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Eating Is Not The Enemy: Repairing Your Relationship With Food

womentowomen on October 8, 2016

By Marcelle Pick, OB/GYN NP

Many women have a rocky relationship with food – almost as complicated as their relationships with other people. We often personify food, holding it up as a hero or villain. Add to that the fact that women have been conditioned to believe that some foods we need (like healthy fats) are to be avoided at all costs, and the issue becomes even more complex.

As women struggle with their ideas about food, we are realizing more every day that nutrition is our best chance at being healthy. Food provides information to every cell in our bodies. And the information a cookie provides is vastly different than the message broccoli sends. The phytonutrients in plants provide positive data to the DNA in our cells, which makes a difference in our skin, hair, nails, energy levels, and overall long term health.

Understanding this is the key to making changes. It’s time to stop feeling guilt about eating, and start learning how to enjoy it. Changing the way you feel about food will take time. Try thinking of food as a friend and mentor, and it just might become one of the best friends you’ve ever had. You don’t have to do it alone – we are here to support you in the path to a new relationship with healthy, whole foods. Let’s start with a few tips to help you love what you are eating – and yourself for making healthy choices!

Create new traditions. Many of our habits are born out of family tradition or cultural norms. And so many of these center around unhealthy foods. Baking with children or grandchildren is great fun, but it’s really the feeling of togetherness that we love. You can bake a healthy treat and enjoy the same quality time with family. Or start a new family tradition – go for a hike, pick apples, or volunteer to help others.
Try the “cookie experiment”. Experience the different messages different foods send to your body. For a 3 o’clock snack one day, eat a cookie. Write down how you feel – satisfaction levels, cravings, and energy – for the next 3 hours. The next day, eat an apple and some cheese, or carrots with guacamole, at 3 o’clock. Again, write how you feel over the next 3 hours. Compare your observations, and keep the difference in mind next time you reach for a quick sugar fix.
Don’t make food your “fix”. Dr. Pam Peeke, author of The Hunger Fix says that we all have a fix, “an entrenched habit that’s so comfortable, it feels like a hug or an island of calm.” For many women this fix is some type of food, but it doesn’t need to be. Peeke recommends finding “healthy fixes” that are “productive, positive habits associated with feelings of pride, happiness and achievement.” For you, this might be yoga, hiking, running, dancing, playing a game with your children or grandchildren, painting or drawing, or making something – a craft or even a healthy meal or snack. There are so many options available – choose a couple and turn to them when you need comfort, instead of turning to the cupboards for an unhealthy snack.
Hit the pause button. Often, eating isn’t about hunger at all. You might be bored, stressed, or on emotional overload. Colette Baron-Reid, author of Weight Loss for People Who Feel Too Much, discusses the complex emotional reasons people eat. “We turn to food to feel grounded in our own physicality, separate from the confusing jumble of emotions we’re experiencing,” she writes. Though it isn’t easy, the key is to find new ways to get yourself grounded quickly. A few deep breaths or a quick visualization of something you love can help get you there. Then you can make a real choice. You can discover what you are really craving – maybe sleep, comfort, or love – instead of defaulting to food.
Eliminate Temptation. If you have trouble resisting a bag of potato chips, don’t keep them in the house. Avoid the grocery store if you are in a tough place emotionally – wait until you are feeling better, and you’ll be far more prepared to leave the cookies on the shelf.
Take your time. Even when you find yourself needing to eat by yourself or on the go take a few moments to really experience and enjoy the food. Sit in the sunshine, eat slowly and pay attention to each bite. Enjoy the smell, texture, and taste of your food rather than rushing through the experience. You will feel much more satisfied when you are finished.
Embrace Cooking. It’s not as scary as it might sound to cook with fresh ingredients. You are worth the time it takes to prepare a delicious meal packed with seasonal vegetables. Spend a little time choosing great recipes, planning your meals, shopping, cutting and preparing the food. Allowing yourself to experience the food from store (or even better, farm) to table can help you appreciate what you are eating so much more.

Taking the time to build new habits, find new recipes and create new traditions isn’t always easy. But you are worth it! Putting great things into your body will help you love it more – inside and out!

References:

Baron-Reid, C. 2013. Weight Loss for People Who Feel Too Much. Harmony Books, p. 28.

Mayo Clinic Staff, Gain Control of Your Emotional Eating. 2015. http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/weight-loss/in-depth/weight-loss/art-20047342

Peeke, P. 2012. Are you caught up in a cycle of emotional eating? Prevention, 61-66. URL: http://www.drpeeke.com/data/files/ PVWI12_HUNGER_FIX.pdf.

Is My Irregular Period Something to Worry About?

womentowomen on October 1, 2016

by Marcelle Pick, OB/GYN NP

Why did I miss a period? Why was my flow so heavy this month? Is there something wrong with me if my periods don’t have a regular pattern? These are some of the questions and concerns I have heard from patients at my clinic over the years. It can be frightening to notice sudden changes in your menstrual cycles with no good explanation.

It’s important to remember that “regular” doesn’t mean the same thing for every woman. Some have a cycle that arrives every 21-28 days like clockwork. Others may have a shorter or longer cycle that isn’t quite as predictable. So to judge whether a period has become irregular, you first need to know what is normal for YOU.

Often, an irregularity is nothing to worry about. One or two missed periods over the course of a year is probably not a cause for concern. But if your cycles are more unpredictable than that, it’s time to take a closer look. When you can’t find a consistent pattern, you may be at the beginning of perimenopause, have a disturbance in the hormonal chain of events that impacts menstruation, or you might be pregnant.

There are numerous factors that might be behind irregular periods. If several of these factors are present, there’s an even higher likelihood that you will experience some disruption in your natural cycle. Some of these factors include:

Significant weight gain or loss. Both low body weight and obesity can cause a change in your menstrual cycle. Eating disorders such as anorexia or bulimia can also be behind this disruption. Poor nutrition has an impact – if you aren’t getting the nutrients you need, your body lets you know.
Over exercising. Regular exercise is good for your overall health, but when you overdo it, your body reacts. Endurance athletes like marathon runners often experience missed periods.
Excessive substance use. If you are regularly filling your body with toxins through smoking, drug use, excessive caffeine intake, or alcohol use your menstrual cycle may suffer.
Hormonal imbalances. Whether related to increased stress, perimenopause, or Polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), if your hormones are not properly balanced your periods might not be regular.
Medications, including heavy duty treatments like chemotherapy. Birth control medications have a big impact on your cycle, whether they cause lighter or heavier flow, skipped periods, or no periods at all.
Uterine abnormalities. Differences in your uterus – for example, fibroids, cysts, polyps or endometriosis, can cause changes in your periods.
Pregnancy or recent childbirth, miscarriage, or D&C. Many women will also not resume normal periods until they have stopped breastfeeding.

Because so many things could be behind a change in your cycle, it’s important to talk to a health care practitioner if you are experiencing irregularity. If missed periods are a sign of a larger condition – whether pregnancy, hormonal imbalance or disease, it’s important to know what to do to best support your body and find your way back to your best possible you!

If you suspect a hormonal imbalance may be the root of your erratic periods, our products can help bring you back to a balanced state. If you suspect the issue is related to perimenopause, try our Menopause Program, which includes a high quality multivitamin to ensure you are getting essential nutrients, adrenal support, and our herbal menopause support designed for hormonal balance that can relieve symptoms of menopause, such as hot flashes and mild mood swings.

Tomatoes, Menopause Symptoms and Weight: The Secret?

womentowomen on September 19, 2016

By Marcelle Pick, OB/GYN, NP

I often share with you my thoughts around the power of healthy food; we know that good food can heal the body and reduce or eliminate symptoms of hormonal imbalance and that poor food choices can have the opposite effect. Today I want to share some interesting news about one food’s power to help manage menopause symptoms including anxiety and weight gain: tomatoes.

Our bodies depend on a complex array of vitamins, minerals, enzymes and co-factors, all of which are required in combination with each other for good health. That’s why we tell all our patients at Women to Women how important it is to take a high-quality multivitamin in order to ensure they are getting all the nutrition the body needs; it is just so hard to get everything we need for wellness from our food supply today.

While the overall nutritional content of food has declined measurably in recent years due to farming and distribution practices, certain foods still make a lot of headlines in the news; often called “superfoods,” they can pack a more powerful nutritional punch because they are loaded with more of what our bodies need for wellness including anti-oxidants, polyphenols, vitamins and minerals.

I think it’s important to say, however, that while some foods may be “super,” they are still just one of many different food requirements for health. There are no magic food elixirs; we need to eat the rainbow of fruits and vegetables, even though we may have our favorite colors!

Having said that, a fascinating new study I read recently in the Nutrition Journal focused on one of my favorite “superfoods,” tomatoes, and one of my favorite subjects, menopause. (When two things I like come together, it gets my attention every time!) The study looked at women with menopausal symptoms and the impact of tomatoes on their health, their symptoms and even their weight and found some pretty amazing results.

Here’s how it worked. For two weeks prior to the study, the researchers asked women between the ages of 40 and 60 who had at least one menopausal symptom to abstain from all tomato or tomato-based products. Then for eight weeks, the women were asked to consume 200ml of unsalted tomato juice (that’s just under a cup) with breakfast and dinner every day.

They found that the women reported their symptoms were reduced (in a statistically significant way), including symptoms such as anxiety and hot flashes, two of the biggest ones we see in our patients at Women to Women. In addition, their serum triglyceride levels were reduced (improving their heart health) and their Resting Energy Expenditure or REE was increased.

So what is REE and why does it matter?

It turns out that increasing REE can play an important role in avoiding mid-life weight gain. Studies have shown that our Resting Energy Expenditure, or how many calories we burn when we are not active, goes down in the years leading up to menopause by as much as 400 calories a day.

This means that in addition to potential weight gain that may occur when progesterone and estrogen levels become imbalanced during perimenopause and after menopause, many women may gain weight mid-life simply because their bodies are burning fewer calories overall: if you keep eating the same number of calories and don’t increase your activity level, over time, those extra 400 calories a day will start to add up in the form of extra pounds.

What was so interesting about this study was that the twice daily tomato juice consumption was able to increase the Resting Energy Expenditure of the women by almost 400 calories a day, or nearly the same amount that is lowered naturally as we age!

So why do scientists think this occurs?

One reason tomatoes may work to help vanquish menopausal symptoms is that they contain large amounts of vitamin B-6. B-6 plays a critical role in balancing estrogen and progesterone levels and avoiding the menopause symptoms that appear when those two hormones are not in alignment.

Another reason tomatoes work so well on menopausal symptoms is that as we’ve shared with you in past newsletters, oxidative stress is shown to exacerbate symptoms in perimenopausal women. Tomatoes are high in lycopene, which is an anti-oxidant that can help alleviate the impact of the stress and keep symptoms in check.

While scientists aren’t exactly sure how tomatoes increased the women’s Resting Energy Expenditure, overall, we know that tomatoes are high in vitamins, minerals, fiber, and antioxidants and can play a helpful contributing role to a healthy diet. And now we know they may help manage menopausal symptoms, including anxiety, hot flashes and weight gain as well. So does this mean you should run out and stock up on tomato juice? Sadly, no.

Dietary or lifestyle extremes are never healthy and as we said in the beginning, we need to eat the rainbow of fruits and vegetables to ensure good health. While this study focused on tomatoes, my guess is that similar results would occur if any number of fruit or vegetables were tested, something that doesn’t happen often because it’s hard to find the money to fund food studies.

So while it’s exciting to see a study focused around the health impact of a food, particularly around menopausal symptom relief, it’s not a directive to go on a tomato juice diet! That said: if you are a woman who loves to have juice with breakfast or consumer a beverage with dinner, switching to tomato juice might be worth considering.

And adding more tomatoes to your diet, along with a healthy mix of other fruits and vegetables, is always a good thing (as long as you feel better after eating them; some women are allergic or sensitive to nightshades such as tomatoes and should avoid them.)

If that’s not you, look for ways to add more tomatoes and unsalted organic tomato juice to your meals. You can check out our slow roasted tomato recipe below for a new way to add a delicious tomato side dish to a meal and bring more B-6 and lycopene into your diet.

Spice up Your Life With Turmeric

womentowomen on October 23, 2015

By now you know how important I believe food is to health and healing. Food is something I discuss with virtually every patient I see at Women to Women. Finding the right balance of high quality proteins, slow-release carbohydrates and healthy fats — and knowing which ones are the best to choose — is something we all need to understand in order to get and stay healthy.

I encourage my patients to experiment and to try new grains, vegetables and other ingredients. We need to eat the rainbow of fruits and vegetables, selecting options in each color to get the best nutritional support but yet often, we stick to the few things we know and love.

That’s probably because it’s easy, safe and familiar; it may feel too risky to take a chance on something new for dinner.

What if you cook it and no one likes it? Or you order it and pay all that money only to leave the restaurant still hungry (or worse yet, fill up on dessert because dinner wasn’t quite to your taste). But taking risks in life can pay off big time and trying a new food is a small way to change things up, escape your daily routine, and at the same time, improve your health.

You may not be able to travel to India or China tonight, where food has been used medicinally for thousands and thousands of years, but trying food from other parts of the world can be a great first step toward filling in your own nutritional gaps while at the same time opening yourself up to other ways of seeing the world. Who knows: you may find yourself beginning to take more risks in other areas of your life as well!

Whether you go all in or start small with some simple baby steps, to restore hormonal balance and heal your body, broadening your menu and ingredient list will help to ensure you get all the nutrients your changing body needs. Why not take a chance and try some kale, pomegranates, quinoa, sardines, or kefir? Or maybe instead of pizza, you could try some Indian, Asian or Middle Eastern food? Perhaps you could get together with friends (so you feed yourself on other levels at the same time) and try a new ethnic restaurant once a month. Or better yet, create a social cooking club and take turns choosing an intriguing new recipe to cook together. Trying new foods can be fun as well as healthy!

In addition to trying new foods, however, I also tell my patients to consider trying new flavors. If you are reluctant to jump from the chicken you know and love to a meat you have never tried such as bison, for example, there is still an easy way to completely change up the flavor of the same foods you eat regularly and also bring in some seriously powerful health benefits at the same time: add some spices.

It may help to think of spices as just really intensely flavored and concentrated vegetables: they are full of nutritional benefits such as phytonutrients and antioxidants, they are calorie free, but best of all, they take little to no prep work! Spices contain numerous health benefits and offer different flavor profiles to turn your chicken or vegetables from another “same old” meal into an exotic escape.

One particularly powerful spice you can bring into your diet easily that will have a positive impact on your health, wellness and longevity (that I have come to love!) is turmeric. You may have heard that turmeric is so powerful it has provided results comparable to many patented drugs; if you haven’t I’m going to give you a small taste of just some of turmeric’s many amazing health benefits.

So what exactly is turmeric?

Turmeric comes from the root of the curcuma plant. It’s native to Indonesia and southern India and it has been used in Eastern cultures for more than 5000 years. It has a tough brown skin but its flesh is a deep orange: it’s kind of like what you might see if ginger root and an orange merged together. (It’s sometimes called Indian saffron because of its similarity in color.)

While it’s one of the main ingredients in a curry, turmeric is also found in inexpensive store and ballpark mustards (such as French’s) as it gives mustard a bright yellow color. On its own, turmeric has a peppery, warm and slightly bitter taste. It’s high in manganese, iron, vitamin B6 and also contains fiber and potassium.

For thousands of years, turmeric has been used in China and India as an anti-inflammatory agent to treat conditions from toothaches to chest pains, colic, menstrual difficulties, flatulence and even jaundice. The healing power comes from curcumin, which is contained within the yellow or orange pigment. Curcumin has been shown in multiple studies to compare to the drugs hydrocortisone and phenylbutazone and even over the counter anti-inflammatory products such as Motrin!

While these drugs all carry numerous risky side effects, however, curcumin has not demonstrated any toxicity or concerns. Beyond its generalized use as an anti-inflammatory (something very important given todays pro-inflammatory diet), turmeric has been shown in studies to have some very powerful more specific health benefits including aiding in:

Cancer prevention;
Improved liver function;
Rheumatoid arthritis relief;
Cystic fibrosis prevention;
Cholesterol level reduction;
Alzheimer’s prevention; and
Treatment for Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis.

That is some serious nutritional power in a tasty little powder! So how do you bring this power into your diet? While turmeric is often found in supermarkets these days, spice stores and ethnic markets often have superior quality and freshness. If you are buying a jar of turmeric, try to find an organic brand (so you can be sure it was not irradiated as many spices are because that damages the free radicals) that is packaged and shipped fresh.

Powders should be kept in a cool, dark and dry place in a tightly sealed container. If you purchase turmeric itself, the fresh turmeric rhizome, as it is called, should be kept in your refrigerator. When ready to use, you boil it, dry it and grind it finely. The color of the powder may vary from yellow to orange but that won’t affect its quality: you can expect color variation to vary by variety.

Turmeric can stain easily, so wash any area it comes in contact with using soap and water and consider wearing kitchen gloves to prevent finger stains if handling directly. One last tip: curry powder contains only a small amount of the healing curcumin so opt for turmeric rather than curry powder for best results.

Experts say 2 teaspoons a day can have a powerful health impact so look for ways to add more turmeric into your diet by adding it to salad dressings, egg salads, or sprinkling it on steamed veggies such as cauliflower, onions, green beans and even sautéed apples. It goes great in any recipe using a curry (just add some extra) or anything you cook with lentils.

Taking a risk in life is good…. Food and especially spices are a great and easy way to bring something new and different in your life: Escape your routine and try a new spice such as turmeric today!

How You’re Making Your PMS (Or Menopause) Worse

womentowomen on October 3, 2015

When we started Women to Women more than thirty years ago, we were so excited to create the first alternative health clinic to offer care for women by women. We knew from the day our doors opened that women were not always listened to in the mainstream health care system. We knew that many practitioners had no idea what PMS or Menopause was really like: how could they when it was not even taught in medical school?

Back then, so many physicians would tell their patients that their symptoms of heart palpitations, anxiety, hot flashes, fuzzy thinking, depression and more were “all in their head.” Or they would simply send them out the door with a prescription for an anti-depressant, never taking the time to understand or connect the dots the symptoms were presenting.

From day one, we were passionate about women being heard; we listened to our patients, reassured them that their symptoms were real and that we understood how debilitating and disrupting they could be, and we worked with them to restore hormonal balance, heal, and get their bodies (and their lives) back on track. Since then thousands of women have come to our clinic and used our online programs to finally feel like themselves again.

When we started, we knew we were ahead of the curve but we truly believed that “the curve” would begin to catch up and that more practitioners would practice functional medicine. Functional medicine acknowledges that everything is connected and recognizes that sometimes a symptom does not come from an obvious cause, but rather, is the result of something happening further ‘upstream’ that needs to be addressed for health and healing (instead of simply treating the end result, the symptom.)

There is definitely more awareness today but sadly, three decades later, we still see patients who are dismissed by their regular practitioners because they were unable or unwilling to see the impact their hormonal balance symptoms were having on their lives and their health. Sometimes they were given an anti-depressant as a magic bullet; sometimes they were simply told it’s just a part of getting older. Sometimes we see women who have been to specialist after specialist to uncover the true cause of their health concerns, only to remain undiagnosed, miserable and exhausted.

The women who find us at our clinic or on our website tell us that we changed their lives and they are so glad they (finally!) found us. And we are thrilled that we can be there to listen, support, understand and guide them back to health.

While there have been some incredible medical advances over the past few decades, at Women to Women, we see more women than ever with debilitating PMS and peri-menopausal symptoms. That is because many of these hormonal balance, adrenal and thyroid symptoms are created and/or exacerbated by our lifestyle choices.

With the changes to factory farming, the rise of fast and convenience food, eating out more, working longer, sitting more, sleeping less, the prevalence of stress, and the excesses of exercise, alcohol and caffeine we employ to cope, more women than ever are struggling with painful or uncomfortable PMS or Perimenopausal symptoms.

The good news is that if we are causing or worsening our symptoms, then we can improve and even alleviate them. Let’s look at some of the factors that may be making your symptoms worse and what we can all do to help our bodies heal, whether you are experiencing symptoms or not.

(We have a lot more information on each triggers of these on our website, so I’m going to keep the details to the point. If you want more information, check out our articles here.)

Top PMS and Perimenopause Triggers

Sleep – Many of my patients struggle to get a good night’s sleep. A recent study showed that after two weeks of sleeping for only 6 hours a night, your body reacts and functions as if you had been up for 48 hours straight! Sleep is so important to health and wellness and most of all, restoring balance and healing. That’s because so many of our body’s healing processes take place at night while we are sleeping. If your sleep is disrupted, so is your healing and that means your hormonal imbalance and your symptoms will seem worse.

So what can you do if you aren’t getting enough sleep? I know we are all so busy, but try making a plan to get 7-8 hours of sleep every night for two weeks straight. My bet is you’ll feel so good after a few weeks that it will become a priority! Turn off the TV and read before bed. Try a warm bath with Epsom salts or take a magnesium supplement before bed, especially if you wake up and have trouble going back to sleep. (Magnesium has been shown to aid in falling – and staying – asleep and most of us are deficient.).

Keep your room cool and dark and avoid reading, watching or discussing anything intense or stressful (like the news or problems at work or with the kids) in the hours before bedtime. If your mind is busy or you have difficulty relaxing, try our Women to Women’s Sleep Support Formula that supports relaxation and sleep.

Stress – Stress has reached epidemic proportions and it is proven to disrupt hormones and menstrual cycles, leading to more painful periods and more entrenched peri-menopausal symptoms. I’m not going to be the first one to tell you that finding a way to slow down and relax is critical for your health and your hormonal balance; you’ve heard it before and the research proves the negative health impacts of living under ongoing stress include not just worse PMS or peri-menopausal symptoms, but adrenal fatigue or burn out, heart disease, stroke, cancer and more.

So What Can I Do About My Stress? There are many ways to reduce stress and what is important is that you find the one (s) that you enjoy and will stick with. Meditation, tai chi, yoga, deep breathing, journaling, art or music therapy are all great stress relievers. As is spending time in nature, being active outdoors, a nice long walk or being with loved ones and laughing.

Try combining a few to pack a more powerful punch such as a yoga class with a friend, or a walk with a loved one. Plan activities on the weekend, over lunch, or after work that excite you, inspire your creativity, or just get you to slow down and breath, laugh or smile.

Diet – Food is probably the biggest symptom trigger. It’s hard to eat well in today’s world: even your intentions are good, the nutrient level in food is not what it used to be and food today contains hormones, chemicals, pesticides and allergens that disrupt our hormone system. Most of my patients are out of balance from low-fat diets, too much refined sugar and flour and processed foods, dairy (which often contains hormones that will tilt your system out of balance), carbohydrates, gluten, dieting or eating irregularly throughout the day instead of steady meals and snacks that start with a healthy breakfast and end at least three hours before bed.

So What Can I Do About My Diet? Women to Women has a meal plan coming soon

to guide you, but your goal should be to reduce or eliminate foods that disrupt hormones such as alcohol, caffeine, sugar, white flour, processed foods, excess carbohydrates, dairy (especially non-organic), gluten, and non-organic fruits and vegetables as many pesticides contain environmental estrogens that will disrupt your hormone balance.

Instead, look for high quality REAL foods and try to combine high-quality protein, fats and fiber (such as vegetables and other slow-release carbohydrates) at every meal. Look for organic whenever possible and when it comes to animal products, wild such as salmon, venison, bison, or grass-fed beef are better. Think of it as a re-set for your hormones and try to take two weeks to make thoughtful food choices. Most of my patients say that they feel so much better after two weeks that they never want to go back to their old way of eating again!

Excess – Good sleep, good food, regular movement throughout your day to reduce periods of sitting, exercise, and relaxation are all important for healing. Often, however, when our lives get out of balance, we adopt coping mechanisms to make it through. Over time, if the situation doesn’t change, those become habits that can derail our health.

Excess caffeine (more than a cup or two of coffee for example or relying on the coffee to get up or to make it through the afternoon) will wreak havoc on your hormones. So will too much alcohol (it’s just like sugar and will raise your blood sugar levels followed by a crash, making hormonal balance — and possibly restful sleep if you drink at night — impossible.

While exercise is great for health and hormonal balance, too much exercise/extreme exercise can lead to exacerbated symptoms as well as it may deplete the body’s nutritional reserves and send it into famine mode.

So What Can I Do About Excess? We all know we need balance in our lives and hormonal imbalance is often a great reminder of that: we cannot balance our hormones if we out of balance in major areas of our lives. A cup or two of coffee or an occasional glass of wine is ok, especially if it brings you pleasure and you slow down, stop and truly relax and enjoy it. (Though if your symptoms are moderate to severe, you may want to take a break from all caffeine and alcohol for a couple weeks to let your body re-set and see how you feel.)

If you crave something, be if coffee, wine, salty foods, or chocolate, you’re likely out of balance and not getting nutrients that you need; you should definitely look into a high quality multi-vitamin and a probiotic supplement such as the ones we offer in our store.

If you’re addicted to exercise, you may need to learn to love your body (and yourself) as it is. Or you may need to get the energy high from a hug or a close relationship instead. Ask yourself WHY you are doing/eating it. If the answer is positive and nourishing, indulge a little. If not, look for another way to get what you or your body needs.

You don’t Have To Go It Alone!

In our many years at Women to Women, we have found most every woman requires a high-quality multivitamin, an omega 3 and a probiotic supplement. We simply cannot get the nutrition we need from the food supply today, even if we eat well. If you are under stress, not sleeping well, don’t get regular exercise, sit too much throughout the day, are exposed to hormones, chemicals or pesticides, or just don’t feel good, it’s even more important that you support your body’s healing with good nutritional supplementation.

If your symptoms are more severe, the additional support we provide in our PMS and Menopausal Product Systems will help your body jump-start its healing and find relief even more quickly. You may think a nutritional support system cannot bring you relief or maybe you’ve tried cheaper nutritional supplements in the past without success but that’s why we offer a money-back guarantee: our products work.

We have partnered directly with a leading lab to bring you the very best products available, proven to make a difference. We’ve helped thousands of women restore hormonal balance and find relief from their PMS and peri-menopausal symptoms. We can help you too.

To learn more about our PMS product system, click here.

To learn more about our menopausal product system, click here.

What You Need to Know about Water and Hydration

womentowomen on August 20, 2015

Summer in Maine is short, but so very sweet: beautiful weather, time for the beach or the lake, and gathering with friends. Because the winters can be long and harsh, we treasure every minute of summer in Maine and try to get outside as much as we can to soak in the sunshine (and the vitamin D!).

Many patients come to me at Women to Women wondering what the best options are to stay hydrated: when you’re outside in warmer weather, it is even more important to ensure that you drink often and stay hydrated.

So what should you choose? Should you stick with bottled or tap water? What if you don’t like water?

Today I’d like to look at some of the options for optimal hydration and share a little about why hydration is so important so you can support your body through the summer heat and beyond.

Why We Need to Stay Hydrated

If you’ve ever tried to lose weight, (and most all of my patients have at some point in time!), you know that it is often not that hard to drop a few pounds when you first start and that your weight can fluctuate a few pounds on a daily basis. That’s because of changes in your body’s water levels and it’s why many say not to weigh yourself on a daily basis (or even at all) but rather to go by how your clothes fit and feel.

More than half our body weight is water and you lose water every day as you go to the bathroom and sweat. When you are active or in higher temperatures, even if you’re just sitting, you’ll lose even more water. You also lose water when you have a fever, vomiting or diarrhea, if you are on a diet, if you are pregnant, breastfeeding, or even if you are older. That’s because as we age, our brains are less sensitive to hydration levels and thirst signals are not as precise.

The water we lose must be replaced because our bodies need water to survive.

Every cell, tissue and organ requires water to perform their functions including joint lubrication, waste removal and maintaining your desired body temperature, to name a few. (If you’re struggling with hormonal balance and having body temperature changes, it’s even more important not to exacerbate this by becoming dehydrated as that will prevent your body from maintaining its proper temperature.)

Are You Dehydrated? How Much Water Do You Really Need?

Many women come to the clinic with symptoms of sleeplessness, fatigue, headache, dizziness, lightheadedness, or confusion. While these are all common symptoms of hormonal imbalance, many of my patients are surprised to learn that these are also symptoms of dehydration!

In addition, dry mouth, no tears when crying, lighter than normal urine volume or urine that is dark yellow are also common signs of dehydration. If you are experiencing these symptoms, you’ll need to increase your fluid intake. If you do not have these common signs of dehydration, how do you know if you are well hydrated and how to determine much water do you need?

The old adage about water consumption has been that we need to drink 8 8-ounce glasses a day. That’s because back in 1945, when that recommendation was developed, the Food and Nutrition Board suggested 1 ml or 1/5 of a teaspoon of water for every calorie consumed. Since the average diet was about 1900 calories then, that worked out to 64 ounces a day.

Now the Institute of Medicine sets general water guidelines at 91 ounces, or 2.7 liters a day, for women and 125 ounces, or 3.7 liters, for men. But these guidelines include any and all liquids we drink, even coffee or soda, and the water found in foods we eat as well. They now say that most healthy people can get all the fluids they need from their regular food and drink without adding multiple extra glasses of water and that most importantly, thirst should be the guide.

Of course, some of my patients are transitioning off medications for depression, heart disease or stomach ulcers and these medications can disrupt your thirst signals. In addition, diabetes will disrupt thirst signals as well, so you cannot always rely solely on thirst.

I always tell my patients that liquid consumption, much like everything is, bio-individual: some people will need more, some less. One of the best ways to gauge your hydration level is still checking your urine: a well-hydrated body will have clear or light yellow urine. If yours is dark yellow or amber-colored, you are likely dehydrated.

What Is the Best Way to Stay Hydrated?

Because water is a foundation of the human body, drinking pure water is the best way to remain hydrated and to replace the water your body loses on a daily basis. But today, getting pure water is much harder than it should be. Tap water is often fluoridated which can pose many health concerns including thyroid problems and cancers. (You can learn more about this in our article here.)

If you drink tap water, you will need to filter it. There are whole house filtration systems available that remove all the chemicals from your water including your bath water as well as your tap water. Since we absorb water through our skin as well, these are an excellent investment. Or you can choose to just filter the water from your kitchen sink. If that’s not possible, there are now water bottles with built in filters available that you could refill and keep with you throughout your day.

While bottled water is a convenient option, at Women to Women, we don’t recommend bottled water to our patients. In addition to the environmental concerns massive amounts of plastic are posing, recent studies have shown that bottled water often contains many of the same chemicals as tap water, which can disrupt your endocrine system and cause health concerns. In addition, plastic bottles leach chemicals into the water when they are exposed to heat: even if you keep yours in a cool, dark place, it’s very likely they were exposed to heat in transit, in the store or in a warehouse.

If water seems boring, try adding a slice or two of lemon, cucumber or another fruit to it to jazz it up. Keep a pitcher of fruit water handy in your fridge to make it convenient. While any liquid counts in terms of hydration, we don’t recommend soda or juice because of the high sugar content. (Diet soda poses numerous other health concerns and should always be avoided).

In addition, stay away from energy drinks, as they are usually high in caffeine and other stimulants such as ginseng, guarana or taurine. Most processed sports drinks are not much better. They contain very high levels of sugar, may contain caffeine, and often contain artificial dyes and ingredients that may pose health risks.

If you are going to be physically active outside in hot weather, though, it is important to replace the electrolytes your body will lose through excessive sweating. In that case, look for a natural water supplement to add to your filtered water. Ultima Replenisher makes an electrolyte drink powder that has no artificial colors, flavors, or sweeteners. It comes in convenient single serve packs you can carry with you and simply add to your water if needed. (I like the lemonade flavor)

In our previous newsletter we shared that a cup or two of coffee a day is fine. In the summer if you choose to have it iced even better; either way, it still contributes to your liquid intake. Same with tea: if it’s caffeinated, a cup or two a day, hot or iced, is fine. However green tea (which has lower caffeine) or herbal teas can be effective hydrators especially over ice.

And don’t forget that the food you eat that contains water counts too: soups and broths, vegetables and fruits such as tomatoes, water and even lettuces all contain water as well.

Water Loss, Hormones and Vitamins

If you are losing more water than normal for any of the reasons mentioned, you’ll also want to pay extra attention to ensuring you take a high-quality multi-vitamin to ensure you have the vitamins, minerals and co-factors needed for your body to remain in optimal health when under the stress of heat or exertion.

If you are experiencing symptoms of hormonal balance such as fatigue, hot flashes, anxiety, night sweats, digestive concerns, depression, or fuzzy thinking, your body needs extra help and support to get back on track. You don’t have to suffer. Our hormonal balance product system has helped thousands of women to finally feel like themselves again. We can help you too.

While it’s always a good idea to take a high-quality multi-vitamin since we simply cannot get enough nutrition from our diets today given the way food is produced and marketed, it’s especially important if you are experiencing symptoms of hormonal balance. In addition, however, we often make adjustments to our lifestyles in the summer months that may require us to provide our bodies with additional support.

If you are more active, as we often are in the summer; if you are outside in heat or other environmentally stressful situations; if you are exercising more or doing your usual routine in warmer temperatures than normal; if you are not sleeping as well at night due to warmer temperatures or because you are staying up later to fully enjoy every summer day and night; or if are eating lighter because of the heat, you’ll definitely need to make sure you provide your body with the support it needs to balance your hormones and stay healthy.

If any of those conditions or scenarios sounds like you, you can’t expect your body to perform optimally or heal itself without giving it the right support. With our stressful lives depleting our nutrients and our food supply unable to replenish them, you must take action to heal your body and restore hormonal balance if you want to

live symptom-free.

You can feel better. But it won’t happen unless you make the decision to give your body the support it needs. To learn more about our hormonal balance system including our high-quality pharmaceutical grade multi-vitamin, which has helped thousands of women to feel better and restore their health, click here.

Making Menopause Magical and Meaningful

womentowomen on August 7, 2015

One of the wonderful things about being a part of Women to Women for over thirty years is that I have seen so many women heal their bodies and their lives. Thousands of women overcome by disruptive symptoms such as joint pain, night sweats, digestive concerns, anxiety, depression, mood swings, or hot flashes, have gone on to restore hormonal balance and to feel like themselves again.

It’s incredible to see the physical transformation first-hand and watch them leave the clinic feeling good, often for the first-time in years. But more and more, I am seeing women transformed by menopause in other ways: emotional healing, the emergence of a new understanding of who they are and what they want, expression of dormant creativity, and even total reinvention.

I can’t tell you how inspiring it is to see women heal emotionally and physically and go on to create incredible amazing lives after menopause. So often we speak about menopause negatively, focusing on symptoms and discomfort and the physical challenges it brings. But menopause also brings a wonderful opportunity to get to know our bodies and ourselves in a much deeper way and to use the information we gain to chart a new course for the second half of our lives. How exciting is that?

Like all big opportunities, however, it’s not completely effortless: the mid-life transition of menopause brings with it some challenges and requires a little time and effort on our parts. But the pay off is so worth it! If you’re feeling down or discouraged about the state of your body and/or your life, I want to reassure that there is hope. You can get your symptoms under control. You can feel good again. You can turn your life around and create a new future by using this time to explore emotions and dreams you may have put on hold or buried away and forgotten long ago.

Before we can look at the emotional aspects, however, we need to deal with the physical ones. If you are not feeling well or not feeling like yourself, you won’t have the ability or the space or the emotional stamina to look deeply within yourself. Over the past three decades at Women to Women, we have seen the power of nutrition and lifestyle choices first-hand: now more than ever, food is medicine or poison, depending upon how you use it.

It’s important at all times, but especially during times of transition such as menopause, that we make the best choices we can to nourish and support our bodies and our lives. That’s why we encourage our patients to eat whole foods, organic when possible, and not packaged or processed foods. We also suggest to our patients that they try to cook at home as much as possible since restaurant food is often as bad — or even worse — than packaged and even fast foods.

Balance is key: aim for meals with healthy proteins, fats and fiber. That means grass-fed beef, organic free-range chicken, wild-caught salmon, bison, and whole and complete plant-based proteins like quinoa. We also need to consume healthy fats in the form of olive oil, avocados, grass-fed butter, and nuts along with lots of (organic when possible) fruits and vegetables.

We’ve shared with you before, however, that even adopting this healthy eating plan, it is very hard to get all of the nutrients we require from todays food supply, especially during a time of transition and hormonal imbalance such as menopause. That’s why even if you eat well – but especially if you do not – we believe every woman needs high-quality bio-absorbable nutritional supplementation like we offer in our multi-vitamin and omega-3 support products.

Most of our patients find that the right high-quality supplementation, along with some simple dietary changes such as cooking more and eating out less and making sure meals are balanced with protein, fat and fiber, brings significant and fast symptom relief. If your hormones are out of balance, additional plant-based support to restore that balance is also provided in our PMS and hormonal balance support systems to help speed relief and heal and restore balance. Quite frankly, we find the results to be amazing!

If you’ve read our previous newsletters on probiotics, you know that we also recommend a probiotic support product to all of our patients. If you have digestive concerns of any kind, this is definitely a must. But as we’ve seen from recent studies, the gut flora balance our bodies rely on for wellness can so easily be disrupted by antibiotics, stress, lack of sleep and poor food choices, so it’s important to ensure that your second brain, your digestive system, is in balance.

If you can make small dietary changes and then also add in some basic lifestyle shifts such as getting more sleep (start with 15 more minutes a night, then work up to 30 or 60 more minutes over time); finding ways to reduce and relieve stress (it may be physical such as yoga or tai chi or it may be more spiritual such as journaling, meditation or a hobby; I like using both); adding in more physical movement in our day (take a walk at lunch, take the stairs or simply make sure you stand up every hour); and looking to find exercise we truly enjoy doing (I’ve begun ballroom dancing and I love it! But many women I know have taken up training for a run or cycling charity event, started hiking again, or tried Zumba or boxing classes at the gym), you’ll be well on your way to feeling good again.

As women begin to feel better physically, at the clinic we often see that emotions they have buried previously may come to the surface. Perhaps feelings or issues from your childhood that you never fully addressed may emerge. While that may surprise you, it is a gift and a call from your body to explore them, feel them, release them and heal them so that you can experience greater physical and emotional health going forward.

Much like a physical symptom showing up that invites us to look upstream to see what actually caused it, (and it may be something very different than what it initially appears to be), an emotional memory or experience is your body’s way of shining a light and asking you to delve deeper to explore the root cause so that you can release the symptom or its expression.

For other women, it may be more of an opportunity to finally take some time for themselves: their career may be more stable, kids may be older, perhaps they are on their own or their relationship affords them more “me time” at this stage; it is a chance to ask questions about who and where they are now… and where they would like to go.

Is there enough joy and sweetness in my life?
What can I imagine myself to be?
What could I do with the second half off my life?
Who am I now? What do I want? How could I get there?

There are no right or wrong answers and unlike the pressure of an imminent graduation or wedding, there is no time constraint forcing an immediate decision or action. So finally, sometimes for the first time in a woman’s life, she can explore these questions openly, playfully, spiritually, enthusiastically and individually, focusing on herself, and see what comes up. It may be a little scary but mostly it is fun to imagine a variety of future possibilities, to take time to sit with what comes up and see how it really feels, and to focus on what lights us up and ignites us with passion.

I have seen so many women take the time to explore these questions and emerge from menopause clear and excited about where they would like to go — and then go off and create it. I admire and am inspired by these women reinventing themselves and their lives and using menopause as a time of transformation, healing and growth.

I invite you to consider menopause as more than just annoying symptoms but also as a wake up call to your physical body and to your spirit to look deeper and see what is really going on, what lies within that is calling for you to discover it, and to explore the possibilities for the second — and quite possibly best half — of your life.

Our menopause support products can help speed symptom relief so you are free to explore the gifts that menopause can bring. Our multi-vitamin, omega-3 and plant-based support products work together synergistically to heal and restore hormonal balance.

Stop suffering now! Hot flashes, night sweats, forgetfulness and brain fog can disappear! Order Women to Women’s Menopause Support Program today!
ORDER NOW.

To take our hormonal balance symptom quiz, click here.

Anxious? Depressed? It’s Not in Your Head: It May Be in Your Stomach!

womentowomen on July 25, 2015

Over the last thirty years, we’ve seen first-hand that in order to create and sustain wellness, we need to do more than just treat a symptom; we need to find the cause.

At Women to Women, we practice functional medicine because we know that everything in our bodies is interconnected.

Often, the cause is not immediately related to the symptom; the symptom may be the result of something that happened “upstream” which created a chain reaction of sorts. So while the symptom may be cause for concern, the bigger challenge is tracking down how, why and where it all began.

Over the past three decades that we’ve been in practice, I’ve seen over and over again the importance of maintaining a healthy digestive tract: so many different symptoms can present when the bacteria in our digestive system become imbalanced.

I am thrilled to see so much new research and information in the media these days about the important role our gut flora play in our health; it’s so exciting to see what we have learned and experienced first-hand at Women to Women begin to reach the mainstream and to hear others finally talking about it too.

While at Women to Women we’ve connected gut bacteria to mental and physical health for more than a decade, when most people think about mental health, they still think about brain chemical imbalances. But now new research is showing that the imbalance causing anxiety and depression (and a host of digestive and other health concerns) may not be in your head; it may be in your gut.

Let’s look at your gut and why it’s so important to your health.

What is your Gut?

Your gut is considered to be your entire digestive system including your stomach, colon, and intestines. We have 100 trillion bacteria (about 6 pounds worth) in our guts. In comparison, we have about 37 trillion cells in our entire body! While gut bacteria is often labeled as either good or bad, all bacteria play a role and are necessary but they must remain in balance so that no one group takes over.

Bacteria help us break down food, absorb nutrients, run our immune system (70-80% of our immune cells reside in our intestines) and our digestive system. When we have too many of certain kinds of bacteria, it can cause us digestive distresses, obesity, and now research shows, can even impact our mood.

The bacteria in our guts generally coexist peacefully but when we get out of alignment, stressed out, eat poorly, don’t sleep enough, or take medications such as antibiotics, we upset the delicate balance, killing off necessary good bacteria we need for health and allowing other bacteria to take over. That’s one powerful reason why our lifestyle choices and diets have such a huge impact on our health!

Antibiotics were developed to kill off potentially deadly bacteria and they may be one of the greatest discoveries of all time for extending our health. But antibiotics kill off all bacteria: they do not differentiate between good and bad or which bacteria play what role. That means every time we take an antibiotic, we lose healthy bacteria as well. If we eat poorly, have stress or poor sleep, we create the environment for less healthy or potentially harmful bacteria to grow and we shift the balance of bacteria in our systems.

Gut Flora and Weight

While we’ve known for awhile that stress, poor sleep, and an imbalanced diet can lead to bacteria imbalances, studies also show that eating junk food such as fast food will kill off healthy bacteria. A genetic epidemiology professor recently put his son on a McDonalds diet for 10 days as an experiment. He tested his son’s gut microbes and found 3500 species of bacteria before starting; by the end of 10 days, 1300 of the species had died.

In addition, the professor found that a new type of bacteria took control in his son and that the bacteria linked to obesity became present. Even more concerning was the fact that when the son resumed a normal diet, the species of bacteria that had been killed did not return! This will create an imbalanced environment in the gut that may lead to a host of potential health concerns over time if not corrected.

Fast food has been linked to obesity because we assume it’s all about eating too many calories. This study shows that the food itself may be altering gut bacteria balance and causing us to hold onto or gain weight. We’ve already seen lab studies showing that when mice receive bacteria from obese humans they become obese as well and headlines were made recently when a woman received a fecal transplant and became obese after the procedure. These studies show that being obese is not just about eating too much and lacking willpower!

Conditions such as Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), Crohn’s and Colitis have long been connected to gut health but now we are beginning to see connections between gut flora imbalances and diabetes, heart disease and cancer as well. I expect we will see much more research on this in they years to come.

Gut Flora and Mood

In addition to all of the connections established already between health, disease and your gut, exciting new research has now also shown that our gut is actually responsible for how we feel (good or bad) and is even connected to mental health concerns such as anxiety and depression.

For a long time scientists thought that we might feel good or bad simply because of how our digestive tract was doing; it’s hard to feel good if you feel bloated or have cramping. Now, however, researchers have been able to show it’s even more than that. Bacteria in our guts are actually able to produce hormones such as serotonin, dopamine and other mood enhancers — or detractors — directly! These chemicals are not just produced in the brain: they are created in our guts as well!

It’s incredible to think that we have hormones being created in our digestive systems and not just our brains: our stomachs are actually creating or altering our moods! This helps explain why we have been able to treat menopausal women who experience anxiety and depression at Women to Women so effectively through our nutritional plan and supplements.

In fact, scientists now believe that the neurons in the gut produce as much dopamine and those in the head and about 95% of the serotonin in the body measured at any point in time is typically in the enteric nervous system, or the nervous system found in the gut.

In the future, gut bacteria research may lead to alternative therapies and treatments for a number of mental health concerns. I am excited about what we will learn in the years to come. In the meantime, however, if you suffer from anxiety and depression, I encourage taking a look at your stomach and not just your head.

I believe time and more research will connect many of our modern diseases and conditions including obesity and other mental health concerns to gut health. More than ever, research is proving that we truly are what we eat and that food is our greatest medicine or our most dangerous poison.

At Women to Women, we have found that eating whole foods, reducing stress, getting a good night’s sleep and taking high quality multi-vitamins will go a long way to supporting better gut — and overall — health. In addition, adding more fermented foods such as kefir, sauerkraut, tempeh and miso to our diets can help to restore gut balance.

I also encourage all my patients to take a high quality probiotic to support better gut health, especially if they are experiencing any symptoms. If you are struggling with digestive concerns, you need to restore balance in your gut flora. If you are struggling with weight gain or obesity, you may have a flora imbalance. And if you are experiencing anxiety or depression, you’ll need to balance the hormones being created in your gut as well as your brain with healthy probiotic support.

You don’t have to experience digestive concerns or suffer from mood imbalances. We’ve helped thousands of women to feel like themselves again. We can help you too. Between antibiotics, processed foods, stress, poor sleep, and food contamination, we could all use a little digestive health support and a good probiotic is an important part of maintaining and restoring healthy gut flora balance.

To learn more about our probiotic support, click here.

The #1 Symptom of Menopause: It’s Not What you Think!

womentowomen on July 16, 2015

Do you know what the #1 symptom of Menopause is? I bet it’s not what you think!

There are many different menopausal symptoms (three dozen or so!) and each woman experiences menopause differently; which symptoms cause the greatest disruption to YOUR life will be unique to YOU. But even so, with my patients at Women to Women, I’ve seen a few symptoms rise to the top of the complaint list over the years.

For the longest time, the biggest complaint women had during perimenopause was around hot flashes. Hot flashes are still a big concern for women, don’t get me wrong, because they are really disrupting and 4 out of 5 women will experience them at menopause.

But over the past few years, I’ve seen a shift in symptom complaints in my patients. The number one symptom I see at Women to Women today is no longer hot flashes: it’s anxiety.

Anxiety can show up in your life in many ways. You may have heart palpitations, trouble breathing, a nervous stomach, or feel like you are scattered, distracted or compulsively worrying. So what’s changed to make anxiety so much more prevalent among women transitioning through menopause today?

In my opinion, much comes down to stress. The way we live our lives today and the amount of stress we experience on a daily basis running our homes, our families, our jobs and trying to do it all takes its toll on our bodies.

And when you have that high stress combined with changing hormones, the likelihood of experiencing anxiety is that much greater. That’s because progesterone has a soothing effect on our nervous systems and as the ratios of progesterone to estrogen decrease during perimenopause, anxiety is often the result. And when we have increased amounts of stress for long periods of time, pregnenolone, a precursor to progesterone gets pushed down a different pathway to make cortisol. Then, often, women will have a low progesterone level and imbalanced hormones.

So what can you do about it? I’m not going to be the first person to tell you that you have to find a way to slow down and reduce stress. I know it can be hard with so much going on in your busy lives but I can tell you that finding a practice that works for you and taking the time to implement it into your daily routine is going to go a long way toward feeling better.

Your anxiety is a call to action from your body, telling you to listen. If you don’t take action, not only will you be living with the anxiety and the uncomfortable, life-disrupting symptoms it presents for longer than you need to, but over time, that stress is going to cause other more serious problems.

So take your anxious moment as a message from your body to say: Hey there! You’re running me ragged and I need a little rest and a break. How about a good night’s sleep, some healthy nutritious food and some me-time? Maybe some deep breathing, meditation, yoga, tai chi, chi gong, a hot bath or journaling and a cup of tea? Or perhaps a nice long walk outside?

Whatever you decide to do is up to you. It should be something that slows you down, gives you time to relax and free your mind, to take deep breaths and step away from the crazy stress of the day. Finding some time for yourself every day will not only reduce your anxiety, it will make you happier and re-fill your cup so that you can give more to others than you can when you’re running on empty yourself.

And taking a little time every day to relax and de-stress will help you get your body back on track so that the stress won’t do more damage. Stress is connected to heart disease, cancer and more, so ignoring this wake-up call won’t serve you well now or in the future. But the good news is that it just takes a little practice to build some de-stress time into your daily routine.

You can also look to add some more protein to your meals and snacks. The addition of protein will help to reduce blood sugar spiking and lessen internal inflammation or the stress caused by food additives, allergens, and chemicals. Consider lean meat, grass-fed cheese, nuts, or nut butters, without added sugars.

At Women to Women, we’ve seen that a daily de-stress ritual coupled with getting a good night’s sleep and making sound nutrition choices can restore your health, relieve your symptoms and get you feeling great again. Try to avoid sugar and processed foods, which can cause internal stress on your body and choose organic fruits and vegetables, grass-fed meats, and wild caught fish instead.

And because we know that even if you try, it’s really hard to get the nutrition you need from today’s food supply, we recommend a high quality pharmaceutical grade multivitamin and omega 3 oil to restore inner balance, reduce inflammation and manage the stress within your body. We believe every one needs to take both a multi-vitamin and an omega-3 product for optimal wellness.

If you are experiencing symptoms of hormonal imbalance, you will also need additional nutrients to support your body’s healing such as the all-natural herbs we have formulated in our proprietary Menopause Support product.

Diet and lifestyle changes combined with nutritional support through high quality supplementation leave most of our patients symptom-free. So if you’re ready to get rid of anxiety, hot flashes and other life-disrupting symptoms so that you can restore your health and feel like yourself again, we can help. We’ve helped thousands of women to feel better and we can help you too.

To learn more about our menopause support system, click here.

What’s The Buzz About Precision Medicine?

womentowomen on June 26, 2015

At Women to Women, we’ve known about bio-individuality for more than three decades now and have always believed that there is no one size fits all approach to wellness. So it’s exciting for me to see functional medicine actively acknowledge the potential that exists to use our own bodies’ information to prevent, diagnose, and treat health conditions (even if mainstream medicine isn’t quite there yet.)

Precision medicine has been called a “broad-based research program that is focused on creative approaches for individual patients.” The recommendations that emerge from the studies that are done would then be tested and used to build an evidence-base that can more effectively guide clinical practices. That may sound technical or scientific, but what it really means is that finally individual health statistics would be tracked in a massive database and we could begin to learn from what we know about others who face the same conditions or share similar genes.

Understanding that we are all different, at least on some level, is not a totally new concept for the medical community. We’ve known for some time that there are different blood types and that a Type B can’t receive Type A blood, for example; some differences between human bodies are openly acknowledged and understood by everyone.

But taking that blood type idea even further and applying it more broadly to acknowledge variances among our proteins, metabolites, genes, cellular assays (secretions) and more on a person by person basis, is an exciting concept to consider!

Could we ever know enough about our individual body functions to be able to target prevention and treatment strategies that are unique to our own physiology? Someday, I think so.
Precision medicine is underway now and is already having an impact on the treatment of cancers. Many cancer incidence rates are increasing and cancers overall are among the leading causes of death both here in the U.S. and all over the world. We know now from research that there are characteristics that are universal across all cancers but there are others that are unique to each particular kind of cancer: every cancer has its own “genomic signature.”

And we are learning more every day about those signatures. While we know now from research that cancer is predominantly a lifestyle disease, resulting from damage to the genes based on things like our food choices, exposure to chemicals and toxins and stress, we also know that there is a genetic component and that inherited gene variations can also play a significant role in cancer development.

Knowing this, precision medicine scientists are already adjusting their risk assessments, their diagnoses and therapeutic strategies based on the variances among the genes that they observe, enabling targeted therapies, drugs and antibodies to be developed that are already having incredible results. Imagine what they can do when they have access to a huge database of information that they can study!

We are just starting … and as we analyze more cancer genomes and conduct more trials, the precision medicine initiative hopes to build a “cancer knowledge network” to store the data and the conclusions and enable scientists, health care workers — and even patients — to access it. This will enhance existing cancer treatment practices, making them more precise and may also improve preventative measures. It will also empower patients to take more control of their own health.

As amazing as this foray into bio-individuality in the cancer realm is to me, the really exciting part of all this is what may be coming down the road: scientists hope to build a database and a longitudinal “cohort” of over a million Americans to gather and track health information and eventually develop better understandings of disease mechanisms, disease risk, and optimal therapies.

They hope to include a wide range of biomedical information, including genomic, cellular, behavioral, molecular, clinical, environmental and physiological parameters. What that means is that researchers can use details our bodies can give us, from our genes to our cells to our lifestyles, gather the information into a database where it can be studied and cross-referenced, and then they can develop some powerful applications using advancing technologies.

For example, one possible application might be a high-tech solution such as real-time monitoring of blood pressure, cardiac rhythm and glucose via your mobile phone. Another possibility might address a recent headline made when a woman received a fecal transplant and became obese as a result: fecal sampling might determine the specific patterns of gut microbes contributing to obesity.

Blood tests might be able to reveal tumors cells or enable early detection of cancer through tumor DNA. Or we may also be able to use genotyping to uncover the specific variants among genes that lead to certain conditions, enabling more effective treatment, earlier detection and ultimately, prevention.

While the greatest benefits will likely take some time, it is also hoped that another shorter-term benefit may be found in pharmacogenetics: getting the right drug to the right patient in the right dose. For those on medications, this can be very impactful.

At Women to Women, we’ve always known that every woman is different: our philosophy has always been to meet her wherever she is and work with her own unique physiology, biology, lifestyle and “story.” We treat the whole person and accept that there is no one size fits all approach.

But over the last thirty plus years, we also have come to see first-hand in our clinic that while there is always some tweaking and adjusting patient by patient, certain lifestyle and dietary choices and key nutritional supplements seem to bring tremendous results universally for almost every woman.

We see every day that lifestyle and what we put in our mouths is the most important aspect of our health: food is the most powerful drug (for harm and for healing) that we have. At Women to Women, we’ve spent more than three decades identifying the common denominators that help virtually all of our patients to restore hormonal balance, thyroid and adrenal health and overall wellness.

We’ve helped thousands of women alleviate mood swings, fuzzy thinking, hot flashes, anxiety and other debilitating symptoms and finally feel like themselves again. You don’t have to wait or feel badly another day. We can help you too.

To learn more about our hormonal balance support products, click here.