Participants
depression, CHC
PEANUT ALLERGY
We recruited participants from the community through poster advertisements at community centers, coffee shops, medical, mammographic and naturopathic clinics; through ads in national magazines and on women’s health webpages (Eligible women were aged 35–58 years, could read and write English, had experienced at least one menstruation in the previous year, were willing to document daily VMS and had problematic VMS by screening questionnaire. During a 1-m untreated baseline they were required to have an average of 4 moderate-to-severe VMS per 24-h day for at least two out of four weeks (given perimenopausal VMS cyclicityExclusion criteria included being postmenopausal, having had a hysterectomy and/or bilateral ovariectomy, peanut allergy (peanut oil, at that time but not currently, was an experimental drug excipient), planned pregnancy/fertility treatment, breastfeeding, or MHT or CHC use within six months. A few women (< 10) wearing a progestin-releasing IUD or treated with low dose (≤ 20 mg/d) transdermal progesterone were enrolled if meeting VMS enrolment criteria and they agreed to continue consistent IUD/transdermal progesterone use throughout the RCT.At the request of the DSMC, we screened women for depression by the Personal Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9)