Date of Graduation

5-2026

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Science in Human Environmental Sciences

Degree Level

Undergraduate

Department

Human Nutrition and Hospitality Innovation

Advisor/Mentor

Dr. Jamie Baum

Committee Member

Mallori Roberts

Second Committee Member

Dr. Sun-Ok Lee

Abstract

 Background: Menopause is a phase of life that roughly half of the world’s population will go through. Although research looking into how the body changes and is impacted by menopause, studies relating to how diet can affect the aging body of post-menopausal women is limited. The objective of this study was to gain insight into how mood and sleep are affected by increasing protein intake in the diet.

Methods: 29 participants were assigned to either a control group (n=20) or a treatment group (n=9). The treatment group was assigned to consume 1.6 g/kg/day of protein, including 7 servings of beef weekly. The beef was provided by the study free of charge. The control group was to eat the RDA of protein, 0.8 g/kg/day of protein, with no beef supplementation. Both groups were to eat their normal diets and track what they ate in a food tracker of their choice. Participants followed their assigned dietary intervention for 16 weeks. Every 4 weeks, participants came in for data to be collected, including anthropometrics, POMS and PSQI questionnaires, as well as sleep data collection from Actigraphy. POMS and PSQI scores were analyzed and averaged from all test days collected (baseline, week 4, 8, 12, and 16). Baseline and week 16 were then compared for each as well.

Results: Significant results were found in POMS and PSQI scores, as well as the Actigraphy results. For PSQI, sleep disturbances (p=0.0090) and Global PSQI scores (p=0.0310) were found significant in treatment groups. Sleep quality for PSQI was significant over time (p=0.0143). For POMS, Tension-Anxiety (p=0.0058) and TMD scores (p=0.0244) were found significant over time. When analyzing Actigraphy, total sleep time (p=0.015) and total minutes in bed (p=0.018) were significant over time. There were no other significances found in any other categories that were analyzed.

Conclusion: The results from this study show that protein can affect both mood and sleep and help to create an overall more positive well-being in post-menopausal women. Future research should be continued to increase generalizability and to gain further insight into how diet can be modified to affect mood and sleep in this population.

Keywords

protein; mood; sleep; post-menopause; Arkansas

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