Recently I’ve been asked for my advice about problem nails and flaky, itchy skin by several neighbors and friends. As soon as the weather turns chilly and the heat is turned on indoors, dry skin seems to spread like a flu outbreak.  While you can keep slathering on lotions and creams on the troublespots, that only provides temporary relief. If you dare to look beyond conventional quick fixes to a deeper understanding of the problem(s), and the potential for real solutions, keep reading here!

The Nails Tell All

A lot of different health problems can affect the nails and cause a variety of unbeautiful changes in them. Of course you can hide the unsightly changes by covering them up  with bright, thick nail enamel, but underneath the glistening polish, you’ve got trouble.

Anything that interferes with the body’s use and absorption of proteins, for example, can cause abnormal nail growth. Health problems that can leave their mark on the nails include inadequate production of stomach acid and digestive enzymes, low protein intake, nutritional deficiencies, acute or chronic illness, exposure to toxins, and environmental allergies. All or any of these problems can result in slow nail growth, either horizontal or vertical ridges in the nails, pale nail beds, white spots and brittle nails. Fixing these problem(s) can make a visible difference in just a few weeks.

Better Nails for Holiday Fun

Brittle nails and vertical ridges suggest poor nutrient absorption. Some questions to look into: are you eating enough protein foods?  Do you have digestive problems with protein meals or any meals?  If so, you might try taking digestive enzymes with your meals. I’d also suggest an organic, food-based, multi-vitamin/mineral supplement daily. None of these can hurt you, whether or not you need them. So consider this a trial by diet & enzymes. After 3 weeks, you should be able to see improvement, that is, whether your nails are staging a comeback.

I hope you will also look into whether you are producing enough stomach acid to break down proteins for absorption. Once you hit 50, it is likely that you have too little. Drugs, dieting, underactive thyroids are just some of the causes of low stomach acid that can set you up for poor nutrient absorption. Your physician should be able to tell whether you are putting out enough. Be sure to let him or her know about your nail problems, too, and see whether he thinks it’s due to poor absorption or something else, like an infection, diabetes, or some other physical disorder.

The Skinny on Skin

Dry, flaky skin also suggests the need for a good multi-vitamin/mineral supplement to make sure you are getting enough of all the major nutrients. What with dieting to fit into your holiday finery or too many cookies to bake and presents to wrap, we sometimes don’t stop to think about what parts of the food pyramid we’ve been nibbling on, lately.  But your skin and nails know! You can’t fool them the way you can fooI your memory when remembering is inconvenient.

1. Be sure to include daily foods naturally high in calcium, potassium, and magnesium;
2. Eat at least 1 tbs. of olive, walnut or flaxseed oil daily to increase the moisture-holding properties of your skin;
3. Herbs and vegetables than can be healing to the skin (in soups and stews) include: garlic, burdock root, parsley, and onions;
4. Take 1 tbs. of a good quality omega-3 fatty acid daily. It does wonders for the skin and fights dryness.

Balms for Itchy Skin

November 2008

Still teary-eyed from watching the election returns that marked a great, generational shift in America, I decided this was the best day for me to write my November blog. I had been holding off, afraid to take a deep breath until I knew whether our future was now or still to come. I am happy to report that the future arrived last night, not only in the iconic figure of our new president, Barack Obama, but in what it confirms about who we are as Americans and what we can accomplish together. I hope and pray that we can set aside our pain, struggles and fierce beliefs long enough to fix our most urgent problems and create the landscapes of our dreams.

What I had planned to blog about is the truth about stretching. Not stretching your dollars, although we might need to do some of that, too, right now. No, this is the lowdown on warm-ups, technically called, “static stretching.” You know, stretching your legs, touching your toes, and holding a stretch for 30 seconds or so before starting to exercise — what you learned from your gym teacher or high school coach. It turns out, according to Duane Knudson, a professor of kinesiology at California State University, that using static stretching to ready your muscles before working out is bad for you.

“It actually weakens them,” says Knudson. His research shows that static stretching decreases muscle strength by as much as 30 percent. What’s more, just stretching one leg can reduce strength in the other leg, and weakened muscles are less responsive for up to 30 minutes after stretching. Not a good way to start a workout!

What is the right why to warm up? You want to do two things: loosen muscles and tendons to increase range of motion in the joints and warm up the body. When the body is at rest, there is less blood flowing to the muscles and tendons and they get stiff. To avoid injury and increase exercise efficiency, you need to increase blood flow and body heat before you workout. Warm muscles and dilated blood vessels, says Knudson, pull more oxygen from the bloodstream and use stored muscle fuel more effectively.

So what should you do before a workout? To warm up, begin with a light jog. You can jog slowly in place or around the court or gym for three or five minutes. But watch the intensity of your workout. Too long and intense workouts will make you tired and stiffen you up, especially your back. After the warm-up, take a five minute recovery period. But don’t sit around for a half hour or longer after warming up or you will lose all the benefits of the warm-up.

One newer form of dynamic stretching is called “Spider Man,” which involves getting down on all fours and crawling the width of the court or practice area as if you were climbing a wall. All athletes can benefit from this and other dynamic stretching techniques. To learn more about warm ups and dynamic stretches, visit the website of the United States Tennis Association. Warming up and stretching is still important, but only if you are doing it in a way that actually prepares your body for the exercising you plan to do. To find out more about the benefits of warm-ups and stretching, visit the Stretching Institute.

Do you think our new president practices dynamic stretching before playing basketball, one of his favorite exercises? Tell us what you think and what you do.

Later, Luise

October 2008

In my September blog entry, I promised you information about an essential mineral, magnesium, that would knock your socks off because it is so vital to our body’s ability to stay well and heal from many of our most troubling chronic ills. We’ve known about magnesium as an essential nutrient for more than 100 years, but we lost sight of the fact that in our increasingly plasticized lifestyle, we get too little of it to protect our health and prevent many of the common killer diseases to which we are prone.

The US Department of Agriculture says that more than 90 percent of us are “deficient” in magnesium. You would imagine that might cause them stand up and shout that we are in grave danger and need to do something about this condition. Doing something about it should be pretty easy as magnesium is abundant - found in the sea and on land. If that is so, why is it in short supply in the diets of so many Americans? That is the question that started me and a colleague on a search for answers.

After many weeks of study, we found the answers we were looking for in a stunning story of the nutrient that the world forgot. We have written it up in an article titled, The Fountain of Youth and Health, published on the website, Enrichment.com.

Another place you can read the article in full, is on the Canadian website, Women’s Web.

Here is a preview of what you will find in this article:

“Needed by every cell in the body, a magnesium deficiency can be catastrophic and has now been associated with heart attacks, arrhythmias, cancers, diabetes, asthma, Crohn’s disease, premature aging, hair loss, twitches, cramps, high blood pressure, stroke, fibromyalgia, migraines, bone and joint pain, ADD, ADHD, shortness of breath, osteoporosis, muscle wasting, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, constipation, memory loss, sensitivity to light and loud noises, hearing loss, insomnia, fatigue, anxiety, tuberculosis, aggression, hyperactivity, panic attacks, nail fungus, Tourette syndrome, PMS, toxemia of pregnancy, numbness and tingling, eczema, psoriasis, depression, violence, gum problems, tooth decay, calcium deficiency, and virtually all chronic and autoimmune diseases now common in the US, including chronic fatigue syndrome.”

USDA says that 90% of us are deficient in this mineral, yet we hear so little about it. In our article you will not only find out how magnesium deficiency causes or contributes to various illnesses, but what you can do about it. It isn’t hard or costly to remedy the problem. Our paper spells it all out and provides references to back up what we say.

Good luck, but be forewarned, you won’t find many in either the medical or the dietetics fields who will agree with what we have written. This will be news to many of them as it is to most of us. Use your discretion in deciding whether or not to try the simple, safe and inexpensive remedies we recommend in the article.

Let me know what you think of the article and share with us your experiences with the suggested remedies. We’ll post them on our comments page.

Meanwhile, have a great fall season!

Until November, Luise

September 2008

Last month, I left you with the promise that I would look into anti-aging, anti-wrinkle creams and report back to you on what I find out. This was a tall order. Googling “best anti-wrinkle creams” yielded over two million (2,000,000,000) websites promising the best-looking skin money can buy. Products ranged from an ultra-expensive cream attributed to an astrophysicist named Huber who experienced a horrific chemical explosion that covered his face with burns. He searched but couldn’t find any salve or cream able to soften his facial skin and improve his appearance. Twelve years and 6,000 experiments later, he perfected a cream that made his skin look and feel smoother and softer. La Mer, the product in question, now sells for a King’s ransom in upscale stores.

From the sublime to the ridiculous, next I visited a website that claimed to have tested dozens of anti-wrinkle creams and found that none of them were effective or lived up their promises. But now (2008), the author of the site, Jen Hopkins, was offering free samples of something called LifeCell, based partly on a scientific breakthrough that won a Nobel Prize (for a scientist, not her), now formulated in an all-natural cream that prevented cell damage linked to facial aging and wrinkles. I signed up for a free sample (which hasn’t arrived yet) after I read the testimonial of a dermatologist and plastic surgeon who recommends LifeCell to his patients who don’t have the courage or dollars to go through Botox injections, plastic surgery, laser resurfacing or other invasive medical procedures. But it’s not cheap–a 40-day supply of this miracle face cream will set you back $189.00. The aged model in the photo on the site looked tired and droopy, but in the comparison photo she was vital, radiant and youthful-looking, as if she had found the fountain of youth! Should I believe it?

Kicking the can down the road, I decided to search one more website before surrendering to the seductive lures of an aesthetician and her sell-sational marketers. I went to the Environmental Working Groups’ (EWG) website, Skin Deep, a cosmetic safety database.

Wow! If you haven’t been there, you had better go! Here’s how they describe their website cum data base:

“In 2004 we launched Skin Deep, an online safety guide for cosmetics and personal care products. Our aim was to fill in where companies and the government leave off: companies are allowed to use almost any ingredient they wish, and our government doesn’t require companies to test products for safety before they’re sold. EWG’s scientists built Skin Deep to be a one-of-a-kind resource, integrating our in-house collection of personal care product ingredient listings with more than 50 toxicity and regulatory databases.”

Mama mia!  I won’t put anything on my face without checking the ingredients in the EWG data base! They have evaluated the safety and healthfulness of about 32,000 personal care products, rating them in terms of ingredients that are known to be carcinogenic, neurotoxic, immunotoxic, or with other known hazards. The best ratings are 0-2 (low hazard), the worst are 7-10 (high hazard). I didn’t find the two products discussed above on the lists, but I plan to check out the ingredients in the products above (those they reveal to us) against the ingredient lists in the data base, my next bit of research. You can do this too. It doesn’t have to be a facial cream. It can be a household cleaning agent, bar soap or a laundry product. Try it out!

Meanwhile, I am exploring another topic, and soon will have a paper for you to read, on the subject of magnesium. I am reviewing the topic with a friend and colleague, Mary Sparrowdancer, a scientist and journalist from Florida.  Magnesium is an essential nutrient so it is safe. But most American are short of magnesium, and that seems to take a terrible toll on our health and looks. It has been called, the Fountain of Youth mineral, because of its seemingly miraculous ability to restore skin, hair, and vital organs to strong, youthful looks and functioning.  Now I sound worse than the marketers that are trying to tease money out of your wallet with a bunch of promises, but this is something!

One of the things we are learning about the mineral is that when you get enough of it to satisfy your basic needs, your skin gets softer, smoother, and less dry, patchy, bumpy and wrinkly. I kid you not! Did you know that the USDA says over 70 percent of Americans (we think it might be 90) are deficient in magnesium? It’s the ubiquitous nutrient we can’t seem to get enough of in our bodies! And no one is talking about this. So what is that about? We’ll tell you what we think.

Next month, I’ll reveal secrets you need to know about magnesium, and offer ideas for a little (safe and inexpensive) experiment you can try to smooth and soften your skin, and relieve some of the aches and pains so many of us experience from time to time.

Catch you later, Luise

August 2008

If the child-bearing years are remarkable for nesting behavior, the post-menopause years are marked by de-nesting. It’s not just me. I keep meeting friends, neighbors and age-peers at the recycling center and the various donation sites around town. We exchange knowing looks, and one of us will say, “I can’t stand clutter any longer. I am giving everything away that I can live without.”

I keep wondering what else I can do to simplify, streamline, and disengage from activities that used to take up a lot of my time but now seem like so much busy-work. It’s not that I have such a super-busy schedule! I manage to keep quite busy, but that’s my choice. A lot of things I used to busy myself with aren’t worth my time anymore. Guess which things those are?  Shopping and laundry top my list.

Take laundry, for example. There was a time when I organized my laundry by color, heaviness, soiling, and wrinkle-ability. Sweaters and delicate fabrics were  air-dried, and I extracted clothes from the dryer so fast they didn’t have time to wrinkle. Being a laundry snob took a lot of my time, but I thought it was worth it. Now, I tell myself, it’s just laundry! Who cares? I don’t like wearing wrinkled clothes but I have given up ironing, except for “going-out” emergencies. Hovering over a hot iron is no longer an item in my day-planner.

A lot of other people around town seem to have given up their irons, too. Shirt collars are giveaways on single men, and wrinkle-free fabrics are telltale signs on women. I don’t say anything, of course, but it’s nice to know that I’m not alone in letting wrinkles go in exchange for time. Wrinkles on my face are something else entirely!

It seems that every other ad on the internet, these days, involves a very wrinkled woman’s face that magically transforms into an 18 year-old when you run your mouse over the image. What are they trying to tell us? Has someone invented a youthing cream?  Or, is this code for, don’t apply for a job if you look like this because we want an 10-year old. That’s age discrimination, of course, but does anyone pay any attention to that anymore? I think this wrinkling thing needs my attention. I reject Botox, why would anyone in their right mind inject a toxin near their brain? And getting an eye tuck from a plastic surgeon who specializes in boobs and tummy tucks is a frightening idea!

Vanishing wrinkles is something I definitely want to look into, though. My mother slathered her face every night with “cold cream” to avoid wrinkles. She had great skin! Wrinkle-free, until the very end! I have looked for the product she used but it is nowhere to be found, these days, and a pharmacist told me the company was bought out by a bigger one. Now all I find on the store shelves are very expensive creams that come with instruction booklets. If I followed all of those instructions, several times a day, I would end up spending more time on facial wrinkles than I used to spend on laundry!

Wrinkle-free skin interests me a lot more than wrinkle-free laundry, and at this point, I’m considering trying the whole washing, slathering and cleansing program described in the cute little brochure that came in the mail. The product I picked for my facial smoothie is French. It smells good and it costs a fortune.  I feel a little guilty that I will end up poorer but no better off than where I started, having spent an awful lot of money on “creme de baloney!”

Maybe I should consult my daughter first, who has tried every facial product and makeup brand in the stores. I will get her recommendations, and test drive the product(s). Next month, I’ll tell you all about it. For now, I will keep it simple, drinking green tea, which is said to prevent wrinkling, staying hydrated, and taking my omega-3 fatty acids, which work on wrinkles from the inside out.

Now that I know sunblock creams don’t protect you, and baseball caps don’t cover enough territory, I will have to get a straw hat so I don’t sabatoge my beauty routine with sun-dried, leathery skin, this summer. Love how the sun feels, but not how it looks on me. Sun is not my friend, a dematologist once told me. I bet he says that to all the girls!

Have you noticed how many high school girls hang out at tanning salons? New places keep opening up in my town and, despite the recession, they are completely booked up. I guess the girls are not worried about wrinkling. They will be, a few years from now, when they start worrying about keeping their fresh, unlined looks.

A friend told me about emu oil. Have you heard of it? It comes from an Australian bird and is supposed to have wonderful skin softening efffects and anti-wrinkle properties. Have you tried it? If so, please share your experiences here.

Next time, Luise

July 2008

Whatever you’ve read or been told by family, friends or physicians, the realities of menopause are very often unexpected, disorienting, and disconcerting. I can only compare it to the late stages of labor when your body feels as if it has been taken over and is being pulled apart, without your ability to do anything about it. While not as painful as labor, my first menopause sign was just as surprising and uncontrollable. And it was an indelible experience!

I was racing about a half mile from the central train station to a conference in Washington, DC, where I was to be the main speaker. In heels and a business suit on a sweltering day, I knew that my mad dash from the train depot would make me a wilted dishrag by the time I reached the conference, and that I would have no time to freshen up before I would have to speak. They were anticipating a crowd of 350 people, so I couldn’t disgrace myself professionally and be late or not arrive. I had to get there.

I arrived just in time, took a deep breath, and started my presentation. Before I could get one word out of my mouth, it felt as if I’d been struck by an electric current that was vibrating up and down my spine, superheating me, and making me sweat profusely. Now, I was not only wilted but red-faced, with beads of sweat breaking out all over my face like hives and streaming in rivulets down my body and legs under my clothes. When I regained some composure I figured out what it was, but not what to do about it or how to calm the embarrassment I felt as I continued to cook and steam like an overheated iron.

I managed to get through my presentation, although my knees were knocking and my usually strong voice was shaky. No one said anything, but the people in the front rows must have seen the look of panic in my eyes, my crimson face, and damp clothing. Maybe they thought it was apprehension about public speaking. Whatever it was, I couldn’t turn it off and had to let it run its course, assuming it would be over soon. And it was, except for the indelible impression it left with me. This was my first hot flash.

What are your indelible impressions of first menopause symptoms? I’d love it if you would share your thoughts, comments, and stories with our blog community. Write them here and I’ll add mine, too, from time to time.

Later, Luise.

• A - E
• F - K
• L - P
• R - Z

A - E

Anxiety: A feeling of fear, apprehension, nervousness, or dread accompanied by restlessness or tension.

Bioflavonoids: Brightly-colored substances found in fruits and vegetables, and in foods with vitamin C. Bioflavonoids are needed for the absorption of vitamin C. Examples of bioflavonoids are citrin, hesperidin, rutin, flavines, and flavonals.

Calcium: a dietary mineral needed for numerous body functions, including transmission of nerve impulses, muscle contraction, and proper heart function. Calcium is also important for bone mineralization.

Clinical trial: An organized research study conducted with at least two groups of patients, one group receiving an experimental treatment, the other a control group (no treatment) for comparison purposes.

Coronary artery disease: A condition caused by narrowing of the arteries that supply blood to the heart muscle.

Depression: A condition in which the mood is altered, resulting in a loss of interest in pleasurable activities and difficulty living a normal life.

Estrogen: A female sex hormone that stimulates and maintains female sex characteristics. Synthetic and natural estrogen are used to treat menstrual and menopausal disorders.

F - K

Gynecologist: A physician who specializes in the care of women’s health and reproductive disorders.

Heart disease: An abnormal condition affecting the heart muscle and the blood vessels of the heart.

Hormone therapy: The use of hormones, usually estrogen and prgesterone, as a therapy to treat women experiencing the discomforts of menopause due to falling levels of these hormones in their bodies. In some cases, hormone therapy is used to regulate other hormonal irregularities besides menopause.


Hormones: Chemicals produced by the endocrine glands to control and regulate special cells and organs.

Hot flash: A fleeting sensation of heat that may be accompanied by a flushed (red) face and profuse sweating.

Hysterectomy: The surgical removal of the uterus.

Impotence: The inability to obtain an erection adequate for sexual intercourse.

Incontinence: Loss of bladder or bowel control.

L - P

Male menopause: Subtle changes in the function of the testes that can occur as early as 45 to 50 years, or after the age of 70.

Menopause: The cessation of menstrual cycles in women, accompanied by a drop in hormone levels and other physical changes.

Menstrual cycle: The monthly cycle of hormonal changes from the beginning of one menstrual period to the beginning of the next.

Osteoporosis: A condition in which there is a decrease in bone mass or density, causing bones to become fragile or thin.

Perimenopause: The time in a woman’s life when menstrual periods first become irregular, and falling hormone levels result in the first symptoms of menopause.


Phytoestrogen: Hormones in plants that are similar to estrogen in women. When consumed, they help to balance out overly high or low estrogen levels.

Phytosterols: Hormones found in plants.

Postmenopause: The time after menopause is completed: at least one year after the total absence of any menstrual period.

Precursor: A signal or object that comes before, or is easily transformed into, something else. Bioflavonoids, for example, are precursors of hormones.

Premature menopause: Menopause that occurs before the age of 40, often caused by a medical disorder or a surgical procedure.

Progesterone: A group of steroid hormones produced during ovulation by the corpus luteum, the adrenals, and the placenta. During the menopausal years, when ovualation slows and stops, progesterone levels fall.

Progestin: Synthetic progesterone, part of HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy) widely used to manage the symptoms of menopause. Natural progesterone is also sometimes called progestin.

Prostaglandins: Hormone-like fatty acids that influence hormone production, tonify muscles of the heart, uterus, and intestines, and “nourish” the autonomic and central nervous systems.

R - Z

Reduced libido: Decrease in desire for or interest in sexual activity.

Saponins: Soap-like substances found in plants that emulsify (combining oil and water) like soap, improving the body’s absorption of hormones. They also increase the permeability of cellular membranes, encouraging the absorption of nutrients and get rid of unwanted bacteria.

Surgical menopause: Menopause induced by the surgical removal of the ovaries.

Uterus: The small, pear-shaped organ in a woman’s pelvis. The uterus houses the fetus during pregnancy and undergoes changes during menopause.

Vaginal dryness: Inadequate lubication of the vaginal tissues, often associated with menopause.

Vitamin D: A vitamin that enables the body to absorb calcium and deposit it, as needed, in the bones.

Weight-bearing exercise: exercise that moves the muscles and bones against the force of gravity. Examples are using free weights, walking, jogging, and dancing.

The Downside of Hormone Replacement Therapy

Hormone replacement therapy with synthetic hormones was once considered the gold standard for medical treatment of menopausal discomforts. Now we know that using synthetic hormones for an extended period of time (5 years or more) increases your chances of developing breast and ovarian cancers, heart attacks, strokes, blood clots, lung tumors, Alzheimer’s, and other degenerative diseases.

Andrew Weil, MD, a proponent of herbs and natural medicine, believes that women should avoid estrogen replacement altogether if they have a family history of any of the diseases that have been linked to HRT, but if you decide to go for it, he says, ‘Use the lowest dose possible (1.25 mg/day maximum) and be sure to take progesterone for at least part of the monthly cycle.’

Herbal Alternatives to Hormone Replacement Therapy

Those determined to take a pass on hormones have herbal and nutritional options. Hot flashes and other symptoms of menopause are rare in vegetarian cultures, especially in countries where women consume a lot of beans, like black beans (Cuba), chili beans (Mexico), mung beans (Japan), and fava beans (Lebanon). Beans have mild estrogenic activity because they contain phytoestrogens, compounds that are similar to human estrogen but weaker. Phytoestrogens compete with a woman’s own estrogens, lowering the total human estrogen burden. Foods include isoflavones, lignans, phytosterols, and saponins. There is no evidence that phytoestrogens naturally occurring in food cause harm, and some laboratory studies show that phytoestrogens can prevent tumors in breast tissue. In addition to eating more beans and vegetables, some specific herbs are helpful in relieving menopause symptoms.

Black Cohosh (Cimicifuga racemosa )

Prized by Native Americans, who use it for a variety of conditions from rheumatism to diseases of women, this herb enjoys a long history of relieving menopause discomforts, especially hot flashes. It has been shown to increase estrogen activity in women, to reduce the intensity and frequency of hot flashes, and to relieve many other symptoms of menopause, including night sweats, depression, anxiety, lowered libido, and vaginal dryness.

Black cohosh is the most well-documented, natural alternative to hormone therapy, and the best-selling women’s herbal product in Germany. It was popular among American women 150 years ago, as a main ingredient in America’s first mass-marketed patent medicine for women, Lydia Pinkham’s best-selling, 19th century remedy, “Vegetable Compound.”

In addition, black cohosh is a cardiotonic herb that improves blood pressure and circulation, causes dilation of the blood vessels and thins the blood. It also increases energy, calms the nerves, treats incontinence, and alleviates water retention and breast tenderness.

Other Herbal Menopause Remedies

• Herbs with estrogenic effects are: dong quai, burdock root, blue cohosh, Chinese ox knee root, Chinese three-edge root, sage, alfalfa concentrate, and motherwort. All of these herbs are good for hot flashes, with blue cohosh said to be the best.
• Chasteberry, a tonic, normalizing herb, boosts the body’s own progesterone levels, and is said to mitigate many of the emotional and physical effects of menopause as well as PMS.
• Most successful herbs for increasing estrogenic activity, according to Dr. Michael Murray, author and professor of natural and herbal medicine at Bastyr Univeristy in Seattle, are: dong quai, licorice root, chasteberry, and black cohosh;
• Essential fatty acids (EFAs) are important additions to a natural medicine regimen in midlife, as they help maintain prostaglandin production, balance brain chemistry, and create healthy cell membranes. Good sources are: flaxseed, borage, evening primrose, and black current oil.
• Bioflavonoid-rich herbs have remarkable healing properties, including anti-inflammatory, anti-hepatotoxic, anti-tumor, antimicrobial, antiviral, antioxidant, and analgesic effects, and strengthening effects on the cardiovascular system. The richest source of bioflavonoids is the inner skin of citrus fruits, but they also are found in brightly colored (red, blue, and purple) fruits and vegetables, where they are found bound together with vitamin C, needed for absorption.

There are many other herbs you can use for support in menopause and after, including: buckwheat greens, elder (berries and flowers), hawthorn, horsetail, knotweeds, roses, shepherd’s purse, sea buckthorn, toadflax, and white dead nettle.

For women concerned about osteoporosis, build these two herbs into your daily regimen:

• Seaweed contains generous amounts of all the minerals needed to maintain strong bones. Kelp is an especially rich source. Seaweeds also both restore and increase cardiac efficiency, and lower blood pressure and cholesterol levels. They are a superior source of all the most critical nutrients needed by the endocrine, circulatory, and immune systems.
• Stinging nettle has the ability to heal, restore, and nourish the adrenal glands and kidneys, create strong, flexible bones, stabilize blood sugar, reduce fatigue and exhaustion, improve stamina, nourish the endocrine glands, normalize weight, and promote supple skin and healthy hair.

Get to know these herbs over time. Add them to your daily regimen one at a time so you can judge their benefits and your comfort with them. For advice on how to take them, and what forms to collect or buy, talk to a local naturopath or herbalist. For more about herbs see Herbal Remedies.

Chinese Herbal Remedies

In China, herbal remedies for female complaints were handed down from grandmothers to mothers to daughters in an unbroken chain hundreds of generations long. Chinese women didn’t visit their physicians when PMS symptoms or postmenopausal depression hit, they brewed a traditional soup or tea according to a time-honored family recipe.

Chinese medicine draws on over 5000 herbs in various combinations for all known ailments. Herbs are usually combined in formulas that serve more than one purpose. For example, a single formula may be used to restore harmony to the body, balance any adverse side effects of the treatment, and direct the healing to the right parts of the body. This synergistic approach is a major difference between Eastern and Western medical treatments.

Herbs and Modern Medicine

In modern times, high-tech medicine has been dismissive of these grassroots traditions, arguing that medicinal herbs are untested, potentially toxic, not standardized, and therefore unreliable in effectiveness. Those who know the most about herbs, herbalists, medical botanists, pharmacognocists (experts in plant drugs), and naturopathic physicians, suggest otherwise.

Herbs are known to be useful in treating thousands of conditions and disorders, and in fact, are the basis of many conventional pharmaceutical preparations. A famous example is white willow bark, the precursor to aspirin. Salicylic acid, the chemical name for aspirin, was first purified from willow bark in 1838! Now, a small daily dose of aspirin is universally recommended to mature adults in North America as a way to avoid heart attacks.

Herbal Craze of the 1970s

The benefits of traditional medicine weren’t generally acknowledged in North America until the 1970s, when, according to Carolyn Dean, MD, ND, ‘Inklings of the old homeopathic, eclectic, Asian acupuncture, and herbal modalities started appearing between the cracks in the medical assembly line as people began to look for ways to stay healthy and avoid modern medicine’s side effects.’ (from the book, Death by Modern Medicine, by Carolyn Dean, MD, ND).

Herbs, in fact, became the basis of a new “gold rush” as teams of scientists from biotechnology companies and the government’s medical research agency (NIH), were sent to scour the earth to find plants that could be the basis of new, genetically-engineered drugs to combat virtually every condition known on earth. At the same time as the drug companies launched their search for patentable, disease-fighting plants in the forests, jungles, and oceans of the planet, new medical models were emerging as a basis for the practice of medicine in the industrialized world, especially for preventing and modifying the progression of chronic diseases, which were becoming rampant.

There was growing awareness that many conventional drugs only suppress symptoms, while herbs and other natural remedies can be effective in directly tackling the causes of disease. According to the World Health Organization, 80% of the world’s people rely on herbs for most of their healthcare needs. In Germany, 70% of doctors regularly prescribe herbal medicines for their patients. These prescriptions include herbs that are powerful weapons in the fight against cancer, heart diease, high blood pressure, pain, depresssion, and other common health problems.

In an era when every body of water tested in the US contains measurable amounts of drug residues, we may be reaching the point of saturation with prescription drugs. In that case, herbal remedies stand to become in even greater demand, both as powerful healing tools and as environmentally safer choices.

Big Breakfast Key to Weight Loss

A report presented to the International Endocrine Society at their annual meeting this year said women who start the day with a big breakfast that includes whole grains, protein, fat, and even a small piece of chocolate, were less hungry and had fewer cravings the rest of the day. At the end of 8 months, women who ate the big breakfasts lost 5 times more weight than those who ate skimpy breakfasts, although their daily calorie levels were the same.

Researchers explained their counter-intuitive findings this way: when you wake up, your body is set to look for food and your levels of adrenaline and cortisol are at their highest. Your brain needs energy right away. If you don’t eat or eat too little, the brain needs another source of fuel so it activates an emergency system that draws energy from your muscle tissue. When you eat later, the brain is still in emergency mode so the body continues to save energy from the food you eat to store as fat for possible later needs. That may have worked well for our paleolithic ancestors who had to depend on hunting, fishing and grazing for all of their food, but it doesn’t work as well for modern people who usually have plenty of food on hand all the time.

Vitamin D Can Save Your Life

More than half of post-menopausal individuals in North America and the rest of the world have too little vitamin D in their bodies. A deficiency of vitamin D, which we get from sunlight and supplements, causes fractures from falls, immune dysfunction, heart disease, and high blood pressure. A new study soon to be published in the Archives of Internal Medicine links too little vitamin D with greater risks of dying from heart disease and other causes.

Just 15 minutes of sunlight exposure on your arms and face will provide the daily quota of needed vitamin D. If you can’t get your daily dose of sunlight, you might want to opt for foods and supplement sources. Fortified milk, egg yolks, fish, and liver contain vitamin D, and most broad spectrum vitamin/mineral supplements include it, but read the label to be certain. The National Osteoporosis Foundation recommends 400 to 800 IU of vitamin D daily. Some nutritionists think that is too low. Post-menopausal women are advised to take 1200 mg of calcium daily, as well as vitamin D, for bone health.

Vitamins and minerals alone can’t make the difference, but if you walk 3 to 5 miles a week or exercise with handweights 2 to 3 times weekly, you are building strong bones as well as benefiting from all the other advantages of an active lifestyle.

La Vida Healthy

New findings from a study of more than 72,000 women (The Nurse’s Health Study, started in 1976), reported by researchers from Harvard University, showed that women who eat plenty of fruits, vegetables, beans, and whole grains were likely to outlive women who eat a more typical American diet with plenty of red and processed meats, sweets, French fries, and white and refined grain products. Women with the typical diet had a 22 percent higher risk of dying from heart disease or stroke, and a 16 percent higher risk of dying from cancer, compared to women with low intakes of red meat, desserts, sweet drinks and refined grains.

Eating Soy Linked to Memory Loss

Frequently eating foods made with soy seems to contribute to memory loss, say British researchers who studied the impact of soy consumption on senior citizens. People who ate soy at least twice a day had 20 percent less memory function than those who ate it less often. Vegetarians and elderly women in the study, in particular, were most vulnerable to memory loss from eating soy.

Secrets of Successful Weight Loss

Writing down everything you eat in a daily diary seems to be the secret of successful weight loss, according to researchers from Kaiser Permanente’s Center for Health Research. The study involved 1600 people following a weight loss diet for 6 months. Participants from four different cities were asked to eat less fat and more fruits, vegetables and whole grains, and to exercise for a total of three hours weekly. Those who kept a food diary lost, on average, 18 pounds, compared for 9 pounds for those who didn’t keep a diary or kept one irregularly. The diary helps dieters to see where the calories are coming from and holds them accountable, according to the study director.

Heading into the Era of New Treatments

In the next 20 years, over 40 million women in the US will enter menopause. Some will experience premature menopause, which is menopause that starts before the age of 40. Others may experience synthetic or induced menopause, caused by surgical removal of the uterus (hysterectomy) or ovaries, or due to radiation and chemotherapy treatments. Women who undergo medically induced menopause will immediately experience severe symptoms of hormone withdrawal, making them candidates for therapies that offer relief.

Relief, traditionally, has meant Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) prescribed by a physician. Since the mid-sixties, millions of women have taken prescribed synthetic hormones that were suspected of being carcinogenic. The therapies were heavily promoted by manufacturers and their medical spokespeople as important not only for hormone relief but also to protect women’s heart health and reduce their risks of osteoporosis (brittle bones). Unfortunately, these health claims have not proved entirely true and, worse, the treatments themselves posed grave threats to healthy women.

Making the Best Decision for your Health

Now women have new choices, some hormone-based, others traditional alternatives such as herbs, diet, and supplements. Discuss these options with your health care provider to find the best choice for you. Ask about toxicity and health risks, and make a decision based on what is important to you: conventional medicine or natural remedies. And don’t forget, you are not married to your choice. You can switch at any time.

Like the synthetic hormones used in hormone therapy for menopausal women, bio-identical hormones are factory-made or compounded by natural pharmacies to resemble natural estrogen made in women’s bodies. Their supposed advantage is that these hormones are designed to mimic the molecular structure of natural hormones; in other words, they are bio-identical. Conventional hormone therapy is different for a simple reason. If it were made as an exact replica of what women make in their bodies, pharmaceutical companies could not patent it and therefore, would have no interest in producing and marketing it.

Estrogen Replacement

Estrogen replacement goes back to the 1950s when it first became possible to manufacture compounds with estrogen-like activity. The primary source of mass-produced estrogen from that time until recently has been the urine of pregnant mares. The first marketed medication of this kind was Premarin, made of conjugated equine estrogen, which was the most prescribed medication in the industrialized world in an earlier day. Women liked the relief from menopausal symptoms that the drug afforded them and the feeling that they were their normal selves again. It wasn’t until the eighties, with growing recognition that conventional estrogen therapy could be linked to higher cancer rates in women, especially breast cancer, that use of Premerin and other estrogen replacement drugs began to fall off. The addition of synthetic progesterone (Progestin) to conventional estrogen therapy was an attempt by drug companies to stop erosion of their market. Wyeth developed Prempro as a new, improved, and presumably, safer drug than its old stand-by, Premarin, because it contained progestin as well as estrogen.

Estriol

One bio-identical hormone, estriol, has been promoted for decades by alternative and complementary medicine advocates as particularly effective for safely reducing the severity of menopausal symptoms. Is it any safer than the hormones that were found to be so dangerous for women in the Women’s Health trial (WHI) that caused the government to shut down the trial prematurely?

While it hasn’t been well-studied in North America, estriol has been the subject of numerous studies in Europe, all of which have found estriol to be both safe and effective. Estriol is a weak estrogen. In high doses it is effective for treating hot flashes and other symptoms of menopause. It also is believed to help in maintaining bone density and preventing osteoporosis. Some practitioners of alternative medicine prefer to use a combination of three bio-identical forms of estrogen: estrone, estradiol, and estriol (Tri-Est), for menopause symptom control.

Often, a natural progesterone cream is prescribed along with the estrogen compound, theoretically, to protect the uterus from the effects of estrogen. However, progesterone creams are not well enough absorbed to provide this protection, according to the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals (ARHP). Instead, the Association recommends using an oral form of progestin for protection against endometrial cancer (cancers of the lining of the uterus) common in postmenopausal women. Although estriol is promoted as a form of estrogen that does not cause cancer, some gynecologists feel that there isn’t enough clear evidence to support the claim that it is safer than estrodiol or other synthetic forms of estrogen.

The Search for a Miracle Treatment Continues

So far, no one has found a magic bullet that can safely treat the symptoms of menopause that some women find difficult to tolerate. Natural hormones, like synthetic ones, are powerful drugs with health risks as well as possible benefits. However, there are other approaches besides hormones that you can rely on to reduce the discomforts of menopause, including dietary and lifestyle changes.

Recently, the FDA, at the behest of Wyeth, maker of Prempro, the synthetic hormone pill used in the WHI trial, tried to ban the use of estriol in women’s hormone therapies. According to Christiane Northrup, M.D., who has been called America’s favorite gynocologist:

‘Last January, the FDA announced that estriol could no longer be used in estrogen medications customized for women by compounding pharmacies. Estriol has long been a component of 90 percent or more of these customized preparations prescribed for women by their doctors. But in a big win for a woman’s right to choose her best health care options, Congress resolved to protect the doctor-patient relationship from FDA interference!’

A victory for consumers! If the FDA had succeeded in banning estriol, women would be left with no choice but synthetic hormones, known to pose grave health risks for them.

Not all men experience a drop in testosterone levels and sperm counts between the ages of 45 and 55, the time of life considered male menopause. Some men remain sexually active until 80 or older. Others find that at midlife, while struggling with heart problems, prostate disease, or diabetes, they suffer from fluctuating hormone levels, low libido, and depression.

Unlike menopause in women, men do not experience specific events like hot flashes and similar symptoms signaling the start of andropause. The only way to know for sure that a man is going through male menopause is by testing hormone levels, sperm counts, and other biochemical indicators of men’s health.

Body, Mind and Spirit

In general, characteristics of andropause tend to be similar to those of male aging. The most common signs are: reduced sex drive, infertility, decrease in spontaneous erections, loss of pubic or body hair, swollen breasts, small or shrinking testes, height loss, thinning bones, reduced muscle mass, sleep apnea or other sleep problems, mild anemia, and increased abdominal fat.

From a behavioral perspective, men often lose their self-confidence and motivation to stay engaged and committed to a career or relationship at this time. They may feel sad or depressed, have increasing difficulty concentrating and remembering things, as well as staying on task. Taken together, the changes suggest falling hormone levels and a growing sense of personal powerlessness. This change of life for men is typically interpreted in our culture as a “midlife crisis.”

Taking Ownership

It can take a medical crisis to get a man’s attention, and then they may rely too much on physicians to tell them what is wrong. In doing so, men give up personal responsibility for looking out for themselves, and distance themselves from their feelings and condition. Men can become desensitized to their dysfunctions and pay too little attention to what they are eating, drinking, and doing. They may think they are taking care of themselves by remembering to get their annual medical examination. But while given tests such as, PSAs (prostate), cholesterol, and stress EKG (heart), with valuable information charted and kept on file about their health, tests don’t really get at what is wrong. If the test results are within normal limits, men may use that as a rationale for not paying attention to their bodies, heads, and hearts for another year.

Andropause as a New Beginning

Every major change in life is an opportunity to deconstruct past choices and reconstruct your life so it makes more sense for you now. When you make these types of changes, losses can turn into gains, and victimhood into courageous rebirth. For most men, the greatest opportunity for change occurs between the late thirties and mid-forties. Because each person is unique genetically, physically, socially, and psychologically, no two men will have exactly the same needs, vision, or desires, nor see the same path to opportunity. But the challenge alone can ignite your fires, if you take it on.

The most difficult thing to do is to trust your inner recognition of the need for change, and not let fear or uncertainty hold you back. Fear of the unknown is what knocks most of us off our game. Self-transformation requires a willingness to put your life on the line instead of continuing to play it safe, to risk everything and gamble on the moves that feed your dreams. Trust that you have an onboard computer that will give you feedback on your situation, and provide guidance on how to program your body for optimal health and satisfaction. But you have to tune in in order to hear it.

To begin changing your life, start by looking in the mirror at your physical body. Choose what you would like to change first. Is it your weight, your energy and stamina, or your upper body strength? If you choose to lose weight and start eating smarter, you will see and feel results in a matter of days. If your choice is to exercise regularly, within one week you will feel more energetic, balanced, and flexible. The only limit to what you can accomplish is your imagination and your commitment to change. Your body has an almost unlimited potential for reshaping and reconfiguring.

Our job as humans is to understand the operating system that is our body in order to cooperate with it effectively. The body has the ability to regenerate almost all of its cells every year. It also has the capacity to maintain functioning even in extreme conditions. However, if your mind feeds it the wrong information by your attitude, it can derail itself almost instantaneously. As an operating system, body and mind work together only as well as the nourishment, instructions, and information fed into them.

Is it Andropause?

Experts say that as many as 5 million men may be experiencing andropause now. But is it andropause or something else? The symptoms of testosterone deficiency are hard to distinguish from common chronic diseases that affect men in midlife, such as liver disease, kidney problems, and underactive thyroids. Side effects of medications can cause similar symptoms, and so can excessive alcohol and drug use. Dramatic life changes such as divorce, job loss, financial problems and serious illness can turn your life upside down and be a real “downer.”

Andropause Treatments

Testosterone therapy may seem like a quick fix for these problems, but the benefits are not well defined and the treatments could trigger prostate cancer. For men with very low hormone levels, testosterone replacement therapy might be warranted over the short-term, but it isn’t appropriate for all aging men. For men with prostate or heart problems, testosterone supplements could carry risks similar to those of women exposed to hormone replacement therapy.

Herbal supplements and tonics are widely marketed to men in midlife with claims that they relieve symptoms of testosterone deficiency, but so far, none of the claims have borne out, and some of these supplements may interfere with other medications. Before taking supplements that promise rejuvenation in a capsule, check with your physician. While you may not be able to rev up your life with a pill or potion, there are some things you can do to improve your health and your zest for living.

Here are a few tips:

1. Learn to let go of “what’s eating you,” and to honestly express the deeply held feelings and fears stored deep in your gut.
2. Find a relaxation exercise that you can practice regularly. Examples that have been shown to lower blood pressure and prevent stroke are meditation and the practice of Qi Gong, a Chinese gentle martial art and moving meditation.
3. Men who are self-critical, angry, hostile, who fear losing control, have sleep issues, or have so-called Type A behaviors, have significantly higher risk of heart attacks. Divorced, widowed, separated, and men living alone who are not in intimate relationships also have higher risks. To heal your “hardened” heart, holistic physicians recommend eating a preventive, heart-healthy diet.
4. Another recommendation is to become more socially and romantically involved and less isolated and lonely.
5. Practice giving and receiving love, and forgiving yourself for prior acts of neglect or unkindness. It is time for men to “ask for directions and give women a break,” says Bernie Siegal, MD, author of Love, Medicine, and Miracles.

Ready for the next steps? Go to, Food, Hormones, and Lifestyle and follow that with Foreplay for Workouts.

Working Up to Working Out

Here are some important tips for making your menopause workout regimen a success:

1. Get plenty of sleep. You don’t want to start exercising when you are sleep-deprived. It will lead to injuries because when you are deficient in sleep, your adrenaline and cortisol levels are higher and your control and focus may be off.
2. Stay hydrated. Drink plenty of water before, during, and after exercising. When you are dehydrated, your heart has to work harder to get the blood to carry oxygen to all your tissues. Dehydration also means that your body will make higher levels of adrenoline and cortisol, and exercising with higher levels causes your body to use up stores of protein, fat, and sugar at a faster rate.
3. Do light stretching for five minutes before working out, and stretch for at least 10 minutes at the end of your exercise.
4. Breathe! We all forget to breathe. Our breathing should be regular and deep, coming from the abdominal area. When you breathe in, you should feel your diaphragm expanding and when you breathe out your diaphragm should spring back in. Breathe out in the part of the exercise that takes the most effort, such as lifting a weight or hitting a tennis ball. Breathe in during the recovery phase of an exercise. Proper breathing will keep oxygen flowing to the cells, decrease tension and tightness, and improve performance with less strain
5. Eat well. Do not lower you calorie intake, or eliminate meals, foods or food groups. The purpose of exercise and eating is regeneration. It takes both to reshape your body.
6. Work out in the morning. Many people attest, and research confirms, that the best time to exercise is first thing in the morning. It makes you feel good for the rest of the day. Early morning exercising increases the likelihood that you will be consistent and stick with the program for years, not months. It’s not that exercising later in the day is bad for you, it’s not, but there is more that can interrupt your good intentions at the end of a long, hard day. However, if you find it easier to exercise at the end of the day because that’s when your buddy can join you or because you don’t have to worry about how you look in the office after you work out, then don’t change your routine. Do what works for you.

Level One — For the Exercise-Challenged

Start slowly if you haven’t been exercising for a while.

Two types of exercises should be part of your initial routine. The first type are resistance/adaptive exercises, which involve working your muscles against a force. Examples are swimming, weight training, recumbent bicycling, resistance bands, and Pilates. It is recommended that you engage in these activities for 15 to 30 minutes, 5 to 7 days a week.

The second type of exercise, flexibility/calming exercises, is focused on elongating your muscles and/or calming you down. Included are yoga, stretching exercises, easy walking, and rowing. You should focus on these exercises for 30 to 60 minutes, three times a week.

This may seem like a lot to do at a time when you are trying to find your new voice and place in the world, while navigating the menopausal changes in your body and mood swings. One reason working out is highly recommended for men and women undergoing “The Change,” is because it is a mood elevator. When you are in one of those moments (days or weeks) when life feels crazy and chaotic, take a break, go for a walk or to the gym to work out! Exercise clears the mind, energizes your spirit, and empowers you to walk through fire and ice.

Level One-A — For the Not-So-Challenged

When you feel you can handle it comfortabl, after a few weeks at Level One, add a third type of exercise: cardiovascular/stimulating exercise, such as walking at a fast pace, running, playing soccer, volleyball, or tennis, or dancing, for 15 to 30 minutes, 2 to 3 times a week.

When you’ve done all three types of exercise long enough for them to feel less challenging, it is probably time to add more of a challenge. How you do that is up to you. One way is to seek out a trainer or guide who knows how to help you work harder without stressing you out. You don’t have to enroll in boot camp. The idea is living better; having the wrong trainer can make you hate every moment of a workout because someone is pushing you beyond your ability for end results which are theirs, not yours.

Ready for the next challenge? Go to Exercise Smarter Not Harder.

Good luck!

A furor broke out in the media and in doctors’ offices In 2002 when the news came out that the most important government study of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) ever undertaken, the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI), was stopped midway through the trial because of observations that healthy women in the study who were given HRT were at much greater risk for breast cancer, heart attacks, stroke, and blood clots.

The WHI was launched in 1991 and consisted of a set of clinical trials and an observational study of 161,000 healthy postmenopausal women. The trial was designed to test the effects of postmenopausal hormone therapy, diet modification, and calcium and vitamin D supplements on heart disease, fractures, and breast and colorectal cancers.

The hormone trial had two parts: an estrogen-alone study, and an estrogen-plus-progestin study. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) stopped the estrogen-plus-progestin study prematurely in light of the disastrous findings of high rates of life-threatening chronic diseases in the treated group compared to significantly lower rates in the control group.

Women’s health groups had lobbied for this clinical trial for over a decade based on concerns about the questionable way HRT was being marketed and widely prescribed for healthy menopausal women. While HRT was considered beneficial for short-term relief of menopausal symptoms, such as hot flashes, night sweats, and loss of libido, longer-term use of HRT (5 years or longer) was commonly being prescribed for all women, not just for those with severe symptoms, when that was medically unjustified and potentially hazardous, according to the critics. It turned out the critics were right.

The results of the WHI trial confirmed that taking estrogen and progestin long-term by healthy women hugely increased women’s risks for fatal chronic diseases:

• strokes: 41%,
• heart attacks: 29%,
• blood clots: 200%,
• heart disease: 22%,
• breast and uterine cancer: 26%.

According to the WHI researchers, the study results meant that given the great numbers of women treated with HRT in the US and Canada, tens of thousands of women, were now at increased risk for deadly diseases that otherwise would have posed little threat. As a result of the interrupted WHI trial, the FDA now requires Wyeth, the manufacturer of Prempro, the drug used in the trial that combined synthetic estrogen and progestin, to include a black box warning on the drug package and promotional material.

In 2004, the NIH stopped the estrogen-only branch of the WHI study. 11,000 healthy postmenopausal women who had a hysterectomy were given estrogen pills and monitored for an average of 7 years. After careful review of the data, NIH concluded that estrogen alone does not appear to affect (either increasing or decreasing) the risk of heart disease. But at the same time, estrogen alone did seem to increase the risk of stroke. It did not appear to increase the risk of breast cancer, called an uncertain effect, and it showed a modest beneficial effect on bones with fewer hip fractures in treated women compared to untreated women in the control group.

This interrupted hormone (HRT) trial demonstrates the dangers of widespread prescribing of risky drugs to healthy people before the drugs are thoroughly tested in clinical trials. It is an egregious example of marketing trumping science in the practice of medicine.

Six years after the release of the WHI findings, the drugmaker’s ads for synthetic hormone therapy can still be found in all media. Will patients and physicians know enough about the WHI results to withstand the siren calls of the marketers? It will depend on how diligent physicians are in educating their patients. It will also depend on how women view menopause: as a natural life transition or a disorder that needs fixing. Patients will have to judge whether their symptoms are severe or manageable, and whether they and their physicians know enough about the benefits of alternative therapies, to trust their reported advantages.

According to Dr. Susan Lark, a well-known gynecologist and breast cancer researcher, relief is possible without resorting to conventional hormone therapy. To bring estrogen back into balance and get menopausal symptoms under control, Lark has had good results with a combination of diet, nutritional supplements, stress reduction techniques, and natural hormone support.