In the United States, more than one million women will enter menopause each year, according to the National Institute on Aging, and 77% of US women and transgender men, ages 55+, are post-menopause, as confirmed by Mintel’s 2025 Women’s Wellness report. The hormonal shifts of perimenopause and menopause can be accompanied by symptoms ranging from uncomfortable to disruptive to daily living, and this demographic is increasingly seeking out wellness products to help.
Mintel’s report also noted that 33% of US women aged 65+ say scientifically proven effectiveness is important when considering these products, and at this year’s SupplySide Global 2025, Waleria Healthtech Private Limited (Waleria), showcased its latest research to support the growing demands of this wellness consumer demographic.
NutraIngredients spoke to Komal Baldwa, founder of Waleria, for insights into the study and her thoughts on the results. Baldwa has nearly a decade of experience in women’s health advocacy with a focus on issues like menopause and sexual wellness for Asian women.
Why measuring symptom intensity matters
Building on previous clinical trials investigating the efficacy of Waleria’s proprietary Shatavari (Asparagus racemosus) root extract, the main ingredient of the brand’s aspurūs product, Waleria conducted a pair of clinical studies exploring the product’s impact on premenopausal symptom relief as well as female libido and sexual wellness.
In the first study, Baldwa explained, which followed 150 perimenopausal women for three months, “we have amazing results,” including “results with the reduction of the hot flashes and the improvement of the symptoms in four weeks,” she told NutraIngredients.
Of note in this study, she added, is that “most of the clinical study on perimenopause focuses only onto the four domains” of perimenopause, with a main focus on the frequency of symptoms, “whereas, we focused onto the 12 domains of the perimenopause, focused onto the intensity as well as the frequency.”
According to Baldwa, this was a first in a Shatavari clinical trial and represents a crucial effort towards better understanding the unique needs of the consumer. “What does a consumer want?” she asked, adding that while “it seems such a basic question to ask…how many of us, as an ingredient manufacturer, the brands go and ask the consumer?”
Explaining that while “I can’t imagine many do, we did that to understand what they want, and that’s how we have designed our two new clinical studies.”
Shatavari’s role in sexual wellness
Waleria’s second clinical study shifted its focus from perimenopausal women to those of reproductive age. The trial ran for two months and examined aspurūs’s impact on reduced libido in low doses. Described as a “focus study,” Baldwa explained that a “woman who is having a low libido at the age of 21, will have different concerns from a woman who is having a low liberty at the age of 43.”
She added, “we understood that, and that’s how we designed the study, focused only on to the reproductive age libido woman.” The results of the study were encouraging: participants who took low-dose aspurūs reported increased instances of sexual activity accompanied by improvements in overall satisfaction, including better quality arousal, lubrication and orgasm.
As reported by Waleria, this research “is among the first large-scale, placebo-controlled studies to show Shatavari’s role in supporting sexual wellness,” and offers “new opportunities for formulators in women’s health supplements.”
Building on the momentum of these findings, Baldwa encouraged wellness industry stakeholders to consider different approaches to improving women’s health throughout various life stages. “As an industry, we need to evolve and start listening to the woman,” she said. “Start segregating and creating these solutions, which are stage specific at the area where she wants it to be, rather than where we would want it to be.”
While the women’s health segment is still evolving, she added, with industry stakeholders continuing to conduct higher quality research, she urged manufacturers, suppliers and brands to “please listen to the women, and let’s start with what she is looking out for: a solution rather than what the market wants her to take.”
