Posts Tagged "menopause"

Viva la sweats!

Posted by Liz on Nov 16, 2009 in hot flash, nightsweats | 0 comments

Night sweats, that is! I never thought that I’d write that but it does seem that having night sweats may actually save your life someday.

Reporting in the September/October issue of Menopause, Norwegian researchers followed up on over 800 women in menopause who had previously provided information about lifestyle and menopausal history (including vasomotor symptoms). Of the 73% of women who reported having hot flashes, 39% also reported night sweats. Women reporting both were shown to have a 28% lower risk of dying from any causes over the next 20 years. A reduced risk of dying remained even after the researchers made adjustments for past or current hormone use, body mass index, physical exercise and smoking.

Will these data make me stop the herbs and start sweating away my nights? No. But it’s good to know that vasomotor symptoms, such as night sweats, may have a role beyond “nuisance,” “disruptive,” “mood changing” and sheet-ruining!

Wednesday Bubble: Equol-ity

Posted by Liz on Nov 4, 2009 in herbal medicine, hot flash | 0 comments

Not bursting this one. At least not yet….

Last January, I shared some news on a key component in a type of isoflavone known as Daidzein. The component, S-equol, is produced by some people by the bacteria that lives in their intestines after eating soybeans and soy foods. Japanese women who produce S-equol naturally have been shown to have milder menopausal symptoms.

No wonder I was excited to see more information about S-equol coming out of September’s North American Menopause Society meeting. This time, researchers asked 320 postmenopausal women complaining of at least one hot flash a day to take a 10 mg equol supplement or a placebo tablet for 12 weeks. Menopausal symptoms were evaluated before and after taking the equol supplement, both by questionnaire and by a visual scale.

The findings are encouraging, as it appears that taking a daily equol supplement significantly reduced the frequency of hot flashes by as much as 58%. Women taking the supplement also reported declines in neck and shoulder stiffness. What’s more, no side effects were reported. However, while menopausal symptoms scores improved overall, S-equol did not appear to affect night sweats, mood issues or quality of life.

Obviously, S-equol is not yet available for mass consumption and only time will tell if these benefits can be duplicated in larger groups of women. Still, it’s nice to know that plant-based compounds are slowly proving their worth in the quest to find non-pharmaceuticals to alleviate menopausal symptoms. I’m all for equality when it comes to solutions for menopause and equol has my vote so far!

The domino effect

Posted by Liz on Oct 26, 2009 in emotions, hot flash, menopause, nightsweats, sleep disturbance | 2 comments

I’ve never heard of the term ‘Domino Effect’ being applied to menopause, although, if one thinks about it, it makes perfect sense. For example, hot flashes beget sleep disruptions beget mood swings, and so on and and so on.

But do they?

In a study published in Menopause Journal ahead-of-print,  55 women were asked to keep daily records of their symptoms for up to five years or until they fully entered menopause. whichever came first. The researchers then evaluated whether or not changes in hot flashes or night sweats would predict a change in sleep the very same day, and if these changes then predicted changes in moods the next day. They also factored in whether or not women were initially depressed to insure that any results they found would not be unduly influenced.

They found that daily hot flashes or night sweats accurately predicted same day sleep problems and disruptions, which in turn, worsened moods the next day. However, the researchers were unable to connect hot flashes and night sweats directly to shifts in mood without this interim step except for in women who were already mildly depressed.

Are you confused yet?

What this really shows is that while night flashes and hot sweats may affect overall mood swings during menopause, the reason is unlikely to be attributed directly to sleep disruption but rather to some other mechanism. In the long run, this may allow lead to better interventions that individually address these factors so that the sum of the parts becomes a more positive sense of well-being regardless of any physical disruptions.

Every action has a chain reaction. Hopefully, this finding will lead to something positive for us all.

Burn Baby Burn….reposted

Posted by Liz on Oct 22, 2009 in menopause | 2 comments

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Last year, I wrote a post about burning mouth syndrome. I am reposting it today because a reader commented that there is an informational questionnaire that many of you may be interested in. Here’s the link. By sharing your experiences, perhaps the sponsors can find a common thread among women who suffer from burning mouth syndrome and an effective treatment.

In my last post, I mentioned that menopause has been linked to altered sensitivity in the roof of the mouth and a decreased ability to detect sweet taste. Interestingly, I heard from a friend that she recently started experiencing a burning sensation in her mouth and that her doctors have been attributing it to menopause. Say what?!

Seems that the Queen Bee of Menopause, the Sister of Love and Destruction, the Lady of Light and Dark, estrogen herself, is wreaking havoc on more than the tastebuds.

I was intrigued so I did a search. I found over 500 articles in the National Library of Medicine Database, PubMed, and also located this article in the journal American Family Physician.

Although burning mouth syndrome primarily appears to primarily affect women after menopause, some 10% to 40% of women in menopause can suffer from its effects. These may may include burning in the tongue or oral mucus membranes, dry mouth and taste alterations.

The causes of burning mouth syndrome range from depression and anxiety to underlying illness, high glucose levels and of course, hormones. Researchers have also identified alterations in the cranial sacral nerves that serve taste and pain sensations as possible culprits.

Currently, unproven treatments include benzodiazapines, antidepressants, anticonvulsants and capsaicin. However, I’m wondering whether or not craniosacral therapy might offer an alternative to women who don’t want to go the drug route. Mind you, there are lots of naysayers out there who claim that CST is quakery but having used it successfully for pain, I am a huge fan.

A fellow blogger also directed me to this extensive site on burning mouth syndrome. I can’t vouch for its content but it is definitely worth checking out for backgrounding purposes. Do you suffer from Burning Mouth Syndrome? What are you doing to treat your symptoms? Inquiring minds want to know!

Ladies of the world, flashers, sweat-ers, mood swingers…it’s World Menopause Day!

Posted by Liz on Oct 18, 2009 in menopause | 4 comments

Lend me your ears….you have your own DAY! In the U.S. we give you a month. But the world gives you a day!  And it’s TODAY!  I wrote this rant last  year and it’s still so appropriate that I thought I’d repost it.

I wish I could laugh about it. Because as my Twitter friend @lilpecan wrote me yesterday:

“Who doesn’t enjoy a little menopause humour? (No, really? Who doesn’t? Because I’ll kill them.)” (Gotta love that, right?!)

In any case, my thoughts about World Menopause Day. Kill it!

Last month was National Menopause Month in the U.S. Now, the ‘world of women in menopause’ actually has a day. I swear if it weren’t abundantly clear that the initiative was likely being driven by national medicine societies and pharmaceutical companies, I’d suspect that Hallmark and PaperHouse had conspired to sell more cards.

Here’s the challenge issued by the International Menopause Society (IMS):

“The World Menopause Day challenge therefore calls on every woman age 45 and older to return to her physician and speak about her individual health history, her risks for diseases, the benefits and risks of available treatments for disease prevention, and steps she can take now to take charge of her health.”

President Hermann Schneider of the IMS also says:

“Due to the recent publications on the risks of long-term use of hormone therapy, many women suffering from menopausal complaints have either dropped out of therapy or haven’t started therapy at all.”

Okay. I truly believe that it’s a great idea to take charge of one’s health and examine some of the natural changes that occur, not only with menopause, but also with aging. But by lumping them all together in a single pot, well, I cry “foul.”

Did you know that many diseases that the medical community has long associated with menopause are, in fact, due to the aging process? You may recall that I recently wrote about a new study published in the Journal of Hypertension clearly demonstrates that differences in heart disease risk between pre- and post-menopausal women with similar risk profiles existed only when age, NOT ESTROGEN LEVELS, were accounted for. This may be why hormone replacement therapy (HRT) has not been proven to prevent heart disease.

So, until they sort some of these bits out, do we really want to fault women for refusing hormone replacement? Moreover, how many women wish to make a pact with the devil to further the medicalization of menopause? Not I!

Here’s what I propose:

• To the IMS and other medical societies – stop medicalizing what is a natural transition in our mid-lives. Hey, here’s a nifty idea: why not review your data, read alternative medicine peer-reviewed journals and educate yourselves about effective alternative therapies for your patients who have been scared off by the negative findings surrounding HRT and antidepressants and other pharmaceuticals? What’s more, what if you made a greater effort to embrace multidisciplinary collaboration and invite educated and credentialed alternative practitioners into your fold, practitioners who might be able to offer you and your patients important solutions when Western ways fail or are simply, impractical?
• To the World Health Organization – please stop telling us to celebrate the menopause. Trust me – when women are flashing in the middle of a meeting, sweat pouring down their faces as their colleagues look on, or are sleeping on soaking wet sheets because of night sweats, well, they don’t really feel like having a cocktail and a “WOOT,” ain’t life grand”-sort of celebration. Maybe, instead, think about devoting some of that hard research cash toward studies that focus first on women and last on profit.
• To leading women’s health expert and Council Member of the British Menopause Society, Mr. Nick Panay, a Hot Flush Diary is the last thing I want to keep on my nightstand. In fact, the idea of taking notes on all of my hot flashes and night sweats and when/why/how they occur and how they make feel gets me pretty hot under the collar. Tell you what: the next time you have to pee for the zillionth time in the middle of the night, turn on the light and write in your BPH journal how you feel. I would guess that that’s not going to happen, right?

Want to “make this hot woman cool?” Stop making me feel as though menopause is a disease and not a natural transition that all women go through. Stop telling me that I should embrace this part of my life without fighting it every step of the way. And please, stop treating my body as if it’s disconnected from my mind.