If your periods have become heavier in your 40s, your plate is one of the best places to start. The right foods can support your body in clearing oestrogen and rebuilding iron at the same time. In perimenopause, ovulation becomes less regular, so progesterone often drops while oestrogen swings high. That relative oestrogen excess can thicken the uterine lining, which may mean heavier, longer or more clotty periods. Every heavy bleed also draws on your iron stores,

Phytoestrogens are plant compounds that can offer gentle, food-based support as your own oestrogen starts to fluctuate and decline. Oestrogen doesn't just switch off at menopause. Through perimenopause, often from your early-to-mid 40s, levels can swing high and low from month to month before settling lower after your final period.

What's Declining and What Actually Helps: Perimenopause is often talked about as one big hormonal event, but it isn't. It's several hormones moving at different speeds, for different reasons, over what is often called the "second puberty": a two-to-ten-year (sometimes longer) transition, not a single switch that flips.