Originally published September 19 2005
Menopause is more than hot flashes
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
In addition to common symptoms like mood changes, heart palpitations and hot flashes experienced during menopause, experts warn women over 50 are also at higher risk for age-related illnesses like osteoporosis and other "silent killers," and they may suffer emotional difficulties due to events that often occur at that stage of life, like children moving away from home.
Life after 50 would be a lot easier if more women took the trouble to look after themselves before the onset of menopause, medical experts said at a seminar hosted by a dairy-products distributor yesterday.
Menopause is a trying period for women accross the world, and manifests itself with an array of physical and psychological symptoms.
Rather than occuring at a single point in time, menopause is spread over a period of a few years, from before the end of menstruation to a few years after women stop menstruating.
Some common symptoms include mood changes, hot flushes, sleep disturbances, changes in sexual activity and heart palpitations.
Whilst these symptoms are certainly troubling for women, Chou said that they were not the real concern, as they would pass.
He referred to these as "silent killers," which include osteoporosis, a disease where bone density steadily decreases.
In menopausal woman, calcium loss is up to three times greater than usual, a major reason being a decrease in secretion of certain hormones in the body.
While many physical symptoms are the result of menopause, psychiatrist Wu Jia-hsuan (???) from National Taiwan University Hospital said that many of the psychological symptoms of menopause are caused by problems which occur at this stage of their lives such as children leaving the nest, familial tensions or marital problems, rather than being a direct result of menopause itself.
According to Chou, what makes it even more important for women to look after themselves is that people live longer than ever.
"Whilst the average woman in the past died around the age she would begin menopause, the average life expectancy of women now is 82," Chou said.
"Women across the world spend their lives looking after their husband, their children, their parents; everybody but themselves.
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