Archive for the 'Menopause' Category

One of the major changes in a woman’s life, menopause refers to a permanent end of menstruation and fertilization ability.

The changes that menopause brings in a woman’s life range from physical and emotional to psychological symptoms.

The process of menstruation begins with the stoppage or slowing down of production of the hormones estrogen and progesterone by the ovaries.

As your hormone level declines, the tissues that line the vagina and the urethra (the opening of the urinary bladder) become thin, dry and lose their suppleness.

Thus, lubrication decreases and leads to itching as well as a burning sensation. Moreover, it increases the risk of infections such as urinary tract or vaginal infection. Frequent urination, urinary incontinence also occasionally develops.

On the other hand, if you are in menopause stage, you can experience hot flashes, sleep disturbances, insomnia, decreased sexual desire, irregular periods, headache, joint aches, irritability, fatigue, night sweats, trouble concentrating, bloating, and heavy bleeding during periods due to the effects of physical, emotional and psychological changes in women during menopause.

As every woman experiences menopause differently, the occurrence of these effects also differ from individual to individual.

Nearly one third of all American women are between the ages of 40 and 60, which means more than 37 million women are most likely in the midst of the menopause transition.

Three out of four women transitioning into this period experience hot flashes, characterized by a feeling of mild warmth, a flushed appearance with red blotchy skin, rapid heartbeat, perspiration or a chilled feeling.

Women may experience hot flashes for a couple or several years. There is a range of severity and frequency in hot flashes.

Some women may just feel a little warmer than usual on occasion, or could experience several uncomfortable episodes throughout the day and night. Night sweats can wake some women from a sound sleep, creating lack of rest.

“If the hot flashes are severe and interrupting your life and you are not responding to common remedies or lifestyle changes such as diet and exercise, then perhaps it is time to discuss with your physician prescription options such as low-dose estrogen therapies,” says Dr. James Simon, Clinical Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Low-dose estrogen therapies have become a growing trend in medical publications, and in fact, many newspapers and magazines now encourage their use.

A U.S. study says women who have more than five alcoholic drinks at one sitting are at increased risk of having unsafe sex and contracting sexually transmitted diseases.

Researchers at John Hopkins University medical school in Baltimore looked at the correlation between binge drinking and risky sexual behaviors in women.

They interviewed patients at an urban clinic for sexually transmitted infections to explore the link.

In their study, the researchers found that women who binge drink are at increased risk of practicing unsafe sex, including having multiple partners and engaging in anal sex, leading to high rates of gonorrhea.

“The link between binge drinking and risky sexual behavior is complex,” said Heidi Hutton, assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the medical school and an author of the study.

“We wanted to examine one component of that relationship, whether binge drinking increased the risk of engaging in sexual behaviors and having STDs. We found … that binge drinking increased STD risk for women.”

“Binge drinking results in a decreased ability to make clear decisions,” noted Geetanjali Chander, assistant professor of medicine in the division of general internal medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, “and can enable individuals to engage in behaviors that they would not if sober.

Before menopause, women have a blood pressure advantage. Women’s blood pressure starts out lower than men’s, but the advantage doesn’t last.

Women’s systolic pressure — the top number in the blood pressure reading and the one that’s more closely associated with heart disease risk and stroke in people over age 50 — increases by about 5 millimeters of mercury (mm Hg) with menopause.

A study done between 2001 and 2003 among people over age 60 showed that women had a higher systolic blood pressure than did men in every state in America.

According to the report, women tended to think they didn’t have high blood pressure when, in fact, they did.

For healthy adults, blood pressure less than 120/80 mm Hg is desirable. Untreated high blood pressure can cause the heart to work too hard. As a result, the walls of arteries can harden and impede blood flow. Restricted blood flow can lead to stroke, heart attack, heart failure, kidney failure and dementia.

When blood pressure rises above normal, it’s essential to work with a doctor on a treatment plan to control the condition. The plan might include medications as well as these basic steps. Even one can make a significant difference in blood pressure.

A study has found that as women begin to enter menopause, their risk of developing a collection of heart disease risk factors appears to climb.

Researchers found that among 949 U.S. women followed for nearly a decade, the risk of developing metabolic syndrome increased during perimenopause — the years during which a woman’s body begins to transition into menopause, usually starting somewhere in her 40s.

Metabolic syndrome refers to this cluster of risk factors for heart disease, stroke and diabetes — including high blood pressure, abdominal obesity, high blood sugar, low levels of ”good” HDL cholesterol and high triglycerides (another type of blood fat).

The syndrome is usually diagnosed when a person has three or more of these traits.

The new findings, appear to be the first showing that the incidence of metabolic syndrome begins to rise during perimenopause.

More specifically, the study found, the risk is related to increases in testosterone activity.

The “main message” here for women is that maintaining a healthy lifestyle may be especially critical during perimenopause, lead researcher Dr. Imke Janssen, of Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, told Reuters Health.

Read more at MSNBC

It’s an inevitable truth: as we get older, our muscles deteriorate and we become weaker.

Not only can this be an immensely frustrating change, but it can also have many other, more serious implications.

We become clumsier and begin to have more falls, often resulting in broken bones or even more severe injuries.

Now one study, led by Dr Alexandra Sanger from the University of Salzburg, is taking a new approach: scientists are examining the effects of different exercise regimes in menopausal women, with the aim of developing new strategies for delaying and reducing the initial onset of age related muscle deterioration.

Dr Sanger’s research group has investigated two particular methods of physical training.

Hypertrophy resistance training is a traditional approach designed to induce muscle growth whereas ‘SuperSlow’ is a more recently devised system which involves much slower movement and fewer repetitions of exercises, and was originally introduced especially for beginners and for rehabilitation.

“Our results indicate that both methods increase muscle mass at the expense of connective and fatty tissue, but contrary to expectations, the SuperSlow method appears to have the greatest effect,” reveals Dr Sanger.

A new study by Finnish researchers suggests that postmenopausal women with fibromyalgia seem to have less physical strength and endurance than healthy women, so they might benefit from an appropriate training program.

Some research in premenopausal women has found lower-than-normal muscle strength and aerobic capacity, the researchers add, but fitness has not been investigated in postmenopausal women with fibromyalgia.

Fibromyalgia, which is characterized by pain, fatigue and difficulty sleeping, is most common in women after menopause, Heli Valkeinen of the University of Jyvaskyla and her colleagues note in a report in the International Journal of Sports Medicine, but most studies have focused on women 50 and younger.

To determine whether women with fibromyalgia might experience a steeper decline in physical fitness after menopause than their healthy peers, the researchers looked at 23 women with the condition and a comparison group of 11 similar but fibromyalgia-free women.

There was no difference between fibromyalgia patients and healthy women in upper body strength, but the women with fibromyalgia did have less muscle strength in their legs.

Upon exercise testing, the women in the fibromyalgia group reached exhaustion at a lower maximal heart rate, but oxygen uptake was the same in both groups.

Understand how menstruation, pregnancy and menopause affect a woman’s sleep and how to minimize these conditions for improving sleep.

Women face difficulty in falling and staying asleep than men.

They also experience more daytime sleepiness. Poor concentration, poor performance at job and school and increased illnesses can result with lack of sleep.

Many issues can affect women’s sleep. Hormone level changes, illness, stress, lifestyle and sleep environment are some of the issues. Some unique conditions such as menstrual cycle, pregnancy and menopause can interfere with quality of sleep in women.

Phases of menstrual cycle and their effects on sleep:

50 percent of women face sleep problems during menstrual cycle. Changes in fluctuating levels of hormones present in menstrual cycle before ovulation, during ovulation and after ovulation can interfere with the quality of sleep.

Understand your menstrual cycle phases:

Before ovulation: Disturbances in sleep can occur before ovulation that is from 1st day to 12th day of menstrual periods in some women. Menstrual period continues for five days. Egg ripens in the ovary after the end of the period. During the period of menstrual bleeding, you will get less sleep.