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THE GOOD NEWS IS THAT, FOR THE MOST PART, YOU GET TO CHOOSE!

Women typically from 45 to 55 or so experience it, most women under 45 dread it, and most women over 60 are glad its over. What is it? If you are a woman you know the answer, and there is hope.

If you are a man, you probably have no idea, but please read on and learn.

Did you answer Menopause?

There are three basic stages of menopause.

Peri-menopause where you may have irregular periods, mood swings or just plain depression, and an all over unsettled feeling.

Menopause where you will cease to have periods and have more of the symptoms listed below

Post menopause where the symptoms diminish and gradually leave, but where you may have weakened bones, lessened, or in some cases heightened sexual desire now that you know you don’t have to be careful to not get pregnant, and a sense of relief that the monthly rituals are over.

You may have heard your mother talk or you may have experienced it.

Suddenly there is an intense rush of heat all over the face and sometimes the entire upper body. Your heart beat increases before or during the flash. You sweat profusely as you experience anxiety, headaches, dizziness and/ or nausea. You feel weak and seemingly unable to breathe. You look like you are blushing and perspiring at the same time. Then you are soaking wet but feel chilly at the same time. It comes unannounced: anytime and anywhere and no one really knows how long it can last.

While it is a different experience from one woman to another, having gone through it, I wouldn’t, and I’ve heard very few women describe it as a “wonderfully pleasant” experience. However, it is quite possible to sail through it with minimal to no discomfort as I did!

If you are the husband of a menopausal wife, who has not dealt effectively with this hormonal condition, you experience the fall out and you deserve some understanding and sympathy.

Fortunately, this is not a curse that every woman must bear for years. There are natural ways to deal with Menopause, and they have been proven over generations. The most important is to bring your nutrition up to “super nutrition” status, which in today’s world is virtually impossible to do without specific supplementation. I have a specific group of supplements and herbals that I recommend whenever I do a nutritional evaluation for a woman who is experiencing any kind of feminine imbalance, from painful menstruation, to PMS, on through post menopause. For a list of questions that help you know if you could benefit from this program, please click here and drop me a line.

Many health practitioners suggest the following to help minimize any symptoms of peri-menopause, menopause, and post menopause.

* Exercise regularly
* Eat soy-rich foods and switching to a low-fat diet (read my posts on how to select a quality  soy  product and the benefits of soy for preventing breast cancer and bone loss).
* Avoid hot flashes triggers such as caffeine, alcohol, hot showers, smoking, stress
* Stay cool at all times
* Have a fan or a cup of ice nearby
* Do not wear warm clothing like wool and turtle necks unless necessary. Use cotton garments instead

Let’s address a couple of frequent concerns. First, menopause doesn’t last for life.
The symptoms last for a relatively short time. But a woman’s level of estrogen naturally remains low after menopause. This can affect many parts of the body, including sexual and urinary disorders, heart and bones. So in that sense, the changes of menopause can be lifelong, but proper nutrition, physical activity and other positive lifestyle changes can help a woman feel great and live a long and healthy life after menopause.

Next, women often find that their sexual desire diminishes during menopause. In many cases the cause is physical. For example, low estrogen levels and other physical changes in the reproductive organs of women, can result in sex being uncomfortable or painful. Therefore, it is important to find out whether there is a physical cause for the lack of desire. For some women, the hormones called androgens contribute to the restoration of the sexual desire.
Also, counseling and support groups can help women learn strategies for overcoming the physical and psychological changes that occur during menopause.

HOW ABOUT HORMONE REPLACEMENT THERAPY? (ALIAS HRT) A SOLUTION OR A NEW SET OF PROBLEMS?
It sounds reasonable that if the body is losing estrogen and this causes undesired symptoms and physical conditions (e.g. osteoporosis) that an answer is to replenish (orally or via a patch) with a synthetic estrogen. This may seem a matter of common sense, but our body is a bit more complex. The dangers of HRT include an increase in the risk for breast, endometrial and ovarian cancers. I like to rely on good scientific research rather than common sense; so let’s consider the following.

One part of a major study by the National Institutes of Health and the Women’s Health Initiative on the use of hormone replacement therapy for postmenopausal women was suddenly halted. This was the part of the trial that examined the longer-term effects of taking a combined regimen of estrogen and progestin. The Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) is the first large, long-term trial to compare estrogen/progestin combination therapy to placebo in over 16,000 healthy women. Dr. Marcia Stefanick, a Stanford professor is one of the principal investigators of this NIH-sponsored trial. The study was stopped three years early because the long-term risks of the therapy had exceeded or offset the benefits.

Researchers documented small increases in the risk of breast cancer, stroke, heart disease, and blood clots. In contrast, they found small decreases in the risk of hip fracture and colon cancer.

This was big news, because it was thought that estrogen/progestin combination therapy was protective of the heart for most healthy women. (An earlier study, had already shown that the therapy increased the risk of heart attack in women who already had heart disease, at least in the first few years after they started taking HRT.) Federal authorities are urging all women on estrogen/progestin HRT to contact their doctors about continued use of the therapy.

Here are the risk/benefits in perspective. For every 10,000 women who take the combination therapy for a year, eight more will develop invasive breast cancer, eight more will have strokes, and seven more will have heart attacks compared to 10,000 similar women not taking the drug. On the benefit side, there will be six fewer instances of colon cancer and five fewer of hip fracture.

The natural methods of dealing with menopause especially the nutritional supplementation can help prevent all of those negatives and enhance the positives without risk.