Menoslim is a tea brand made by a company called VoomVaya. The brand claims their tea can help menopausal women reduce fat and bloating. They also claim their product “flushes toxins out.”
In this article we’ll review the ingredients in Menoslim tea based on published medical research to determine if we find it likely to be effective at causing weight loss, or if we believe it’s a waste of money.
Does Menopause Cause Weight Gain?
There’s a common theme in most supplements and wellness products targeted to menopausal women that weight gain associated with menopause can be easily corrected with a few herbal ingredients, but that doesn’t seem to be backed by much medical research.
Medical research does show that weight gain is associated with menopause, but it’s unclear whether that’s due to more sedentary behavior compared with earlier in life, or whether it’s directly the cause of hormones. As we discussed in our review of Estroven, another weight loss product targeted to menopausal women, there doesn’t appear to be much clinical evidence suggesting that weight loss strategies in menopausal women should differ from weight loss strategies in the general population.
Eating a plant-based, whole foods diet, exercising regularly and eating a high quantity of fiber are lifestyle strategies that can aid weight loss efforts regardless of hormonal changes.
Menoslim Ingredient Review
Menoslim does publish a Supplement Facts label, which we commend them for because many tea brands we’ve reviewed have failed to do so. Companies making health claims should be expected to publish a Supplement Facts label detailing exactly what’s in their products.
All three of Menoslim’s teas have the same active ingredients, and only the flavoring differs, so we’ll be reviewing the Lemon & Lime flavor but our comments stand for all of their teas.
Ginkgo leaf is the first ingredient, and this is an herb we’ve reviewed hundreds of research studies on as we sell a single-herb ginkgo biloba supplement ourselves. This compound is typically used as a nootropic, which means it can enhance cognitive function short-term, much like caffeine. It’s not typically used for weight loss.
While we were able to locate a few animal studies suggesting a potential anti-obesity effect of ginkgo, such as this one, we can’t find a single human study finding ginkgo effective for weight loss, so we will consider this a likely ineffective ingredient.
Dandelion leaf is the second ingredient in this tea, and like ginkgo there appears to be some animal studies showing an anti-obesity effect of the herb. A medical review of plant compounds for obesity stated the following: “There is little information on the anti-obesity effect of dandelion; however, just recently and despite not being the main objective, Davaatseren et al… found that [dandelion] leaf extract (2 and 5 g/kg) on high-fat-diet-induced C57BL/6J mice reduced the body weight (12 and 7 %, respectively) compared with the obese control.”
Again, this is a relatively weak standard of evidence because it’s an animal study and it uses a more concentrated form (an extract) than the raw leaves used in a tea.
The third active ingredient in Menoslim tea is rooibos leaf, and we can’t identify any medical studies even suggesting this compound is effective for weight loss in humans.
Licorice root is an effective ingredient for weight loss. A clinical trial published in the Journal of Endocrinological Investigation found that 3.5 grams (g) of licorice root daily for two months caused a significant decrease in body fat mass. It’s notable that this botanical compound can increase blood pressure and should likely be avoided by patients with hypertension.
Black cohosh root is the next-listed active ingredient in Menoslim, and is a common inclusion in menopausal supplements and teas because it’s proven in medical studies to reduce symptoms of menopause such as hot flashes, insomnia and loss of libido. It may also be effective for weight loss based on animal studies.
Cardamom seed pods were shown in a clinical trial to prevent obesity in rats. However, the amount of cardamom consumed as a percentage of diet in this trial was likely far more than what humans would consume from a tea relative to their overall caloric intake.
The final active ingredient in Menoslim is green tea. As we discussed in our recent Exipure reviews article, which is another brand that uses green tea for weight loss effect, there is medical evidence that green tea can cause moderate weight loss in humans.
Menoslim also contains natural flavor as an inactive ingredient. We generally recommend avoiding food products and supplements containing natural flavoring agents, as this is a broad term that can include solvents and preservatives, according to medical data. Without knowing exactly which chemical compounds are used to create the flavoring, we cannot ascertain their safety.
Overall this is a decent formulation and better than most tea products we’ve reviewed. The majority of active ingredients at least have some medical backing for weight loss effect, though most of the studies we could find backing these ingredients for weight loss were on animals and not humans.
Missing Medical References
Menoslim makes many health claims on their website with citations, but the “References” section at the bottom of their site is missing many of the references at the time of writing this article.
As an example, Menoslim claims that ginkgo “helps increase blood flow to the ovaries so they can work more efficiently.” This health claim is associated with a citation numbered 32, which should correspond to a medical study numbered 32 in the References section of their site.
However there is no citation numbered 32 in the References section of their site, and in fact there are no citations beyond the number of 14. This means that any of the health claims on their site with a citation numbered 15 or greater are totally uncited.
We’re unsure if this is intentional or due to incompetence, but it’s a serious red flag in our opinion. It’s unacceptable to make health claims with missing citations.
Why We Don’t Recommend Tea Blends for Health Conditions
Tea is great for general health maintenance. There are many types of tea, each containing a unique phytochemical profile, and many teas have proven health benefits.
However, we typically don’t recommend tea blends for treating specific health conditions because it’s impossible to tell if any ingredient in the blend is effectively dosed.
Consider an ingredient which is effective at a daily dose of 1 g. If this ingredient is one of six ingredients in a tea blend, which has a total dose of 2 g, there’s no way to determine if that specific ingredient has a dose of 1 g or less.
Additionally, most medical research uses extracts of plant compounds, which is a more concentrated and standardized format than tea. The vast majority of the medical research on ginkgo biloba, for example, uses a standardized extract that contains 24% flavone glycosides and 6% terpene lactones. These are the active chemical constituents of ginkgo thought to provide most of the health effects. When taking ginkgo tea, there is no way to determine how concentrated these compounds are.
Better Alternative
We recommend increasing dietary fiber intake to induce weight loss. The average American consumes less than 20 grams of fiber daily, according to research, while our ancestors ate closer to 100 grams of fiber daily according to most estimates.
We’re not suggesting that consumers try upping their fiber intake to 100 g/day, but increasing it by around 15-25 g daily is likely to enhance weight loss efforts.
A medical review analyzed results from four individual trials on fiber supplementation and weight loss. In all trials the participants supplementing with fiber lost weight, at an average of around 0.66 pounds (lbs) per week.
This is a cost-effective weight loss strategy with no side effects other than potentially some minor digestive discomfort if fiber intake is increased too rapidly.
We tend to recommend whole food sources of fiber such as beans, whole grains and vegetables. However supplemental fiber should have the same effect. If you opt for a fiber supplement, choose one without any added sugars or flavoring agents. The only ingredient should be fiber.
No Public Team
We find it to be a red flag and a sign of a low-quality brand when there is no information about the team and scientists who created the product. Especially when a company is making health claims, consumers have a right to know if any medical experts were involved in the formulation of the product.
VoomVaya doesn’t appear to publish any information about the team behind Menoslim. Given that most of the ingredients do at least have some research backing, we believe it’s likely that there were some experts involved with the formulation, but it would help us trust this brand more if they were made public.
