[Leslie Carol Botha: Finally a book written by experts on the dangers of estrogen imbalance and it's debilitating effects on women's bodies.]

The Estrogen Errors
Why Progesterone is Better for Women’s Health

Susan Love MD,
President of the Dr Susan Love Research Foundation
and author of Dr Susan Love’s Breast Book

Read the complete article and related information at Jerilynn Prior MD and Susan Baxter PhD Unveil ‘The Estrogen Errors’

Sydney Morning Herald

smh.com.au

Rachel Browne, Jill Stark
July 17, 2011

HOT flushes, night sweats, mood swings and the end of a woman’s natural fertility – all before age 40. This is the disturbing reality of premature menopause, and a new study shows it may be much more common than doctors realised.

A British study of almost 5000 women, one of the most comprehensive yet into premature menopause, showed that 7.4 per cent of women experienced the condition. Previous international studies suggested only 1 per cent of women were affected.

The average age of menopause is about 51 but premature menopause, or premature ovarian failure, affects women under 40, in what is supposed to be their reproductive prime. The figures have intrigued medical experts. They are unable to say whether the condition is becoming more common – perhaps a result of modern lifestyles – or has previously been under-diagnosed.

The data, presented at the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology conference in Stockholm, reveal that about 6 per cent of women in the study had unexplained premature menopause. Another 1.4 per cent had had surgery that had brought on the condition.

A co-author of the study, Rumana Islam, from Imperial College in London, said more research was needed into the condition.

In cases of unexplained premature menopause, the study found that smokers and women from a lower socio-economic background were more likely to be affected.

”Most cases of unexplained premature ovarian failure have no identified cause, although a minority are due to genetic or auto-immune problems,” Dr Islam said, adding: ”As we learn more about premature ovarian failure, we should be able to identify which aspects of low socio-economic status are associated with this problem.”

Many women with premature menopause go undiagnosed, as the condition is not widely recognised by GPs.

As well as experiencing symptoms such as hot flushes, mood swings and sleep problems, women who go through premature menopause have an increased risk of cardio-vascular disease, dementia, osteoporosis and premature death.

Read Full Article…

Read the complete article and related information at Mystery of menopause before 40

HuffPost Women

Read the complete article and related information at Why a Woman’s Sleep Is Different From a Man’s

Live in the Now
Your Guide to Natural Health

June 1, 2011
Posted by John Phillip

Melatonin is a powerful natural hormone that is well known for its association with circadian rhythms that promote a healthful sleep cycle. Now, researchers from the University of Granada reporting in the Journal of Pineal Research have found that melatonin has another remarkable benefit.

According to their findings, melatonin helps to control unnatural weight gain without reducing the intake of food. The hormone was shown to improve blood lipid profiles, lower triglycerides and oxidized LDL cholesterol and boost health-promoting HDL cholesterol. Found naturally in certain fruits and vegetables, small quantities are shown to provide a powerful array of health benefits and promote deep sleep that is so critical to systemic repair functions throughout the body.

Sleep Hormone Shown to Prevent Lipid Dysfunction and Heart Disease

Melatonin is a natural hormone normally secreted by the pineal gland at night time to encourage sleep. Circulating levels trail off during the early morning hours to help us awaken. The importance of 7 to 9 hours of restful sleep is paramount to cellular repair and maintenance functions that promote vibrant health. New research demonstrates that melatonin exerts control over metabolic functions that determine fat accumulation, obesity and lipids that help prevent cardiovascular disease.

Read Full Article…

Read the complete article and related information at Want to Lose Weight Without Dieting? Try Melatonin

Health Medical and Science Updates

May.19, 2011

A new national study shows that from 2005 to 2009 (the most recent year with available figures) there was a 49-percent increase in emergency department visits for drug related suicide attempts by women aged 50 and older — from 11,235 visits in 2005 to 16,757 in 2009. This increase reflects the overall population growth of women aged 50 and older.

The report by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) also shows that, while overall rates for these types of hospital emergency department visits by women of all ages remained relatively stable throughout this period, visits involving particular pharmaceuticals increased. For example, among females, emergency department visits for suicide attempts involving drugs to treat anxiety and insomnia increased 56-percent during this period – from 32,426 in 2005 to 50,548 in 2009.

Similarly, emergency department visits for suicide attempts among females involving pain relievers rose more than 30-percent from 36,563 in 2005 to 47,838 in 2009. The rise in the number of cases involving the misuse of two narcotic pain relievers, hydrocodone and oxycodone was particularly steep. There was a 67-percent increase in the number of cases involving hydrocodone (from 4,613 in 2005 to 7,715 in 2009), and a 210-percent increase in the number of these cases involving oxycodone (from 1,895 in 2005 to 5,875 in 2009).

“The steep rise in abuse of narcotic pain relievers by women is extremely dangerous and we are now seeing the result of this public health crisis in our emergency rooms,” said Pamela S. Hyde, J.D. “Emergency rooms should not be the frontline in our efforts to intervene. Friends, family and all members of the community must do everything possible to help identify women who may be in crisis and do everything possible to reach out and get them needed help.”

Common warning signs of someone who may be at increased risk for suicide can include:

‧ Talking about wanting to die
‧ Talking about feeling hopeless or having no purpose
‧ Acting anxious, agitated or recklessly
‧ Increasing the use of alcohol or drugs
‧ Withdrawing or feeling isolated
‧ Displaying mood swings

Read Full Article…

Read the complete article and related information at Drug-related suicide attempts for women 50-plus up 49%: SAMHSA

Bloomberg

By Jef Feeley – May 12, 2011 9:01 PM MT

Pfizer Inc. (PFE), which has settled a third of the pending cases over its Prempro menopause drug, said it set aside $772 million to resolve claims the medicine causes breast cancer.

Officials of New York-based Pfizer, the world’s largest drugmaker, said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday that the reserve provides “the minimum expected costs to resolve all of the other outstanding” lawsuits over its hormone-replacement drugs. The company didn’t say how many cases would be settled.

“I see this as an effort to clean up a long-standing litigation so they can go forward with their business plan,” Les Funtleyder, a New York-based fund manager at Miller Tabak & Co. in New York who holds Pfizer shares, said yesterday in a phone interview. “This is probably a good thing for the stock.”

More than 6 million women took Prempro and related menopause drugs to treat symptoms including hot flashes and mood swings before a 2002 study highlighted their links to cancer. Wyeth’s sales of the medicines, which are still on the market, exceeded $2 billion before the release of the Women’s Health Initiative, a study sponsored by the National Institutes of Health.

Until 1995, many menopausal women combined Premarin, Wyeth’s estrogen-based drug, with progestin-laden Provera, made by Pfizer’s Upjohn unit, to relieve their symptoms. Wyeth combined the two hormones in its Prempro pill. Pfizer completed its $68 billion purchase of Wyeth in 2009.

10,000 Suits

At the height of the litigation, Pfizer faced more than 10,000 claims that its menopause drugs caused breast cancer, according to lawyers for former users. Those cases included more than 8,000 cases consolidated in federal court in Arkansas and other cases in state courts in Pennsylvania, Nevada and Minnesota.

Read the complete article and related information at Pfizer Sets Aside $772 Million, Settles One-Third of Prempro Drug Cases

For some of us it’s all hot flushes and depression; to others it’s liberation and a fresh start. Here women explain how the menopause has affected their lives.

MailOnline

By Rosanna Greenstreet

Last updated at 9:27 PM on 9th April 2011

Whoopi Goldberg, 55, actress, divorced with one child

It really is a shock when it hits. There’s no countdown: it’s just ‘boom’. All those years bitching about my period, and when it stopped I was stunned to realise how much my womanhood was tied into it. You just think, ‘I’m hot, I’m sweating, I don’t like it!’ Nothing is good.

Wendy, 53, married with three children

I started the menopause just after my 51st birthday, and it was like hitting a brick wall. Symptoms such as hot flushes were an inconvenience, but the emotional effects were devastating. I couldn’t function and I couldn’t go to work because I was continually dissolving into tears. In the end, my doctor gave me antidepressants.

For about eight months, I couldn’t make the simplest decisions and I became withdrawn. My husband was very supportive. He would coax me out for a walk on the beach, something I could cope with.

I was on sick leave from work from July until Christmas. At that point, I handed in my notice, just to give myself relief from feeling guilty.

When I started the menopause I had a picture in my head of my body beginning to die. I put on a stone in weight, and my skin lost its bloom. Now I’m off the antidepressants, and I’m trying to see this as a new beginning, but it’s not going to happen overnight.

Maria, 51, twice married with two children and two stepchildren

The menopause crept up on me when I was 45 or 46. I felt like I had constant premenstrual syndrome and was really crabby. It was highlighted when my 18-year-old came back from travelling — he’d been away for five months, but when he walked across my clean kitchen floor in muddy boots, I exploded!

As well as mood swings, my libido plunged — my husband and I have sex far less frequently now, although when we do it’s more fulfilling.

At first I thought I had developed Alzheimer’s: I totally forgot the words for certain things and people’s names. I had run businesses and brought up a family, but I just didn’t have the mental capacity to multitask any more. For 18 months, my mind felt as though it was in a fog.

By the time I was 49, things started to improve. I had learned to scale back and make lists; I took up yoga and changed my diet, cutting down on animal protein and upping vegetable intake.

Now I have a real sense of freedom from the chaotic hormonal cycle that has governed my whole life.

I don’t have emotional ups and downs and I feel calmer and more positive. Up until the menopause, you’re in caring mode. Postmenopause, my maternal feelings are not as strong. My children have grown up and left home. I miss them hugely, but it means I can live the life I want to lead — and that makes me feel very empowered.

Read Full Article…

Read the complete article and related information at Menopause: A change for the better…or worse?

Listen to Dr. Park  discuss sleep during monthly periods, pregnancy, and menopause on  Holy Hormones Honey! – tonight – April 4, 2011 – on KRFC FM 6 to 7 pm MST

For the past 10 years in private practice, he has helped thousands of men and women breathe better, sleep better, and live more fulfilling lives. His passion is to identify and empower people to overcome sleep-related breathing problems, which most people don’t realize is the real reason for many of their common medical ailments.

Read the complete article and related information at The Fountain of Youth, Revealed

Can taking an antidepressant diminish menopause symptoms such as hot flashes and night sweats? A study just published in JAMA showed that menopausal women who were given Lexapro had small, but significantly less number of hot flashes per day compared to women given placebos.

Many antidepressants can diminish REM sleep, which is when you’re dreaming, and also when your muscles are most relaxed. Mirtazapine, another antidepressant, was shown to lower the AHI in sleep apnea patients by about 50%.

Women who are going through menopause are also going to have more frequent breathing pauses, due to a gradual lowering of progesterone levels. Progesterone is a powerful upper airway muscle dilator or stimulant. So if you lower this hormone, you’ll have more frequent breathing pauses, which will cause you to wake up all of a sudden, which can be a surprise to your nervous system.

It’s also been shown that many of the symptoms of menopause, including hot flashes and night sweats, are autonomic nervous system reactions (vasomotor symptoms) that can occur whenever your nervous system is shocked or in a state of major imbalance. I described young men having hot flashes and night sweats, mainly due to slowly progressing obstructive sleep apnea during rapid weight gain. These nervous system reactions can also occur during the daytime. Whenever your nervous system is en garde or edgy, it’s going to over-react to any form of stimulus. I vaguely remember reading another study what showed that women don’t wake up from hot flashes themsleves, but rather from breathing pauses. This is similar to why people get up to urinate at night (from breathing pauses).

Since even Lexapro can lower REM sleep qualtity, it’s not surprising that taking this drug can also lower the rate of hot flashes. If you have obstructive sleep apnea, do you suffer from hot flashes or night sweats?

Read Full Article…

Dr. Steven Y. Park the author of Sleep Interrupted, A Physician Reveals the #1 Reason Why So Many People are Sick and Tired and a surgeon who helps people who are always sick or tired to  once again reclaim their health and energy.

For the past 10 years in private practice, he has helped thousands of men and women breathe better, sleep better, and live more fulfilling lives. His passion is to identify and empower people to overcome sleep-related breathing problems, which most people don’t realize is the real reason for many of their common medical ailments.

Read the complete article and related information at Less Hot Flashes With An Antidepressant?

7 Action News – wxyz.com

March 2, 2011

CLARKSTON, Mich., (WXYZ) – Ever get stressed out, can’t think straight, or have trouble sleeping? Maybe you deal with addiction, attention deficit disorder, or seizures.

Some say your brain may be out of balance.

Nearly 30,000 people in 16 countries are now doing a therapy called Brainwave Optimization with Real-time Balancing.

Country singing star Wynonna Judd says it has helped her lose 55 pounds.

Some local women are big believers in this, too.

One of them is Greta Emling of Oxford.

She said her son Brian underwent ten sessions of Brainwave Optimization during a painful illness.  His health concerns had led to depression and sleeplessness.

“After the third session [of Brainwave Optimization], he slept all night for the first time in two years,” said Emling. “And at the end of ten sessions, we had our son back.” she smiled.

Emling has now completed ten, one-hour sessions herself.

She sustained a brain injury in 2006 after a golf ball hit her in the head near her temple.  Ever since then she had had trouble concentrating and sleeping.

What happened after brain training?

“Incredible ability to organize my thoughts,” said Emling. “I don’t know what it’s really called, but to be able to think a week down the road or a month down the road.”

She took her sessions at a center in southeast Michigan now providing this process— Attuned Mind Brain Training Center in Clarkston.

Brainwave Optimization is a non-invasive therapy which involves placing sensors on the head to read activity from different lobes of the brain.

The information is sent to a computer which turns that data into musical tones and then plays those tones back to the client through ear phones.

“So she is basically listening to her brain live,” explained Julie Lamphier, Operational Manager at Attuned Mind.

“It’s like holding a mirror up to the brain so the brain can recognize any imbalances that have been created over time.  We believe they’re called trauma imprints,” she added.

Read More…

Read the complete article and related information at Brainwave Optimization is a therapy some use for anxiety, weight loss, sleeplessness & other more