Your Health

The Times They Are a Changin'

For many women of the baby boomer generation (people born from 1946-1964) "the change" is happening—menopause. Menopause is one of the major transitions in a woman's life, as was menstruation, a first sexual experience, and the birth of a child. While often experienced as a time of renewed freedom and a completely natural life cycle stage, the transition to menopause does not usually pass unnoticed. The changes that happen during perimenopause (the period of transition leading to menopause) can be quite dramatic for many women. Perimenopause, the gradual period leading up to menopause, produces a change in a woman's hormone levels, that affect her physically, mentally, and emotionally. The typical symptoms of
menopause are:
achy joints

difficulty concentrating
headaches
hot flashes
insomnia
mood changes
night sweats
changes in sexual desire
frequent urination
vaginal dryness

     These symptoms often occur at the time in a woman's life when other major life changes are happening: children leaving home, divorce or widowhood, retirement, responsibility for aging parents, loss of parents, and loneliness. These major life transitions usually exacerbate the already existing symptoms and make them even more difficult.

     However, there are ways to relieve perimenopausal symptoms, and make the transition through menopause more comfortable. Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) is a pharmaceutical approach used by many perimenopausal and menopausal women. HRT, by patch, pill or cream, restores estrogen and other hormones lowered during this transition. However, HRT poses both benefits and risks. The benefits include reducing or eliminating the symptoms associated with menopause, helping prevent osteoporosis, and probably reducing the risk of heart disease. The risks, while infrequent, may include increasing one's risk for breast cancer, endometrial cancer, blood clots and gall bladder problems. Other considerations include possible side effects, such as vaginal bleeding, fluid retention, nausea, and headaches.

     Alternative ways of dealing with the symptoms of menopause are becoming ever more popular, and more widely accepted by the medical community. Increasingly, research is showing that "natural therapies" have real benefits.

     An effective natural product that may ease the transition through perimenopause is soy. Soy, which contains isoflavones, is considered an "estrogen lite" for menopausal women. It comes in ready-to-drink milk, powdered forms, beans, and tofu (soybean curd). Experts agree that drinking a powdered concoction containing 40 grams of soy each day can reduce the most common symptoms of perimenopause; one study found that women who incorporated soy into their diets experienced a 40 percent reduction of hot flashes.

     Soy can also help women maintain and strengthen their bones; in a six-month study of postmenopausal women who were not on HRT, the group that received soy saw their spinal bone density increase by nearly 2 percent. While this may seem like a thin margin, it indicates that there was an improvement that could increase over time.

     The best way to supplement one's diet with soy is through foods, such as roasted soynuts, tofu, soy burgers, tempeh, miso, textured vegetable protein (TVP), and soymilk. If you think making recipes with soy products are difficult, just check your local bookstore, as there is a whole host of cookbooks dedicated to cooking with soy products. A few exceptionally rated books are The Whole Soy Cookbook, 175 delicious, nutritious, easy-to-prepare recipes featuring tofu, tempeh, and various forms of nature's healthiest bean (Patricia Greenberg, Helen Hewton Hartung, February 1998), Tofu Cookery (Louis Hagler, March 1991), and The Art of Tofu (Akasha Richmond, September 1997).

Other things you can do to help alleviate the symptoms of menopause are:

exercise regularly to relieve hot flashes and night sweats;

take calcium supplements to reduce the loss of bone mass and help prevent osteoporosis;

reduce your intake of tea, alcohol, coffee, and spicy foods to relieve hot flashes;

use stress reduction techniques (meditation, yoga, breathing exercises) as tension may trigger hot flashes;

drink eight glasses of water daily;

try over-the-counter vaginal lubricants to relieve vaginal dryness with intercourse (such as Astroglide^®, Slippery Stuff^®, or KY Jelly^®, which are all condom compatible); try Replens^® for relief of day-to-day dryness;

ask a practitioner about using herbal extracts, capsules and infusions, especially those rich in phytosterols—plant estrogens and progesterones (such as flax seed oil, black cohosh, and Dong Quai); and

try acupuncture treatments to manage stress.

Not all of these supplements, products, and helpful hints will alleviate every woman's perimenopausal symptoms. Some will, and so each woman must examine her options and choose the methods that work best for her lifestyle. Most importantly, see your doctor to determine what methods for easing perimenopauseal symptoms (including the natural alternatives described above) are best for you. As well, your doctor may recommend HRT even if you don't have symptoms. HRT is used as prevention for health risks such as low bone density, heart disease risk and others.

Many women forget that they can still get pregnant late in life. While it is uncommon, women should check with their doctors about their pregnancy risk and use contraception if needed.
By Jason Osher

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