Menopause Without Symptoms Part II
(For Part I click here)
Here’s a conundrum for you: Women live longer than men, and yet they have more health problems earlier than do men.
Some Other Non-Fun Facts:
- Hip fractures in women result in death in up to 20% of cases
- 75 % of teenage girls are deficient in calcium. They need to get bone building nutrients.
- 50% of women are overweight & 15% are obese. We know that tacking on just 15 extra pounds increases your risk of breast cancer
- Women die from heart attack more often than men.
- 30% of women have not had a PAP in the last three years. You ought to be getting a PAP every single year.
- In the US, over 60,000 new cases of breast cancer will die from it. This is the leading cause of death in women ages 35-50.
- In 1960 1 in 20 developed breast cancer; today it is 1 in 8. Back to the PAP testing, one every year is important, because once those cells start to change it’s possible to change them again using nutrition and lifestyle.
Women are creating estrogen into menopause and beyond. Hot flashes occur during surges and drops and surges and drops in estrogen. So it’s not a deficiency in estrogen so much as an imbalance, especially in such hormones as progesterone. Balancing estrogen and progesterone make for a calm hormone system.
The medical profession disagrees. They claim that menopause means there’s no more estrogen, therefore, you need estrogen replacement therapy (ERT).
In fact, your body is making hormones, and you’re getting bombarded by hormones in the environment. The biggest dose of estrogen you’ll get is, unfortunately, via pesticides in the food you eat. So if possible buy organic foods. If not, scrubbing your food will help.
COMMON SOURCES OF ESTROGEN MIMICKERS
- Pesticides, herbicides and fungicides
- Dark hair dyes—phenylenediamene Most women do that every six weeks.
- phthalates found in soaps and cosmetics are highly estrogenic.
- Dry cleaning chemicals—fabric softeners.
- All plastics—Phthalates—do not microwave
- Farmed fish—Full of environmental estrogen.
- The Pill and HRT are listed as two of the top ten cancer creating agents.
- Commercially raised meat and dairy. High estrogen and synthetic testosterone.
- There are high levels of estrogen in cheese.
- Soy products are big offenders. Women who drank a glass of soy milk, and then tested their estradiol levels, found it was up 38 per cent. If you’re going to eat soy make sure it’s fermented like tempeh, miso, and eat that with a lot of vegetables.
What happens when you have too much estrogen
- Causes your thyroid to go low and sex drive to die
- Reduces progesterone
- Causes cells to grow without control, causing cysts (fibrocystic breasts, acne, ovarian cysts)
- Encourages weight gain
- Enhances fluid retention
- Promotes migraine headaches
- Worsens cellulite
- Increases horrible hot flashes and night sweats
- Causes endometriosis, fibroids, period problems, cysts, breast lumps.
In my next blog I’ll get into some of the solutions to this huge problem.