Gerald E. Markle and Frances B. McCrea
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 That should have been the end of the story. menopause had been inappropriately medicalized. A disease had been invented for which a treatment, estrogen, was a cure. The idea was nonsense, though very profitable nonsense. menopause is a natural occurrence—not a malady—for all healthy women. The problematic symptoms of menopause can be ameliorated without putting women at risk of cancer and other deadly diseases.
Alas, that was not the end of the story. |
Andreas Moritz
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 As a middle-aged baby boomer entering menopause, I have been surprised to have my menstrual cycle return immediately after a few of the cleanses, suggesting that the premature onset of menopause, in my case, may have been accelerated because of a congested liver and colon. Other startlingly wonderful benefits have been an increased sex drive and feelings of sexiness, decreased desire for junk foods, and overall youthful attitude—far more joyful and optimistic than I've felt in 10 years. |
Gerald E. Markle and Frances B. McCrea
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| The idea was nonsense, though very profitable nonsense. menopause is a natural occurrence—not a malady—for all healthy women. The problematic symptoms of menopause can be ameliorated without putting women at risk of cancer and other deadly diseases.
Alas, that was not the end of the story. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, postmenopausal women took estrogen along with progestin, a combination that purportedly offered the benefits of the old ERT, for maladies ranging from hot flashes to osteoporosis, as well as protection from heart disease and breast cancer. |
James Dowd and Diane Stafford
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 But after women go through menopause and stop making estrogen, they start producing uric acid in amounts equal to those of men. That's why women seldom have gout before menopause, but later in life can have the same problems with it that men do.
Gout is one of a cluster of diseases called the "metabolic syndrome" (see chapter 9). Gout often accompanies obesity, high blood pressure, cholesterol abnormalities, and diabetes. Most people with the metabolic syndrome have high uric acid levels, but only some of these individuals go on to develop gout. |
Jonny Bowden, Ph.D., C.N.S.
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 Get Off the menopause Roller Coaster: Natural Solutions by Shari Lieberman, Ph.D.
Out of print, but if you can find it, grab it!
Before the Change: Taking Charge of Your Perimenopause by Ann Louise Gittleman, Ph.D. Wonderful advice on diet and lifestyle for the premenopausal woman by the First Lady of Nutrition!
Pregnancy and Postpartum
Books
Natural Guide to Pregnancy and Post-Partum Health by Dean Raffelock, D.C., C.C.N., and Robert Roundtree, M.D.
This is the book I give everyone in my life who is either pregnant, thinking about becoming pregnant, or has just had a baby. |
Devra Davis
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 The earlier a girl begins to menstruate and the later a woman enters menopause, the more hormones she is exposed to and the greater the odds are that she may develop breast cancer. Hormones occur naturally and regulate body functions. They tell glands and organs what to do and when to do it. The hormone amounts that a woman's body makes vary over time and depend on her body size, when she becomes sexually mature and when she enters menopause.
Something is happening to change the age of sexual maturity, and again there are differences between blacks and whites. |
Gerald E. Markle and Frances B. McCrea
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| A bold promise was made that so-called estrogen replacement therapy (ERT) would let women avoid menopause entirely and keep them "feminine forever," the title of a popular and widely quoted book by gynecologist Robert Wilson.
Wilson described menopause as "living decay," but said that estrogens could "save women from being condemned to witness the death of their womanhood." He listed 26 physiological and psychological symptoms that the "youth pill" could avert, and, in an article in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, advocated that women be given estrogens from "puberty to grave. |
Jonny Bowden, Ph.D., C.N.S.
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| Other wonderful books—notably Shari Lieberman's Get Off the menopause Roller Coaster!—are also out there to help women navigate this transition in the healthiest and happiest of ways.
Other Plants Give Relief, Too
Dong quai has been used in Asian medicine for thousands of years and remains one of the most popular herbs in Chinese medicine where it is used primarily for "female" issues. It's even acquired a reputation as the "female ginseng." Despite its long tradition of use, the hard-core research on using dong quai for hot flashes— and other issues around menstruation and menopause—is weak. |
Andreas Moritz
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| As a middle-aged baby boomer entering menopause, I have been surprised to have my menstrual cycle return immediately after a few of the cleanses, suggesting that the premature onset of menopause, in my case, may have been accelerated because of a congested liver and colon. Other startlingly wonderful benefits have been an increased sex drive and feelings of sexiness, decreased desire for junk foods, and overall youthful attitude—far more joyful and optimistic than I've felt in 10 years. |
Tom Bohager
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 Artificial menopause results from medical intervention that reduces or stops hormone secretion by the ovaries. These interventions include surgery to remove the ovaries or reduce their blood supply, and chemotherapy or radiation therapy to the pelvis to treat cancer. Surgery to remove the uterus (hysterectomy) ends menstrual periods, but it does not affect hormone levels as long as the ovaries are intact, and therefore should not cause menopause.
Nutritional needs become an important focus for menopausal women. |
Paula Begoun and Bryan Barron
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 Loss of estrogen due to menopause or illness. Hormone levels and the stress of illness add more factors (Sources: Climacteric Journal of the International menopause Society, August 2007, pages 289-297; and Experimental Dermatology, February 2005, page 156).
• Genetics. This speaks for itself. |
Connie Bennett, C.H.H.C. with Stephen T. Sinatra, M.D.
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 Kuller also stresses to women approaching menopause that "cutting back on simple carbohydrates, reducing sugar, and exercising every day can help you live an enjoyable, pleasurable life."
As you've learned here, the evidence is mounting that reducing or cutting out sweets and much-like-sugar carbs could help us females weather the ups and downs of hormonal shifts from PMS to pregnancy to menopause. Not only that, but eating right also could reduce your risk of yeast infections, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, PCOS, infertility, and endometrial cancer. |
| As a woman moves toward menopause, Dr. Metzger explains, her hormone levels fluctuate. Naturally, this is an oversimplification, but estrogen and progesterone levels begin to drop either rapidly, slowly, or erratically. And, because both these hormones influence a woman's response to insulin, the shift can also affect how sugar is processed by the body.
"That's why women often gain weight in menopause, because their hormones are changing," Dr. Metzger explains. "That, in turn, changes their response to insulin so they need to be even more fastidious about avoiding sugar and refined carbs. |
| Great Britain, credits her having "come through menopause without hot flashes or insomnia" to cutting out sugar, taking evening primrose oil, eating more nuts and seeds, and adopting an Ayurvedic-type diet.
As a woman moves toward menopause, Dr. Metzger explains, her hormone levels fluctuate. Naturally, this is an oversimplification, but estrogen and progesterone levels begin to drop either rapidly, slowly, or erratically. And, because both these hormones influence a woman's response to insulin, the shift can also affect how sugar is processed by the body. |
Lester A. Mitscher and Victoria Toews
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 Their relatively small bones and the hormonal changes that accompany menopause put women at greater risk for developing the disease. During and after menopause, dietary calcium is essential to prevent the rapid bone loss associated with the advanced stages of osteoporosis, yet the average woman consumes only half the recommended intake for calcium, and amounts that low are associated with bone loss and the development of osteoporosis.
According to a study of bone resorption in animals, catechins can reduce excessive resorption that could lead to excessive loss of bone mass. |
Jonny Bowden, Ph.D., C.N.S.
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| Menopausal Issues and Hormones
Books
The Wisdom of Menopause: Creating Physical and Emotional Health and Healing During the Change by Christiane Northrup, M.D.
Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom: Creating Physical and Emotional Health and Healing by Christiane Northrup, M.D. Absolutely anything by Northrup is worth reading— twice—but the first one listed above is a classic.
The Hormone Solution: Naturally Alleviate Symptoms of Hormone Imbalance from Adolescence through menopause by Erika Schwartz, M.D. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 Menopause used to be menopause. Now it's a disease, too. The former head of Merck, a man named Gadsden, once said he wished to expand the drug market to healthy people, so he wouldn't be limited to selling drugs only to sick people. He wanted people to take drugs like they chew gum. What a visionary! (See Selling Sickness to learn more.)
Spontaneous mass diagnosis - The process of redefining health in order to instantly label as many consumers as possible with a fictitious disease. Spontaneous mass diagnosis works by moving the goalposts that define a disease state. |
Craig Pepin-Donat
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 Lodge ISBN: 0761140735
Description: Same as the above but for women who want to improve their health now and beyond menopause.
NUTRITION EDUCATION
The Calorie Counter www.thecaloriecounter.com
From this site you can also get the calorie count on most common foods and fast foods.
Food Additives: Protect Your Family from Cancer-Causing Chemicals Healthy Eating Advisor www.healthyeatingadvisor.com/food-additives. |
Michael Pollan
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 Either way the phytoestrogens might have an effect (good or bad) on the growth of certain cancers, the symptoms of menopause, and the function of the endocrine system. Because of these uncertainties, the FDA has declined to grant GRAS ("generally regarded as safe") status to soy isoflavones used as a food additive. As a senior scientist at the FDA's National Center forToxi-cological Research wrote, "Confidence that soy products are safe is clearly based more on belief than hard data. |
Paula Begoun and Bryan Barron
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| Wrinkles, sagging, and skin discolorations are caused by a combination of events, and the primary culprits are sun exposure, genetic inheritance, sagging muscles (not from lack of exercise, but from the stretching and laxity that occur with use), loss of subcutaneous fat, thinning of skin due to cell senescence, menopause (estrogen depletion), and normal aging. But dry skin does not cause wrinkles.
That's not to say moisturizers (in their varying forms) can't do amazing things for skin, because they can, and more and more research is showing this to be the case. |
| Hormone levels and the stress of illness add more factors (Sources: Climacteric Journal of the International menopause Society, August 2007, pages 289-297; and Experimental Dermatology, February 2005, page 156).
• Genetics. This speaks for itself. The genes you inherit may hinder or help a great deal, but they too are only part of the picture given environmental influences and the other factors listed here (Sources: Current Problems in Dermatology, 2007, volume 35, pages 28-38; and Journal of Investigative Dermatology, February 2006, pages 277-282).
• Bone loss. |
Joerg Gruenwald, Ph.D.
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 INDICATIONS AND USAGE
¦ Nervousness and insomnia
Valerian is used for restlessness, sleeping disorders based on nervous conditions, mental strain, lack of concentration, excitability, stress, headache, neurasthenia, epilepsy, hysteria, nervous cardiopathy, menstrual states of agitation, pregnancy, menopause, neuralgia, fainting, nervous stomach cramps, colic, uterine spasticity, states of angst and tonicity.
PRECAUTIONS AND ADVERSE REACTIONS
No health hazards are known in conjunction with the proper administration of designated therapeutic dosages. |
Paula Begoun and Bryan Barron
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| Red clover is present to minimize skin symptoms of menopause, but its benefit when applied topically has not been proven (Sources: www.naturaldatabase.com; and Contact Dermatitis, August 1997, pages 70-77). Although some worthwhile ingredients appear farther down on the ingredient list, many of them will be compromised by this product's jar packaging. In the end, this is a costly sunscreen, not a wrinkle intervention.
© $$$ Intervene Pause & Effect Moisture Lotion SPF 15 ($55for 1. |
Joerg Gruenwald, Ph.D.
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| The syndrome of physical and psychic changes that occur during the transition to menopause. comminuted To break or crush into small pieces. cordate A heart-shaped leaf. coriaceous Tough, strong, and leather-like. corolla The inner set of floral leaves that consist of separate or fused leaves. cortex In botany, the bark of a tree or the rind of a fruit. cotyledon A seed leaf, or the first set of leaves from the embryo in seed plants. crenate In reference to leaf structure, having a margin cut into rounded scallops. cyme An inflorescence where the axes always end in a single flower. |
Paula Begoun and Bryan Barron
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| The phytoestrogen ingredients in this product cannot control skin symptoms associated with menopause. If you were inrending ro explore the potential antiwrinkle benefits of copper, this product contains barely a dusting of it.
© $$$ Daily Matte SPF 15 ($36for 1.7 ounces) is a good, fragrance-free, basic, matte-finish sunscreen for normal to oily skin. It includes an in-part titanium dioxide sunscreen and leaves a silky finish. Several antioxidants are part of the formula, but in amounts so small it's unlikely they'll have much impact on skin.
© $$$ Daily Organic SPF 15 ($36for 1. |
Ray D. Strand
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 Christiane Northrup's book, entided The Wisdom of menopause.
Not Just Calcium-Bones Are Living Tissue
Remember Mr. Bones, the skeleton that graced the back of the biology room in high school and college? He was the lead character in many a great prank as well as the main player on the comprehensive exam. Though the popular plastic model has taught lots of kids about bones, we often think of "bare bones" (like his) instead of bone that is active, living tissue, which is continually remodeling itself through osteoblastic (bone forming) and osteoclastic (bone resorbing) activity. |
F. Batmanghelidj
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 In women, this hormonal imbalance will eventually lead to symptom-producing menopause and its hallmark of hot flashes. Historically, some women are known for having given birth to a child when they were in their seventies. It is therefore feasible that there is no hard-and-fast rule to the age in which menopause is established. With the right lifestyle and balanced nutrition, it may be possible to delay menopause and alleviate its symptoms.
To treat hot flashes, you need to hydrate the body well. You need to take a balanced amino acid diet that enhances the serotonin activity of the brain. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 And it wasn't just women having a very difficult time transitioning into a natural phase, menopause -- a very natural, once honored, once sacred, once celebrated time -- but it was younger women, not even close to menopause, having menopausal symptoms -- the basic motor symptoms of hot flashes and night sweats, the irritability, the weight gain -- and then women struggling with infertility.
Mike: Oh, yes.
Lucille: I couldn't believe it. And uterine fibroids, endometriosis and ovarian cysts. I needed to understand what was happening. |
Tori Hudson, N.D.
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 During times of more stable estrogen levels, such as during pregnancy, or once menopause has been reached, most women will experience a resolution of their headache patterns, especially migraine headaches.
Skin, Eye, and Dental Changes. We already talked about how hormone changes can be related to acne. Specifically, acne can be the effect of excess testosterone on the glandular secretions in the skin. Estrogen also has important functions in the skin. It determines the skin collagen, skin thickness, and texture. |
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