In recent years, more menopausal women are turning their back on hormone replacement treatments (HRT) and looking to complementary medicine for relief from their symptoms.
Most women at this time can experience a varying amount of ailments including night sweats, leg cramps, insomnia and most commonly hot flushes. The latter can be the most visible and the cause of most embarrassment amongst females of this age.
Dr. Myeong Soo Lee at the Institute of Oriental Medicine has discovered that acupuncture does not help ease hot flushes or even reduce their instances. His team based in South Korea randomly looked at half a dozen studies separated between actual acupuncture procedures and someone pretending to do it.
In most cases, no difference was seen in subsequent examinations after a month, in fact, there was only one instance where an improvement was seen by a participant of the study. It seems to indicate that more natural treatments don’t necessarily provide relief for women at this difficult time.
The President of the International Menopause Society believes that women should always consult their doctor before any treatment. Dr David Sturdee, on reading the findings published in the Climacteric journal, said that during the menopause women need to find what is right for them and their own needs may not be met by alternative medicines.
Just because certain therapies work for some conditions, there is no actual evidence to support their use for the menopausal women. The best advice that women can have is to take each new symptom one at a time and to stay positive.
