are the four with public claim checks today, not a representative market sample. We read doses from labels at the time of checking, and brands reformulate. None of this is medical advice, and if you are managing menopause symptoms that affect your life, the person to talk to is a GP or a menopause specialist, not a label or a book. This is what De-Influenced does. You paste a product link and photograph the label, we read what it discloses, compare the doses with published evidence and tell you plainly where the claim stands. No affiliate links, no brand money. Check the menopause supplement you are about to buy. --- ## Frequently asked questions ### Is Xand van Tulleken right that menopause supplements do not work? His review found no supporting evidence for any common menopause supplement ingredient apart from vitamin D and calcium, and even those only carry recommendations from some menopause societies. Our label checks of four UK best sellers reach a similar place on the headline claims. Three come back with mixed and limited evidence, one with no direct evidence for the claim on the pack. ### How much vitamin B6 is safe in a supplement? The UK recommendation is about 1.2mg a day for women. The NHS says taking 10mg or less a day from supplements is unlikely to cause harm, and not to take more than 10mg a day unless a doctor advises it. Of the four products above, three are at or under 10mg and one is at 14mg. ### Does red clover help with hot flushes? Modestly, at around 80mg of isoflavones a day in some trials, with the better independent trials finding no advantage over placebo. It is not hormone therapy. Most labels state red clover as a plant weight or extract ratio rather than an isoflavone dose, so the figure on the pack often cannot be compared with the studied amount. ### Does Menopace contain black cohosh? No. Menopace Original lists 22 active ingredients with printed doses, including 10mg of vitamin B6, 15mg of zinc, 10µg of vitamin D3 and 20mg of soya isoflavones. There is no black cohosh on the label we checked. ### What is in Health & Her Menopause Multi-Nutrient Support? Twenty disclosed actives including 400mg red clover extract, 55mg sage leaf extract, 100mg ashwagandha root extract, 2.8mg vitamin B6, 500µg vitamin B12 and 10mg zinc, at about 73p a day when we checked. --- *Medical disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional before starting, stopping or changing any supplement regimen, particularly if you are managing menopause symptoms or taking other medication. Figures quoted from Dr Xand van Tulleken's work are as serialised in the Daily Mail on 7 September 2026 from Make Me Well (Cornerstone), and from his interview in The Times on 8 September 2026.* ## Sitemap - [Markdown sitemap](https://www.de-influenced.com/sitemap.md) - [XML sitemap](https://www.de-influenced.com/sitemap.xml) - [llms.txt](https://www.de-influenced.com/llms.txt)