Let me start by saying that in real life, endocrinologists are probably nice people and not the arrogant, dismissive and too frequently rude specialists that have been reported to me by patients over the years. One of them, over at the mega-medical center a few blocks away is notorious for tossing into her wastebasket any […]
Tag: menopause
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT BIO-IDENTICAL HORMONES
As a woman, unless you undergo the ‘instant menopause’ of a total hysterectomy, anticipate your own menopause transition in one of three ways. First, there’s “Menopause Heaven.” Your periods will lighten, become erratic, then stop altogether. A year goes by, and you’ll say, “Oh, so that was menopause. I wonder what everyone is complaining about.” […]
Menopause Hot Flashes: They’re Getting Worse but Some Good News, Too!
A large study from Sweden was reported in The Washington Post that menopause symptoms like hot flashes and night sweats are coming earlier, lasting longer and more severe. 24% of women born between 1918 and 1930 had symptoms compared with 35% born between 1954 and 1960. Lots of data were collected and questions asked. Were […]
How Menopause Can Destroy Mental Health
“Pretty dramatic title,” I thought, “especially for usually staid, Guardian newspaper.” But the writer had been collecting data from UK doctors, interviewing patients, and clearly was shocked at what she had found. Not only were individual women describing their personal experiences with serious bouts of depression, anxiety, panic attacks and suicidal thoughts, but also “brain […]
Three Paths To Great Looking Skin: Diet, Hormones, Your Gut
Let’s clear away what everybody knows about speeding up skin aging: cigarettes(click to yucky picture), too much sun exposure, junk foods. As a nutritionally oriented physician, a healthful diet is really important for an attractive skin. Nowhere is the phrase “garbage in, garbage out” more apparent than there, right on your face. When you’re eating […]
Quell The Fire of Menopause Hell With Bioidentical Hormone Replacement Therapy (BHRT)
When it’s time, you can expect to transition through menopause in one of three ways. If you’re unlucky enough to land in Menopause Hell, give some serious thought to bioidentical hormone replacement therapy (BHRT). Some women experience Menopause Heaven, in which your periods start changing and then stop without drama. A year goes by without […]
Menopause Hell? Quell The Fire With Bioidentical Hormone Replacement Therapy (BHRT)
When it’s time, you can expect to transition through menopause in one of three ways. If you’re unlucky enough to land in Menopause Hell, give some serious thought to bioidentical hormone replacement therapy (BHRT). Some women experience Menopause Heaven, in which your periods start changing and then stop without drama. A year goes by without […]
Out Of Whack Hormones
“My hormones are out of whack!” That’s the single most common sentence I hear from my patients. It can come from a 25-year-old with irregular periods and industrial-strength PMS whose energy has gone down the tubes. Or from a 45-year-old (on the threshold of pre-menopause) who continues to gain weight even though she’s eating less […]
Out Of Whack Hormones
“My hormones are out of whack!” That’s the single most common sentence I hear from my patients. It can come from a 25-year-old with irregular periods and industrial-strength PMS whose energy has gone down the tubes. Or from a 45-year-old (on the threshold of pre-menopause) who continues to gain weight even though she’s eating less […]
Menopause and Acupuncture: Great News For Women
Some women sail through menopause like they’re traversing the calm waters of Walden Pond. You know who you are. First, your periods seem to be changing a little–shorter, longer, irregular, but overall not worth much thought. Then one day you realize you haven’t had one in months. “Well,” you think to yourself. “That was a […]
Important News About Hormone Therapy
It was almost 20 years ago that I first learned about bioidentical hormone therapy from a talk given by Christiane Northrup, MD, (author of Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom and The Wisdom of Menopause) at the first meeting I ever attended of the American Holistic Medical Association. By the way, the line-up of speakers included not […]
Hormones and Breast Cancer
By noon on the day the story hit the news, I’d received a dozen emails from (sensibly) concerned patients asking what the study meant for them. First appearing in JAMA (the Journal of the American Medical Association) and then picked up by the wire services and spread around the world, the article addressed phase two of the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) Study that was originally published in 2002.
Trimming the Tummy Fat
Click here for the Health Tip link. Last week we talked about how stress, which triggers cortisol production, plays a role in accumulating tummy fat. But of course other factors are involved. Some you can fix, others you pretty much have to live with. For example: • Menopause changes metabolism, predisposing you to weight gain. […]
St. John’s Wort
St. John’s wort (Hypericum perforatum), a common shrub-like perennial, bears bright yellow flowers that contain numerous therapeutic substances when dried. Europeans have used the herb for centuries to calm jangled nerves and heal wounds, among other ills. And so it’s not surprising that North Americans have recently embraced its use as a treatment for depression and conditions associated with it.
Soy Isoflavones
Westerners have been slow to put tempeh, soy milk, tofu, and other soybean products on the table. But as evidence mounts that compounds in soy–isoflavones–have impressive health benefits, so too does consumption of this Asian dietary staple.
Siberian Ginseng
What Is It? Famed as an energy tonic in China since ancient times, Siberian ginseng only gained recognition in the West in the 1950s, when a Russian scientist (I. I. Brekhman) reported its notable stress-repelling powers. Healthy men and women taking the herb were found to better endure physical strain, resist disease, and perform tests […]
Natural Progesterone Cream
For many women, natural progesterone cream appears to provide significant relief from symptoms related to shifts in the female hormones estrogen and progesterone.
For younger women, such imbalances are often associated with PMS or endometriosis, and bring on symptoms such as irritability, breast tenderness, and pelvic pain. For older women entering menopause, decreasing supplies of estrogen can cause hormonal imbalances, producing hot flashes, mood swings, urinary urgency, and poor concentration.
Menopause Herbal Combination
As indicated by its name, a menopausal herbal combination provides a number of helpful herbs in one convenient capsule, sparing you the inconvenience of taking an assortment of products. Standard components of such combination products include such traditional “female-healthy” herbs as black cohosh, chasteberry, dong quai, and soy. Many contain additional herbs such as kava and dandelion root that can help with specific symptoms, as well as key nutrients such as calcium, vitamins E , C, and B, and magnesium.
Melatonin
Melatonin is a hormone manufactured and released into the bloodstream by the pebble-size pineal gland nestled deep within the human brain. Surprisingly, scientists only became aware of melatonin’s presence in 1958. Children tend to excrete large amounts of this hormone, while older adults produce relatively little. But individual levels of melatonin vary widely. About 1% of the population naturally has quite low levels, while another 1% has levels 500 times above the average.
Ginkgo Biloba
This popular herbal medicine is extracted from the fan-shaped leaves of the ancient ginkgo biloba tree, a species that has survived in China for more than 200 million years and now grows throughout the world. (The leaves are double, or bi-lobed; hence the name biloba.) Long used in traditional Chinese medicine, it is only in the last few decades that the medicinal uses for the herb have been studied in the West.