Sage Helps Menopausal Women Rid Of Headaches and Harmful Toxins

If you are getting chronic migraines as a side effect of menopause then you may want to consider making some long term adjustments in your daily schedule. Yes you can take a pain killer every time you feel the onset of a headache, but why not get to the root of the problem? You are getting these headaches because of unbalanced chemicals in your body. You can't have an effect without a cause. Finding out the cause of your headaches and nurturing the problem will free you from those chronic migraines WITHOUT adding chemicals to your body. Pain killers only temporarily solve the problem; while taking a daily supplement for your menopause would help you avoid all the side effects associated with the life stage. One particularly helpful ingredient to look out for is Sage. Sage is ideal for menopausal related headaches.

Sage is a natural antioxidant that is frequently used for menopausal relief. It was originally used by the Ancient Egyptians to help with infertility problems. They also used the antioxidant to help cure illnesses. Now not only is sage used to help treat menopause symptoms but it is used as a wonderful cooking spice. It is a grayish green colored plant that smells of the earth when crushed. It is capable of growing in a range of climates but is originally from the Mediterranean and Spain.

The term sage literally means "to save" in Latin. Its cleansing nature helps rid the body of harmful toxins. This is what helps take away headaches. Headaches are one of the common side effects of menopause. Aside from treating headaches it can help with the anxiety, night sweats, and fatigue associated with menopause.

Women tend to start seeing symptoms of menopause in their late 30's to 40's and the stage could last for up to 10 years. It is smart to start taking a relief supplement on the onset of menopause in order to keep your body as balanced as possible in preparation for the chemical changes that are about to happen. If you prepare your body for menopause you can potentially escape the unwanted side effects.

You can find relief formulas with sage in the formula easily online or in vitamin stores. Sage works best when paired with other high quality extracts that work in conjunction with each other to relieve symptoms. Some other ingredients that work well are black cohosh root, dong quai, and false unicorn root.

Menopause Bloating - The Easiest Methods to Say Goodbye

Menopause is not a health complication, but a normal natural phase of a woman's life. Resulting due to the hormonal imbalance due to their stopped secretion from the ovaries, these changes are linked to dozens of other uncomfortable symptoms in the life of a woman which have come up due to the end of her reproductive cycle. Today researchers have come up with various treatments and other options which if followed nicely can help relieve the unpleasant symptoms to a great extent if not completely. The more common symptoms a women experiences during the onset of menopause include; hot flashes, vaginal dryness, bloating, sleeplessness and many others.

The sudden decrease of hormones like estrogen the major cause of this life transition is often recommended to be tackled with therapies like Hormonal Replacement Therapy(HRT) and estrogen replacement therapy (ERT), which although must be considered only under severe cases for the side-effect they can cause can be truly detrimental on a women's health.

The scientists and research findings now starting to pay more attention towards this not so talked and discussed about issue in the past have now come up with natural relief methods like diet, herbal medicines, nutrition, vitamins and still others which relieve most of the pharmacological effects of menopause- especially including one of the major ones- menopause bloating.

Today there are a numerous natural relief options available which although safe must be first consulted thoroughly so as to avoid any complication or after-effect moreover.

The most common of all menopause symptoms- menopause bloating can now be said goodbye to with ease by following some simple steps like;

Being positive- The acidity and gas trouble is temporary and like others it will also go away easily if tackled and taken positively.

The diet- The intake of food very much responsible for this discomforting trouble can help to reduce or elevate the problem further. Eating foods like banana, cheese, eggs, yogurt and grapes says goodbye on the other hand eating apple, pear or broccoli makes the trouble intensified.

Lactose intolerance- Lactose intolerance increases with age. It is a more common problem which can be reduced by avoiding foods rich in lactose and thus eliminating its effect altogether.

Herbal tea- Including herbal remedies like teas may help you feel better and can considerably reduce the gas effect.

Eat frequently- Women eating 5 to 6 small meals rather than 3 are often less vulnerable to such discomfiture during menopause and can get off through this phase rather easily.

Get natural- Eating natural Foods like whole grains pasta, flaxseed, whole wheat bread and brown rice are very helpful to avoid bloating.

Avoid processed and canned food- Being loaded with salt avoiding such processed and canned foods can help relief the bloating problem and make the transition in a women's life get easier and more hassle-free.

Drink plenty of water- Drinking at least 8-12 glasses of water each day, to flush out toxins, also relieves the constipation more easily.

So, all in all, making the recommended changes in your eating habit and lifestyle is sure to make you feel your old self again and ward off the menopause and its related symptoms more easily and pain-free.

Menopause and Hot Flashes and Evening Primrose Oil--Does It Work?

Numerous studies have been conducted concerning alternative treatments for menopause and hot flashes, and evening primrose is one of the natural products that have been studied. According to surveys, control of hot flashes is the number one reason that women seek treatment during the years leading up to and following menopause.

Because so much scientific research has been conducted concerning the safety and effectiveness of non-hormonal treatments for control of hot flashes, several research groups have gone to the effort of compiling the published data. You might call these the "studies of the studies". You might wonder why all of this is necessary. There are several reasons, but the primary one is that hot flashes respond to placebo. The majority of studies confirm that women taking placebo experience about a 20% reduction in hot flash symptoms. So, researchers interested in promoting a specific product can honestly say things like "women using product X reported a reduction in hot flash symptoms."

A recent search for studies published at Pub Med, a service of the National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health, concerning menopause and hot flashes and evening primrose returned 20 results. Evening primrose oil is claimed to provide a variety of health benefits, including the control of hot flashes, but finding contemporary medical literature to support these claims is difficult.

In 1994, researchers at the Keele University in England enrolled 56 menopausal women suffering from hot flashes at least three times a day to complete a six month study of the effectiveness of evening primrose for control of hot flashes. Only 35 women completed the study. 18 of them took 500 mg of evening primrose oil with 10 mg of vitamin E twice a day, while 17 took a placebo. After analyzing the dairies of the participants, researchers concluded that evening primrose offered no benefit over placebo in treating menopausal hot flashes. On the average, the women taking placebo experienced 0.7 less hot flashes per day, while women taking evening primrose experienced 0.5 less per day.

One of the "studies of the studies" was completed in 2002 by researchers at Columbia University in New York. These researchers used a number of different sources to accumulate information relating to menopause and hot flashes, and evening primrose was again mentioned. In total the researchers selected 58 different studies that were randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trials. They came to the following conclusions. Dong quai, evening primrose oil, vitamin E and acupuncture do not affect hot flashes.

On the other hand, the researchers believed that black cohosh showed promise for the control of hot flashes, but they were wary to recommend it, because safety data concerning the herb had not been accumulated at that time. Since then, studies have shown that black cohosh has no negative side effects and has no estrogen like affects on breast or uterine cancer cell lines. Black cohosh is currently recommended by most practitioners, whereas evening primrose is not believed to be effective. For more information about menopause and hot flashes, and evening primrose and black cohosh, please visit the Menopause and PMS Guide.

Ways to Deal With Menopause Naturally

Nature has its way to deal with menopause. There are certain occasions that a woman who is in this stage of her life does not respond well to medical treatment in alleviating the symptoms. The best alternative way is to treat it with nature's help.

Studies show that one of the most typical symptoms of menopause that afflicts 80% of women is hot flashes. It's that sudden, extreme, hot feeling on the face and body usually accompanied by a feeling of lethargy, headache, rapid heartbeat, nausea, dizziness, insomnia and intense perspiration. A woman who is experiencing hot flashes may sweat profusely with flushed cheeks even under a cold temperature.

Hot flashes are one of the early warning signs that menopause is about to come to a woman. The symptom may go on for several years and is brought by the hormonal imbalance in menopause, and is very evident during the first two years of menopause. Episodes of hot flashes can last from a few seconds to an hour and usually between 6 to 8 in the morning and six to ten in the evening.

Although hot flashes in a menopausal woman are generally mild to moderate, there are women who experience extreme flashes. In this instance, they are forced to seek medical help to alleviate the condition. Ordinarily, an obstetric gynecologist will prescribe a drug to remedy the condition, but some women do not respond well to the drug. And so, the symptoms persist.

This is where Mother Nature comes in. To ease the uncomfortable and distressing feeling of hot flashes during menopause, a woman should take foods that are rich in phytoestrogens, or more commonly referred to as 'dietary estrogens'. Foods belonging to this group of non-steroidal plants include soy beans, tofu, oats, wheat, berries, dried beans, lentil, rice, apples, carrots, beer, fennel, and ginseng among others. These foods are quickly absorbed by the body and excreted in the urine.

The phytoestrogens foods do not only help ease hot flashes but also have some beneficial and protective effects against hormonal-related cancers, cardiovascular diseases, and osteoporosis. These foods can also be useful in treating other symptoms of menopause such as depression, anxiety, dryness of the vagina, and loss of sex appetite.

There are also some foods to avoid as they are triggering hot flashes. These are coffee and other drinks with caffeine, chocolate, hot and spicy food, alcoholic beverages. It will be wise to stay away from these food as much as possible while in the menopausal stage.

Herbal medicines can serve as a good alternative to treating the symptoms of menopause. Clinical studies have shown that black cohosh root (Cimicifuga Racemosa) can soothe hot flashes, vaginal dehydration, and insomnia or sleep disturbances. To regulate excessive bleeding during the menopausal stage, a Chinese herb, dong quai (Angelica Sinensis), is effective. To enhance sleep, a castor oil pack over the liver area may prove to be beneficial.

You see, it is in a woman's nature that she will undergo the stage of menopause and experience its symptoms; but nature will also provide the means to ease her condition and take the pressure off her.

This is the way to deal with menopause, naturally.

Beat Menopause Naturally

You may be nearing the menopause, you may have already reached it, or you may even be coming out the other end and wondering how to protect your heart, bones and memory in the long term. You probably don't know which way to turn as there is so much conflicting advice out there.

Should you just put up with the symptoms, should you go on Hormone Replacement Treatment (HRT) although you may not want to, or should you try some of the many natural and herbal supplements available and if so which ones?

The most popular treatment for the menopause over the past 20 years has been HRT. But now that several major international studies have been aborted due to the increased risk for participants of serious medical conditions such as heart disease, stroke, thrombosis, breast cancer and ovarian cancer many women are understandably looking for an alternative. And the good news is science now clearly shows that it is possible to overcome the symptoms of the menopause without resorting to HRT.

The Alternative Way

Many years of running the Natural Health Advisory Service led me to realise that when it comes to menopausal symptoms falling levels of oestrogen is not the only trigger and other factors such as dietary and lifestyle inadequacies must also be taken into account. Pregnancy and breastfeeding as well as physical and mental stress all take their toll on wellbeing. Add to this the fact that levels of some nutrients drop naturally as the years go by and it is not surprising that by the time many women reach the menopause they are effectively firing on two cylinders instead of four. As a result if they are not in a good nutritional or psychological state the more severe their menopausal symptoms are likely to be.

Once we take into account that menopausal symptoms are not all to do with falling levels of oestrogen and that physical and mental factors also have a part to play it follows that all three areas must be addressed. So it's no coincidence that our Beat Menopause Naturally Programme encompasses all these factors with consistently fantastic results.

Key elements include:
- A healthy diet rich in phytoestrogens
- The use of scientifically based supplements
- Daily relaxation
- Regular exercise

Diet Matters

A diet rich in phytoestrogens - substances similar to human oestrogen which occur naturally in plants- has been shown to have a beneficial effect on menopausal symptoms such as hot flushes as well as helping to protect against heart disease and osteoporosis. For example, research shows that Japanese women who eat a lot of soya, which is rich in a type of phytoestrogen known as isoflavones, do not generally suffer from hot flushes and other symptoms. In contrast 80 - 85 per cent of women who eat a typically western diet do tend to experience symptoms.

The richest sources of phytoestrogens are soya products, eg soya milk, tofu and soya flour. Other sources include organic linseeds ( aka flaxseeds), lentils, chick peas, mung beans, sunflower, pumpkin and sesame seeds, green and yellow veg. You need to eat at least 100mg of phytopestrogens a day to help alleviate symptoms, which for best results should be taken at regular intervals.

Supplimentary Help

At the time of the menopause supplementing our diet with nutrients that time and nature have taken away as well as boosting oestrogen levels with standardised supplements can help alleviate hot flushes and night sweats and other symptoms. At the Natural Health Advisory Service we successfully use a selection of scientifically based supplements. These include: Gynovite - a multi-vitamin and mineral supplement. Two clinical trials have shown that it influences hormone balance and bone density positively.

Novogen Red Clover - an isoflavone rich supplement. A recent conducted by Tufts University School of Medicine and New York University School of Medicine, showed that menopausal women who took a single tablet of red clover daily experienced a reduction in the intensity and number of hot flushes. The other good news is that Novogen Red clover does not cause thickening of the lining of the womb, which is a complication commonly associated with HRT. The women in the study also reported no side effects or weight gain from taking the red clover.

Phyto Soya Capsules - a standardised supplement, which contains an extract of non-genetically, modified soya. This was found to be effective by nearly three-quarters of women who sampled it in a recent French trial.

Omega 7 - derived from the Sea Buckthorn Berry delivers Omega 3,6,7 and 9 fatty acids. In a recent clinical trial it was found to enhance and regenerate the mucous membranes in the vagina. Phyto Soya Vaginal Gel has also been shown in clinical trials to significantly improve the condition of the vaginal tissues. Vaginal dryness is a common side-effect of the drop in oestrogen levels at the time of the menopause.

Natural Vitamin E, Dong Quai, Sage Leaf and Ginseng are other supplements that help to control hot flushes.

Relax It

Several studies have shown that relaxation can help reduce the intensity of hot flushes. Try to take time out for yourself on a regular basis every day. You may also like to try yoga, massage, Pilates and visualisation.

Move It

As well as increasing energy levels, regular exercise can help to relieve symptoms of depression, anxiety and insomnia. It can also help to boost confidence self-esteem and wellbeing. You should aim to exercise for at least half an hour, five times a week. Any activity that puts weight through your bones such as jogging, brisk walking, racquet sports, weight lifting, skipping or even squeezing tennis balls are the best options. They help to stimulate the regeneration of bone tissue and reduce calcium loss helping to protect against osteoporosis.

The fact that there are so many scientifically based self-help options to help alleviate the symptoms of the menopause and preserve the health of both your heart and your bones, is extremely good news. There is no substitute for learning to meet the needs of your body especially at the time of the menopause.

Herbal Remedies For Pre Menopause Symptoms

There are several herbal remedies to help you through pre menopause symptoms. The key is to know what your system requires and how much. As an alternative medical professional I'd inform a consumer to test!

The initial symptoms of peri menopause can begin as young as mid-thirties. This is often adult acne or fat gain. Often the Thyroid will test normal this is why you need to obtain a full Thyroid panel that includes free T4 and free T3. This test is done with a blood test. The other issue is to ensure your health professional is studying the functional medicine outcomes or metabolic labs readings and not the typical lab details that most physicians go by.

Hot flashes and night sweats are the result of multiple issues throughout pre menopause. One thing being the decrease of estrogen and the other the surge of cortisol into the blood stream. So is it possible to do something about it naturally?

Both of these herbs or hormones are available through a herbal health care practitioner and some stores. Rely on a health practitioner initially - they've the most beneficial level of quality and this is your well being and future life we're talking about here. Also a accredited specialist will possess the knowledge, training, and expertise that you might want when we're discussing how to overcome pre menopause symptoms. These signs of pre menopause are common but they are not normal.

Remember - 1st get tested! You want to have your hormones tested through saliva. Blood tests for hormones are erroneous. The saliva shows what is available in the cells of the body to use. The blood only shows what the body can't utilize because hormones in the blood serum are protein bound.

So you will need two tests. The Thyroid test done with a blood serum and the hormone test done with a saliva test kit.

You likely will require items like melatonin, and DHEA but test first don't guess.

Yet another excellent herb is Cohosh and it comes in a variety of colors that perform in different ways in the body. It pays to understand which one is effective for you. Blue Cohosh or Black Cohosh are the most typical. Ensure the formula is organic and doesn't include a lot of other things that you might not want.

Many non-prescription varieties include soy and if you're having soy in what you eat you may want to stop additional sources or choose a different product. Pre menopause symptoms are simple to take care of with natural herbs.

Menopause Weight Gain - Insulin Resistance and Stress

Women approaching menopause can expect considerable physiological changes. When it comes to menopause weight gain alone, it has been calculated that the average American woman may gain as much as ten to fifteen pounds within the entire duration of the menopausal stage. Menopause weight gain is just one of the many possible menopause changes which a woman will need to adapt to in advancing years.

Weight gain, as with all of the symptoms associated with menopause is due to fluctuating estrogen levels or hormonal imbalances.

Medical research continues to draw a correlation between the changes in hormones during menopause and increased weight gain. Changes to the hormonal structures within the body can result in insulin resistance and stress. These two factors can weigh heavily in the body's ability to burn calories, overall metabolic capacity, and the accumulation of additional pounds.

Insulin Resistance

Insulin is the hormone that is responsible for regulating the absorption of glucose and regulating the body's overall metabolism. However, during menopausal years the body may inhibit insulin from doing its job. When this occurs, one may become insulin resistant and all of the calories ingested are transformed into fat. It's as though the body's own metabolism has turned into a food 'express lane' where foods turns instantly to fat, bypassing the normal routine of providing nutrients to cells. The upshot of this is unwanted menopause weight gain while the body's cells still hunger for nutrients.

Insulin resistance is even worse for women who strictly adhere to a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet. All the while, advocates of this type of diet plan labor under the belief that the avoidance of fat will spare them from menopause weight gain. However, the body's resistance to insulin turns carbohydrates directly into fat, thus negating the effectiveness of this type of diet plan.

Researchers have also concluded that the long-term dependence on low-fat, high carbohydrate foods coupled with the addition of refined and processed foods (like pasta and breads) contribute to insulin resistance. In short, this kind of diet pattern also leads to the blocking of insulin. When the (previously described) life-long eating patterns converge with menopause a woman may find that she is (often for the first time) gaining pounds which she is unable to shed, easily.

Increased Stress Levels

Stress can be the root cause for many of today's eating disorders and conditions. As for menopause weight gain, an increased level of stress can prompt the body into thinking that one is experiencing what the experts refer to as the 'famine effect'. This phenomenon is your body's misinterpretation of stress and as a result, the body's metabolism is slowed in anticipation of a prolonged shortage of food. When this happens, all of the ingested calories are stored as fat, thus causing additional weight gain.

Unfortunately, the combination of menopause and stress make it doubly hard to maintain recommended weight levels. Most women experience an increased level of stress during menopause. Simply put, menopause puts one at an elevated risk of gaining unwanted pounds during this time.

Solutions

As always, eating a balanced diet during menopausal years is still the best solution to avoid unhealthy weight gain. Avoid fried foods, high carbohydrate foods and refined or packaged foods. Add fresh fruits, vegetables, foods rich in natural grains, beans and legumes, low fat yogurt and other low fat soy and dairy products to your grocery cart.