Tamisense-Q™ is a trademarked botanical complex made from Korean thistle (Cirsium japonicum var. maackii) and thyme (Thymus vulgaris) extracts, developed by the Korean biotech company Famenity Co., Ltd. and studied in menopausal women across four published research papers.
If you've seen it on a supplement label and gone looking for the science, you may have hit a wall. Search "Tamisense-Q" in a research database and very little comes back — which is a reasonable thing to find suspicious. There's an explanation, and it's the first thing worth clearing up.
What Tamisense-Q™ Is (and What It's Called in the Research)
Tamisense-Q™ is the trade name used in the US market. In the published scientific literature, the same botanical complex appears under the designation MS-10®.
That's why the search comes up short. Three of the four published papers are titled under the MS-10 name, and even the most recent trial — the one usually cited on labels — describes its subject in the abstract as MS-10®.¹ If you want to read the primary research yourself, that's the term to search.
Two other points of confusion worth heading off:
It isn't the same as "TamiSense." Famenity also produces a skincare ingredient called TamiSense® (Live EGF), and there's a Korean cosmetics brand by that name. Different ingredient, different category, unrelated to menopause.
The botanicals aren't proprietary — the extract is. Korean thistle and thyme are ordinary plants. What's trademarked is the specific combination, the extraction process, and the standardized preparation that was actually put through clinical trials. A generic thistle capsule is not the same thing, which we'll come back to.
The Two Botanicals
Korean thistle (Cirsium japonicum var. maackii) is a perennial in the Compositae family that grows wild in the mountains and fields of Korea, Japan and China. Known in traditional Eastern herbal practice as Herba Cirsii, it has been used in preparations for centuries.
Thyme (Thymus vulgaris) needs less introduction — the small grey-green aromatic leaves in your spice rack, a semi-shrub in the mint family native to southern Europe, used in cooking and herbal preparations for about as long as anyone has been writing things down.
The complex is produced by a proprietary extraction process, yielding a water-soluble, heat-stable powder. Practically, that means it can be formulated into capsules, tablets, gummies or powders without degrading.
Why Researchers Studied It for Menopausal Women
The origin story here is a screening program, not a folk remedy. A team of Korean researchers spent roughly fifteen years working through natural substances looking for something that might support women through the menopausal transition, with most candidates failing to clear safety or efficacy thresholds. The thistle-and-thyme combination is what came out the other end.
The interest in a non-hormonal option is straightforward. The decline in estrogen through midlife drives a great deal of what women experience during the transition, and hormone therapy is a well-established medical option that many women use successfully — but it isn't right or available for everyone, and some women prefer to start elsewhere. That created a research question worth asking: could a botanical support the same experience through a different route?
Stress physiology turned out to be part of the answer. Cortisol, the body's main stress hormone, is regulated by the HPA axis — the signaling loop between the brain and the adrenal glands — and it sits close to several of the things women describe most during this window: disrupted sleep, low resilience, a shorter fuse.⁵ We've written separately about why cortisol behaves differently during the menopausal transition.
What the Clinical Research Found
Four papers make up the published evidence base. They differ in size, design and dose, so they're worth separating rather than blending.
| Study | Design | Participants | Dose | Focus |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Noh et al., 2022¹ | Double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled | 71 | 300 mg/day, 12 weeks | Menopausal symptom scores, quality of life, cortisol, vascular and aging markers |
| Noh et al., 2019³ | Randomized, placebo-controlled | 142 | 500 mg/day, 12 weeks | Bone turnover markers, symptom and quality-of-life scores |
| Noh et al., 2016² | Mixed: cell, animal and clinical | 30 (clinical portion) | 300 or 500 mg/day, 12 weeks | Early symptom findings, mechanism |
| Noh et al., 2016⁴ | Cell culture (in vitro) | — | — | Estrogen receptor activity |
The anchor trial
The 2022 study is the one most often referenced, and it's the strongest of the set: a 12-week, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial in 71 women, taking 300 mg per day, with measurements at both 4 and 12 weeks.¹
Across that period, the trial reported improvement of roughly 48% from baseline in the overall Kupperman Index — a standard scoring tool covering twelve individual menopausal symptoms — while the placebo group showed no comparable change. Menopause-specific quality of life scores, measured with the MENQOL questionnaire, improved by about 36% overall, with improvement appearing across all four of its subscales.¹
The trial also tracked several blood markers. Serum cortisol in the group taking the complex fell from 7.03 to 5.94 ng/dl over the twelve weeks — approximately a 16% reduction — with no reduction in the control group.¹ Psychological Well-Being Index scores moved in parallel, from 49.51 to 38.80.¹ Endothelin-1, a peptide associated with blood vessel constriction, improved by roughly 15%, and insulin-like growth factor-1, a marker researchers associate with healthy aging, rose by about 10%.¹
The bone study
A separate and larger trial — 142 women, split evenly between the complex and placebo — used a higher dose of 500 mg per day over twelve weeks, and looked at bone.³
It measured markers of bone turnover: bone-specific alkaline phosphatase and osteocalcin, both of which improved significantly against baseline. Overall MENQOL scores in that trial moved from 104.0 to 87.8, with no meaningful change in the placebo group, and total Kupperman Index scores fell by roughly 18%.³
Two things to hold onto here. First, this was a 500 mg dose — a different amount from the 2022 trial, and findings from one dose don't automatically transfer to the other. Second, these are markers of bone turnover, not bone mineral density. They describe biochemical activity related to bone remodeling. They are not the same as a measured change in bone density, and they say nothing about fracture risk.
The earlier and mechanistic work
The 2016 study is a mixed paper combining cell-culture work, an animal model, and a small clinical component of 30 women split across three groups.² With roughly ten participants per arm, it's an exploratory early study rather than a confirmatory one, and it should be read as the groundwork that justified the larger trials rather than as evidence on its own footing.
The fourth paper is cell-culture research examining how the complex behaves in estrogen-receptor-expressing cells.⁴ In that laboratory setting, the complex appeared to modulate estrogen receptor activity under low-estrogen conditions of the kind that represent a postmenopausal state. This is a mechanism finding in cells — a hypothesis about how something might work — not a demonstrated effect in the human body. It's worth reading alongside the safety findings in the section below, which found no changes to actual hormone levels in women taking it.
One honest limitation
All four of these studies come from the same Korean research group, and the lead author is affiliated with Famenity — the company that manufactures the ingredient. That arrangement is common for trademarked botanical ingredients, since the manufacturer is usually the party willing to fund the trials, and it doesn't invalidate the findings. But it does mean the research hasn't yet been independently replicated by an unaffiliated team, and that's a fair thing to weigh when you're deciding how much confidence to place in any single ingredient.
What the Studies Monitored for Safety
This is the part that gets skipped on most ingredient pages, and it's arguably the most useful.
The 2022 trial measured female sex hormones directly — estradiol, luteinizing hormone, follicle-stimulating hormone and progesterone — and found no significant changes in the group taking the complex compared with placebo. It also monitored liver enzymes (AST and ALT), creatinine, bilirubin, blood pressure and body weight, none of which showed significant change against the control group.¹
That matters for a specific reason. It's the evidence behind describing this ingredient as non-hormonal: not a marketing adjective, but a finding. The cell-culture work described above involves estrogen receptors, which understandably raises the question of whether this behaves like a hormone. In the women who actually took it, hormone levels didn't shift.
None of which replaces a conversation with your own clinician, particularly if you take medication, have a history of hormone-sensitive conditions, or are pregnant or nursing.
The Dose Used in the Research
The two clinical doses studied are 300 mg per day and 500 mg per day, both over twelve weeks. The manufacturer's stated recommended serving is 300 mg — the amount used in the 2022 trial that carries the cortisol, symptom-score and quality-of-life findings.
This is worth checking on any label you're considering. A supplement can contain a clinically studied ingredient at a fraction of the studied amount, which is one of the more common ways a formula looks better on the front of the bottle than it performs in practice.
How It Differs From a Generic Thistle or Thyme Supplement
You can buy thistle extract and you can buy thyme. Neither is the same as this.
The difference is standardization and study. Tamisense-Q™ is a specific combination produced by a defined extraction process, prepared consistently batch to batch, and tested in human trials at a stated dose. A generic botanical capsule may contain a different species, a different plant part, a different extraction method and an unstated concentration of active compounds — and it has not been through those trials.
This is the general principle behind trademarked ingredients, and it's a reasonable rule when you're reading any supplement label: a trademarked, standardized extract with a citable study behind it tells you more than an impressive-sounding herb name with no numbers attached. We cover this in more depth in our guide to what to look for on a perimenopause supplement label.
Where Lumera Fits
Lumera is a daily, non-hormonal formula for women navigating perimenopause and menopause, built on bioactive nutrient forms — methylated folate, Albion® magnesium, VitaCholine®, and D3 with K2 as MK-7 — alongside 300 mg of Tamisense-Q™, the same daily amount used in the published clinical research on the ingredient.
Tamisense-Q™ is included as a clinically studied botanical complex that supports a healthy stress response and supports cortisol levels already within a normal range. Lumera is designed as foundational daily support during a demanding stretch of life, meant to work alongside whatever else you're doing — not to replace medical care or any treatment your clinician has recommended.
These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Tamisense-Q™?
Tamisense-Q™ is a trademarked botanical complex of Korean thistle (Cirsium japonicum var. maackii) and thyme (Thymus vulgaris) extracts, produced by Famenity Co., Ltd. and studied in menopausal women in four published research papers.
Is Tamisense-Q™ the same as MS-10?
Tamisense-Q™ is the trade name for the botanical complex that appears in the published scientific literature as MS-10®. If you want to look up the original research, MS-10 is the term to search — three of the four papers are titled under that name.
Is Tamisense-Q™ a hormone? Does it contain estrogen?
No. It's a botanical extract, not a hormone, and it isn't hormone therapy. Laboratory cell-culture research has examined how it interacts with estrogen receptors, but in the human trial, women taking it showed no significant changes in estradiol, LH, FSH or progesterone compared with placebo.¹,⁴
What dose was used in the research?
Two doses have been studied over twelve weeks: 300 mg per day and 500 mg per day. The manufacturer's recommended serving is 300 mg, which is the dose used in the 2022 trial.¹,³
How long did it take to show results in the studies?
The 2022 trial measured outcomes at both 4 and 12 weeks, with the full set of findings reported at the twelve-week mark.¹ As a practical matter, a botanical taken daily is worth giving a fair 8 to 12 weeks of consistent use before drawing conclusions.
Are there side effects?
The published trials monitored sex hormones, liver enzymes, creatinine, bilirubin, blood pressure and body weight, and reported no significant changes versus placebo.¹ That's a reassuring safety picture, but it isn't a guarantee for any individual. Talk to your clinician before starting, especially if you take medications or have a history of hormone-sensitive conditions.
How does it compare to black cohosh or red clover?
They're different botanicals with different evidence bases, and comparing them fairly means looking at what's actually been studied in each case — the species and preparation used, the dose, the trial design, and the outcomes measured. Black cohosh and red clover both have their own research literature. The distinguishing feature of Tamisense-Q™ is that it's a standardized, trademarked complex with published human trials at a specified dose, which makes it possible to check whether a product actually delivers what was studied.
Can I take it alongside other supplements?
Often, yes — but check for overlapping ingredients so you aren't unintentionally doubling up, and run your full list past a clinician or pharmacist, particularly if you take prescription medication.
References
- Noh YH, Hong J, Lee JW, et al. A Complex of Cirsium japonicum var. maackii (Maxim.) Matsum. and Thymus vulgaris L. Improves Menopausal Symptoms and Supports Healthy Aging in Women. J Med Food. 2022;25(3):281-292. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35225653/ (human RCT)
- Noh YH, Kim DH, Lee SA, et al. The Natural Substance MS-10 Improves and Prevents Menopausal Symptoms, Including Colpoxerosis, in Clinical Research. J Med Food. 2016;19(3):228-237. https://doi.org/10.1089/jmf.2015.3547 (mixed: in vitro, animal, and small human clinical)
- Noh YH, Cheon S, Kim IH, et al. The effects of MS-10 dietary supplement, mixture of Korean thistle and thyme extracts, on bone health, and symptoms in menopausal women. J Funct Foods. 2019;52:680-689. (human RCT)
- Noh YH, Lee JW, Park J, et al. Natural Substance MS-10 Improves Women's Health via Regulation of Estrogen Receptor. J Korean Soc Food Sci Nutr. 2016;45(6):903-910. (in vitro / mechanistic)
- McEwen BS. Physiology and neurobiology of stress and adaptation. Physiol Rev. 2007. https://doi.org/10.1152/physrev.00041.2006 (review)