Archive for the 'Menopause' Category

Up until a few years ago, most cardiovascular studies were directed at older males.

However, in the past few decades, it has become very apparent that cardiovascular disease has become the leading cause of death in women over fifty years of age.

Recently, it has been discovered that certain occurrences during menopause, have an impact on the development of heart disease. The increase of certain fats within the blood, can lead to cardiovascular problems.

However, women who have a family history of heart diseases, or a previous blockage, will be at greater risk.

How Does Menopause Affect Heart Disease?

During menopause, the fat levels within a woman’s blood will increase. The fats are called lipids, and cholesterol levels are calculated by determining the number of lipids in a unit of blood.

There are two specific types of cholesterol that can affect the development of heart disease. These types are HDL and LDL. HDL, or high density lipoprotein, is beneficial. It works to clean the blood and eliminate excess fat.

However, LDL stands for low density lipoprotein. This component works to make fat stick to the walls of the arteries, within the body. When this fat causes the passageway to become blocked, a heart attack can occur.

During menopause, when women’s estrogen levels decrease significantly, weight often begins to increase.

Losing weight during and after menopause is a difficult undertaking for many women. A new synthetic hormone treatment might change that.

A recent study looked at three groups of healthy, postmenopausal women. One group, the control group, received no treatment.

A second group received conventional hormone replacement therapy with conjugated estrogen and medroxyprogesterone acetate. A third group received Tibolone, a synthetic hormone.

After six months, women in the control group had gained weight. Their levels of leptin, the natural hormone that is responsible for regulating fat metabolism, were decreased.

Lower levels of leptin may explain the tendency of women to gain weight after menopause. The women who received conventional hormone therapy kept their weight consistent, and their leptin levels were higher.

The women in the Tibolone group had decreased leptin levels, but they also had decreased total fat, decreased body fat percentages and an increase in lean muscle mass. The last one is especially significant as lean muscle mass helps the body burn more calories.

It is too soon to know if Tibolone will replace conventional hormone replacement therapy, but it may offer hope to menopausal women who struggle with their weight.

For many women, the hot flashes that accompany menopause are one of the worst symptoms.

If you need help with hot flashes, but you do not want to take medication or hormone replacement therapy, here are some good things to try.

• Choose clothing made from natural fibers that breathe, or synthetics especially designed to wick moisture away from your skin.
• Control your environment as much as you can. A small fan under your desk or located near you can be a big help.
• Avoid stimulants such as caffeine, alcohol and spicy food.
• Avoid hot baths or showers just before bed.
• Try shower products and body lotions with peppermint or menthol in them, which have a cooling effect on the skin.
• Some women find taking Vitamin E in doses of 800 IU a day helpful.
• No one is absolutely certain whether or not soy protein helps. You can try up to 60 grams of soy protein a day (sources include soy milk, tofu, edamame, tempeh, roasted soy nuts) to see if it works for you.
• Natural progesterone creams can help, but their strength varies considerably. Read and follow label directions.

Have you entered into your 30’s? Then menopause can strike your life at any time.

Menopause is inevitable, but following simple things can help to combat the symptoms.

Tips for menopause relief

1. Avoid hot flashes without hormonal therapy

Women who follow a small workout regimen are at an increased risk of menopausal symptoms. If you do not generally exercise, it is time to start your new workout regimen. Brisk walking will greatly help to boost your metabolic rate.

Make sure room temperatures don’t exceed 20 degrees to reduce the chances of the menopausal hot flash. Stop drinking alcohol and caffeine that make you feel even better.

Eat foods high in vitamin E and soya products and take supplements for evening primrose oil. If stress is your main cause of hot flashes, try relaxation techniques such as meditation and deep breathing.

2. Avoiding inevitable weight gain

Follow the basics for a balanced healthy diet. As you age, calorie consumption should be in limited quantities. For example, in your 40’s, you need 250 calories less than the usual consumption.

Naturally, bones themselves break down and rebuild on a daily basis.

Once women enter into their 30s, building of the bone outweighs breakdown and begins to lose bone density.

Most research maintains that not only the estrogen hormone and calcium are responsible for bone loss, but also various other factors that lead to bone loss during menopause.

Within 5-7 years after the last menstrual period, your bone loss slows down.

The most concerning part is a few years before and a few years after the last menstrual period; during this period, there are a lot of things you can do to preserve the bone health.

Tips to preserve bone health after menopause

Nutrition must be the first priority:

You can increase the nutrition quality through various methods. One is taking high quality supplements to preserve bone health. Mainly focus on nutrition that increases vitamin D and vitamin K levels.

Vitamin D: Vitamin D is essential to absorb the calcium in your intestines and to metabolize calcium. Vitamin D plays a great role during menopause. Decreased estrogen levels during menopause cause increased production of parathyroid hormone, which again leads to bone breakdown.

As women enter the stage of menopause most of them experience various unpleasant symptoms which are directly related to this change.

Weight gain (Menopause Weight gain)is the more obvious amongst the troubles caused by menopause, and it is precisely associated to the alteration in ovulation and the insulin-resistant factor.

Women who ovulate use more energy, in terms of calories, than women during menopause.

To avoid putting on weight, menopausal women must readjust to their new energetic requirements, and must consider decreasing their calorie intake of about 300 per day.

With age the body spontaneously becomes resistant to insulin, more so with women in menopause. This factor brings on the onset of weight gain, for it is directly related.

Other disturbing symptoms during menopause are hot flashes, insomnia, lower bone density, variations of mood and vaginal dryness; most of these can be lessened by regular exercise.

In a research relating to menopausal troubles and cardio-respiratory fitness, it was found that there is a definite correlation between the two, and that those women who carry out regular exercises complain less of the usual troubles compared to those who do not exercise at all.

A report by the Archives of Internal Medicine stated that diet supplements such as minerals and vitamins should not be distributed on the market, for they have proved ineffectual in reducing the risk of various forms of cancer or heart disease (heart disease in women)

A research was conducted on more than 160,000 women during a period of more than eight years, in order to determine the levels of cancer risk, bone and heart deficiencies in women who are in the period of menopause.

The research found that those women taking some type of multivitamin supplement did not in any way reduce the risk of incurring in various types of cancer as opposed to those who did not.

Problems such as strokes, heart attacks or other associated ailments were neither prevented nor reduced by the consumption of these multivitamin supplements.

Nevertheless, it was demonstrated that there were less cases of heart attacks in those women taking specific vitamins, including vitamin B and C supplements, although there were not many.

Multivitamin supplements may help in cases of deficiency in certain vitamins or minerals for those people with diets poor in nutrients, however, they will in no way prevent common heart diseases or forms of cancer.

According to the recent report, use of loop diuretics doesn’t seem to be related with changes in bone mineral density, fractures and falls in postmenopausal women.

However, prolonged use may raise the risk of falls or fractures in this group.

Loop diuretics are usually prescribed for congestive heart failure treatment. These particular agents increases calcium excretion and in some studies it has been shown that hypercalciuria is related with low bone mineral density, which is the major risk factor for falls and consequently fractures.

For most of the post menopausal women, developing heart failure and osteoporosis (osteoporosis prevention)are particular health concerns.

Most of the women experience fractures related to osteoporosis in their entire course of life time and almost one in five women are at risk of developing heart diseases or heart failure at the age of 40.

According to study led by Laura D. Carbone, M.D., M.S., of the University Of Tennessee Health Science Center, Memphis, and her colleagues, no significant differences were found between non users of diuretics and changes in bone mineral density, falls or fractures in postmenopausal women (women fitness).