Proper perspective on menopause can help women get help needed

Women who have a healthy understanding of menopause as well as what the journey was like for their own mothers will be well-equipped to handle it themselves when the time comes. Menopause is considered one of the most significant transitions in a woman’s life and begins when her body ceases to produce the female hormone estrogen. The absence of estrogen has a profound impact upon the female body: uncomfortable symptoms are set in motion like hot flashes and mood swings, and can contribute to heart disease and bone loss.

How long a woman will likely experience menopausesymptoms can vary and be dependent on her health and family history. Women can often follow in their own mother’s footsteps. In my practice, I have cared for women who have had menopause symptoms from one to five years, and others who experience them for more. A new study published in JAMA Internal Medicine suggests that the average American woman experiences menopausesymptoms for seven years.

Women need to first understand that the onset of symptoms does not always signal that she is in menopause. Menopause is officially diagnosed when a woman has not had her menstrual cycle for one full year. However, women can experience symptoms of menopausefor years up to that point. This transitional phase is calledperimenopause and can begin as early as 45 years of age.

Women who enter perimenopause will experience irregular or late menstrual cycles, and may begin having symptoms common with menopause: hot flashes, night sweats, sleep disturbances, vaginal dryness, painful intercourse, a shift in sexual drive, mood swings and urinary issues. The age at which a woman begins experiencing symptoms as well as the pace at which the symptoms develop play a role in the severity of symptoms. Also, a sudden loss or decline in estrogen and certain behaviors such as smoking can make symptoms more intense.

For some women, menopause may come and go without much notice, but for others, it can have a dramatic effect on their quality of life. Women need to know that there is hope and help available. In the last three years, medical science has advanced significantly to provide many treatment options to help with symptoms. Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) still remains a viable and safe option for women who experience vaginal dryness and hot flashes and helps safeguard from osteoporosis (or thinning of bones), according to the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

A combination of estrogen, progesterone and testosterone can also be used to treat symptoms, and women now have non-hormonal options such as antidepressants and anti-anxiety medications, which when used in small doses can help reduce the severity of hot flashes.

Relief can also come through lifestyle changes and disease management. Avoidance of smoking, weight gain, excessive alcohol as well as controlling health issues such as high blood pressure, diabetes and thyroid disease can help lessen the severity of symptoms.

Menopause is a natural event-change that all women experience in their own personal way. That’s why a strong physician-patient relationship is so important to help each woman create an individualized approach to this time in her life.

Ashok Buddhadev, MD, is an OB/Gyn physician with Premier Health Specialists who practices at Upper Valley Women’s Center in Troy.

Originally published at: http://tdn-net.com/features/health/5354/proper-perspective-on-menopause-can-help-women-get-help-needed

Four factors you can't ignore when balancing your hormones

Healthy hormones are as sweet as a well-orchestrated symphony. When working well they provide abundant energy, generous sleep, smooth skin, and emotional well-being. However, when they become imbalanced, the sky seems like it's falling and it can be a struggle to even get through a day without an emotional breakdown. This is why you need to know the major factors that affect hormones, so you can take a more comprehensive approach to rebalancing them.

Get enough vitamin D

Even though vitamin D is often referred to as the sunshine vitamin, it is actually a neuro-regulatory hormone. This may explain why people experience mood swings, depression, and irritability when they are low on vitamin D exposure, such as the winter months or other areas which experience much less sunlight.

To maximize the absorption and storage of vitamin D, get in the sun and allow it to penetrate the skin for 15 to 30 minutes in peak hours of the day (the further north, and the darker the skin, the longer the exposure required), of at least the arms and legs. Vitamin D is NOT absorbed through glass, so get directly into the sun outdoors.

If sunlight is not a good option, especially during the winter months, consider a liquid Vitamin D3/K2 supplement or foods with good vitamin D content such as fermented cod liver oil.

Restore adrenal function

The adrenal glands govern much of the hormonal system and become exhausted due to overwork, stress, lack of sleep, and stimulants (caffeine, nicotine, etc.) Long term abuse of the adrenal glands can causes cellular damage that takes considerable time to repair. This damage causes the adrenals to be unable to produce the hormones we need to focus, feel alert, control our moods, etc.

Normalizing the adrenal glands often has a cascading effect on the other glands in the body and helps balance hormone production. It can take 4-6 months to restore depleted adrenals and even longer if sources of adrenal depletion are not improved (ie. stress or a daily coffee habit).

To help restore adrenal function, eat clean, whole foods and avoid any stimulants. Also consider adaptogenic herbs, B-vitamins, vitamin C, magnesium, probiotics, and enzymes.

Nourish the thyroid

Thyroid imbalances can be attributed to many factors, including environmental pollutants (heavy metals), exposure to radiation (EMF's), dietary excesses or insufficiencies, certain medications, stress, and yeast infections.

A poorly working thyroid will eventually affect the production of all the other hormones in the body until every aspect of health is negatively impacted. Like the adrenal glands, many natural health care physicians will focus on the thyroid in order to restore proper functionality to all other glands and the entire body.

Rebuilding your thyroid can be tricky, depending on whether it is underactive or overactive. In either case, cleansing the digestive system is necessary, as well as reducing stress and avoiding exposure to EMFs and environmental pollutants. If you have hypothyroid (or want to know the signs) and want to heal it naturally, visit the first source below.

Eliminate bad estrogens

Xenoestrogens are man-made estrogen mimicking molecules that are significant hormone disruptors. These chemicals and disruptors cause imbalances that eventually can cause thyroid related disorders such as hypothyroidism.

Examples of xenoestrogens, which should be avoided, include:

- Plastic containers - Lining of canned food - Styrofoam cups and containers - Cosmetics and toiletries - Agricultural chemicals - Non-organic meat and dairy

Avoiding xenoestrogens after decades of exposure is only half of the equation. You must also eliminate them from your body by stimulating proper liver function so they may be eradicated from your body.

Hormones May Help Younger Women With Menopause Symptoms

For Linnea Duvall, a marriage and family therapist who lives and works in Santa Monica, Calif., the symptoms of menopause started when she turned 50. She felt more irritable and a smidge heavier, and she started waking up two to three times a night. And then she had a hot flash.

"It felt like a nuclear bomb went off right behind my belly button," she says. "The radiation went out to my fingertips, the tops of my toes, the top of my head and the ends of my hair."

But Duvall would not consider hormone therapy to control the flashes. She was terrified. She says she can sum up her fear in two words: "breast cancer."

To understand why she feels this way, we have to look back a few decades to a time when many postmenopausal women were taking hormones to treat symptoms. At the time, hormones were thought of as something of an elixir of youth that could also prevent chronic disease. So women took hormones indefinitely. But a huge study in 2002 changed everything.

Known as the Women's Health Initiative, it found that taking estrogen plus progestin hormone replacement therapy actually increased a woman's risk of heart disease and breast cancer. The study had a huge effect. Within months the number of women taking hormones in the U.S. dropped by almost half. Today, only about 10 percent of women ages 50 and over are on hormone therapy.

That was a huge overreaction, according to Dr. Wulf Utian, director of the North American Menopause Society, particularly in light of more recent findings. A more detailed analysis of the Women's Health Initiative data found that age really made a difference in heart disease risk. For women who started hormone therapy between the ages of 50 and 59, there was a protective benefit, says Dr. JoAnn Manson, one of the lead investigators of the study and a professor of medicine at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Women who take hormones earlier after the onset of menopause may experience less plaque, blood vessel blockage and atherosclerosis, Manson says, and possibly even a reduced risk of heart attack. But for women over the age of 60, the benefit seems to disappear. This is probably because older women already have plaque buildup, Manson says.

Researchers in Denmark also found that age makes a difference. They looked at 1,000 healthy women between the ages of 45 and 58. The women who took hormones experienced significantly reduced risk of mortality, heart failure and heart attack.

Today, menopausal women are young in the scale of things, says Dr. Utian, noting that menopause typically starts between age 45 and 60. If women start hormones within a few years of menopause or even a few years before, he says, there are numerous benefits beyond controlling hot flashes. These benefits include reduced risk of bone fractures, reduced risk of diabetes and, for many women, an overall boost in their quality of life — meaning better sleep, maintenance of libido and more comfortable sex.

"In my opinion, the best recommendation would be for some form of hormone therapy," says Utian.

But here's the worry. Studies do confirm an increased risk of breast cancer among women taking hormones, regardless of age. Manson says any risk is worrisome, but it's important to put this risk in perspective and understand that it is actually small.

"For every 1,000 women per year not using hormone therapy, about three would develop breast cancer," Manson says. "And among every 1,000 women using hormone therapy, about four of them would develop breast cancer, so that's about one extra case of breast cancer per 1,000 women per year on hormone therapy."

This is where things get tricky. There is no consensus in the medical community on whether the symptom relief is worth the extra risk. Different doctors interpret risk differently. And if you're a breast oncologist like Dr. Rowan Chlebowski at Harbor UCLA Medical Center, any risk is too much.

"It's a disease that I see every day," Chlebowsi says. "So I think that's something to be avoided."

Chlebowski adds that hormone therapy also makes it more difficult to read mammograms, since hormones make the breast denser. If mammograms are more difficult to read, it's harder to diagnose breast cancer in its earliest stage when it's most treatable.

So bottom line — this really is an individual decision between a woman and her doctor, a decision based on how much risk a woman can tolerate in favor of symptom control and other potential benefits. Researcher Joann Manson says if a woman chooses hormone therapy, then the lowest possible dose for the shortest amount of time is probably safe for most women.