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!

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.

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.

Get Your Mojo Back Without “Pink” Viagra

womentowomen on June 21, 2015

Sexual desire is considered to be a life force in many cultures and feeling sexy and desired is a powerful part of being a woman. Fluctuating hormones during perimenopause and declining estrogen after menopause, however, can leave us wondering why we are feeling less interested in sex than we used to be.

I often see patients who are struggling with their libidos; changing sexual desire is one of the most common complaints women share with us at Women to Women. Many women come to us with physical symptoms that impact their interest in intimacy or diminish their pleasure, while others are experiencing emotional shifts or unresolved relationship issues that may make sex less appealing with their partners.

We often see that women who have not dealt with emotions from their past, be it from childhood or within their relationships, will find that these unresolved issues emerge and express, sometimes in new or surprising ways. Whether they are totally clear to you or completely catch you off guard, one thing is for sure: these emotions will not be denied and they will call to you for deeper exploration. Left unresolved, research shows that they will very likely impact your health as well as your sexuality.

Women, many of whom have enjoyed a healthy sex life until this point, often come to the clinic distraught and desperate to get their “mojo” back. They may even lament the fact that there is not a female Viagra, thinking perhaps that popping a pill would make their symptoms go away and make everything ok. (Ask any man on Viagra who experiences its high cost and the declining efficacy over time and he will tell you it’s not his preferred solution.)

While we’d all like a magic bullet, we know from working with our patients at Women to Women that there are no quick fixes. Desire can be restored but the most helpful thing to start with is diet and lifestyle changes, nutritional supplementation, and exploration of the relationship and emotional connection of the patient to her partner.

When you develop a symptom such as painful sex, diminished desire, or even surprising feelings and emotional reactions toward your partner, it is your body’s way of getting your attention and showing you what is really going on. Taking a pill to ignore the message may be convenient, but long-term, it’s much more effective to figure out the cause and treat it. In fact, that’s the only way to ensure your optimal health — and that of your relationship. Don’t get me wrong there are times that testosterone levels are low and adding testosterone can make a big difference for some women.

The New Female Viagra — How Flibanserin Works

As a health care practitioner who has been helping women to experience the best sex of their lives after menopause for over three decades now, I’ve been fascinated by conversations in the news recently about this new drug being called the “female Viagra” that pharmaceutical companies claim may potentially improve a woman’s libido.

After two rounds of rejection due to concerns about side effects and effectiveness, the drug has now been passed on to the FDA for potential approval later this summer.

Despite the current media attention, it’s not the first time pharmaceutical companies have tried to create a “Viagra for women.” In fact, that’s the approach taken previously by copying how Viagra works to increase blood flow to the genitals in men and trying to do the same for women.

This new drug, however, which was originally created as an anti-depressant, works on the largest female sexual organ instead: the brain. Researchers claim it increases dopamine and norepinephrine, the “excitatory factors for sex” and decreases serotonin, which can diminish libido.

The drug, flibanserin, is far from proven, demonstrating very mixed results, and it carries a number of side effects including nausea, dizziness and sleeplessness.

But that doesn’t seem to deter women who are clamoring for its approval.

One woman supporting the approval has claimed that her relationship with her spouse is better than ever but that her sexual desire has disappeared, leaving her husband to question whether or not they should get a divorce. She says that she’d risk any side effects “gladly.” She seems pretty clear on how far she will go for her relationship!

The way I see it, it’s just not that clear. There are so many ways to be loving and intimate in a relationship. Does desire need to be amped up in order to have a sexual relationship? She says that she has tried counseling and it has helped… but not enough. Is there is an emotional connection that might be missing on some level? Has she explored and treated the cause of her physical symptoms or is she reaching for a quick fix? It makes me wonder. Many physical issues may be at the root of the problem including adrenal dysfunction.

The Great Flibanserin Debate – Why It’s About More Than Sex

The debate about approval of this new drug, flibanersin, has become divisive and has turned into a much broader discussion around gender, sex and society; it’s one that we at Women to Women want to weigh in on.

The National Organization for Women, or NOW, feels that approval has not been forthcoming because there is a sexual bias against providing something to women to enhance sexual pleasure. They’ve gone on the record as saying that as a culture, men’s sexual health is extremely important but that women’s is not. There may be some truth to this as there may well be a sexual double standard in today’s society, but we think the reason approval has been a challenge thus far is so much more complex than that. And I am all for women having a libido, and enhancing their sexual enjoyment.

Other women’s groups are arguing that the primary considerations of drug approval should be safety and efficacy. The National Women’s Health Network, for example, has come out and said that the drug doesn’t work well, has some noted safety concerns, and has not been fully studied. They feel it’s about waiting to get a drug that really works — and is safe.

While we are not sure any drug can accomplish that when it comes to sexual desire because it’s not something that can be fixed with a pill, we definitely agree that if a drug is approved, it should be thoroughly studied first and should be proven to be effective — and safe – both over the long-term and in conjunction with other medications. This new drug does not meet those criteria.

Others are arguing that the campaign for the drug oversimplifies female sexuality and we couldn’t agree more: There is so much more to sexuality than the stress hormones dopamine and norepinephrine!

Some women (and men) who experience a waning libido at midlife don’t see it as a problem — at least not one worth taking a drug for. At Women to Women, we don’t think you should accept low sex drive as a new norm: we know it can be restored and that with some time and effort, you can experience the best intimacy of your life after menopause. So why settle? But we do agree a drug is not the answer.

And then there are those, and we are among them, who raise concerns that the pharmaceutical industry has a desire to take every circumstance and transition in life and turn it into a disease that needs a pill to fix it. This not only prevents looking at the true source of the problem, it creates a mentality that normal life transitions such as menopause are diseases.

The pharmaceutical industry then focuses on the convenience of popping a pill to problem solve instead of practicing what is now being called precision medicine: getting really precise about the root case and its effect and then treating the whole problem. Menopause is NOT a disease and a pill is NOT the answer: adjusting stress hormone levels artificially with a drug is NOT the answer to hormonal shifts that may just need some transitional support.

So while the debate in the news rages on about whether or not approval is warranted, whether the drug, flibanserin is effective and safe, or whether disapproving it is “sexist” because there is a bias against women’s sexuality as being a significant health concern, we find ourselves scratching our heads that someone could be willing to undertake drug risks without trying to understand what is going on within the body to cause this reaction in the first place.

How to Get Your Mojo Back

After more than three decades supporting women’s health and healing, we know that there are answers. When your body is out of alignment, it needs extra support. A high quality multivitamin along with an omega 3 supplement supports hormonal balance and symptom relief among our patients; even those who eat healthy diets of fresh local food find they need additional support during the menopause transition.

Diet and lifestyle changes such as stress relief, a good night’s sleep, exercise and movement, and a healthy balance of fresh fruits and vegetables along with high quality proteins and fats can further support this rebalance and accelerate relief, especially when combined with high quality nutritional supplementation.

We also recommend a probiotic supplement to restore the balance of healthy bacteria in your digestive system; it may not seem obvious that your digestion is connected to your hormones, but your ‘second brain’ plays a role in supporting all healthy body functions.

We also believe that it’s important to explore the emotions you are experiencing and use the transition time of perimenopause to examine your feelings, process them and to “speak your truth. “ Menopause is a time of release and clearing: it’s time to let go. Studies have shown that holding onto unresolved and unexpressed emotions will lead to the presence of physical concerns down the road and for many women, this catches up to them at menopause.

With a little time, attention and support, including some hormonal support if needed, you can experience a significant improvement in your health and wellness, restore that hormonal balance, and finally feel like yourself again… All without an untested drug that has numerous side effects.

At Women to Women, we have helped thousands of women alleviate their physical and emotional symptoms, restore a healthy sex drive and create the best intimacy of their lives. We can help you too.

To learn more about changes in sexuality around menopause, read our articles here.

To purchase our menopause support products, including multivitamin and omega 3 support, click here.

The Great Fluoride Myth

womentowomen on June 6, 2015

One of the great things about being a health practitioner for more than three decades is that I get to see exciting new research and development emerge –- and also witness the medical and scientific communities retract mistakes and give credence to things that were dismissed years ago. (Remember when butter was “bad” and margarine was “good” for you? We now know that margarine contains trans fats that can contribute to heart disease and that butter can be a healthy part of a balanced diet but it took quite some time to undo all the biased research. )

Understanding toxicity: the idea that chemicals can have a negative impact on our body functions was something much of the scientific world did not want to admit for many years. But now, more and more research is being done to show the effects of drugs, chemicals and endocrine disruptors on our bodies — and to identify all of the many health conditions they can cause or exacerbate. At Women to Women, we’re thrilled to see this because we’ve been talking about this for decades.

One chemical that has been getting a lot of media attention lately is fluoride. Fluoride was first added to the water supply in Michigan after World War II when it was heard that in some areas of the world that had higher natural fluoride levels in their water, people had better dental health. Soon after, many communities jumped on the bandwagon. Despite the fact that manufactured fluoride should never be swallowed (just read the poison warning label on a tube of toothpaste) somehow it was believed that adding it to water and drinking it would improve our dental health, and it actually did seem to decrease dental caries. But years ago the literature was compelling enough that I worked hard when my children were young to not have them have fluoride treatments when they went to the dentist.

Today it’s estimated that about 70% of Americans have fluoridated water. (Elsewhere in the world this practice is not prevalent and in fact countries that have naturally high fluoride levels in their water are taking steps to remove fluoride found naturally in water and bring the levels down.)

Here in Maine, we have some communities on well water but most all of the towns around add fluoride to the water. My patients often ask me if they should be concerned about fluoride and whether to filter their water or buy bottled water instead.

Let’s talk about fluoride, the surprising new announcement the Department of Health and Human Services made recently, and what you need to know about water and dental health.

What is Fluoride?

Fluoride is a chemical ion of the element fluoride, the 13th most abundant mineral on the earth’s crust. It has one extra electron, giving it a negative charge and it is found naturally in water, soil, foods and other minerals. Fluoride is also synthesized in labs and put into water, toothpaste, mouthwash, and chemical products and it is found in foods that are processed using fluoridated water.

As with vitamins and minerals, we know that when they are lab-created, they are not as readily absorbed as when they are found naturally. In the case of fluoride, while it may not be harmful, and in fact may even be beneficial in small doses from natural sources, in its lab created form, it can cause harm in the body because the body sees it not as a natural substance but as a toxin.

Fluoride and Your Thyroid

In its natural form, fluoride is found in seawater at about 1.3 parts per million (or ppm) and in natural water, fluoride levels are typically .01 to .3 ppm. Some places such as China can have areas where the fluoride levels in natural water are high enough that it has been traced to health conditions and efforts are being made to remove it from the water.

That’s so different from here, where we are adding a lab-created chemical to our water in the name of better health. Recently we shared with you some shocking results from a British study about fluoride’s impact on the thyroid. This study looked at different areas in England, some of which fluoridated and some of which did not.

The study found that the rates of hypothyroidism, which is an underactive thyroid, were double in the areas where fluoride was put in the water versus the non-fluoridated areas. We are seeing hypothyroidism rates increase dramatically in the U.S., so it may well be connected to our water practices. It was great to see a study prove what we at Women to Women have suspected for some time.

In addition, the study found that whenever the concentration of fluoride was above 0.3 ppm, the rates of hypothyroidism were as much as 30% higher. We just saw that the high end of natural fluoride levels is exactly that same level, but that is for natural fluoride. What could much higher levels of synthetic fluoride do?

EPA Announces Fluoride Rates Are Too High

Until now, the acceptable rate of (synthetic) fluoridation levels in US water has been agreed to fall within the range of 0.7 and 1.2 ppm even though health concerns were noted in the study above 0.3. (And to be clear that is a range of samplings, there is no way to know what the level is in the water that comes from your tap, as it will vary.)

To put it in perspective, studies have shown that in a healthy 154-pound person, 3.5 mg of fluoride was found to disrupt thyroid function. If water fluoridation is allowed up to 1.2 ppm and you drink water regularly, you can easily exceed that rate. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that the average American ingests 3 mgs a day but that many of us consume more than 6 mg a day! That’s almost doubt the level that was proven to impair thyroid function.

Even more concerning is that if you are iodine deficient, as many of us are, as little as .07 mg a day could damage thyroid function. That could be a glass or two of water a day! So it was good news that the Department of Health and Human Services just announced that it is now changing the maximum level to 0.7: at least it is the beginning of acknowledging that there is a problem.

At Women to Women, we’ve been concerned about this for some time, as we know too much fluoride can impact not just the thyroid but also many other body functions. We wish the announcement came because they were connecting the dots to all of the health concerns associated with excess fluoride.

But instead the announcement was made because the CDC has revealed that 40% of Americans have dental fluorosis, a condition that changes the appearance of your tooth enamel. It can cause chalky-like lines, pitting and staining on your teeth. That means that 2 out of 5 of us are experiencing permanent damage to our teeth from the chemical that was supposed to keep them healthy. But many say the unsightly stains and blotches on your teeth are not the biggest concern.

If your teeth are seeing the damage then most likely, fluoride is having an impact in other areas of your body as well. That’s because once fluoride is swallowed, it accumulates in your body’s bones and tissues. Teeth fluorosis may also mean you have skeletal fluorosis; it is very hard to tell apart from arthritis and can result in fatigue, muscle weakness, gastrointestinal disorders and ultimately stiff joints, calcification of tendons and ribs and osteoporosis.

Despite the good intentions around fluoride, neither the CDC nor the World Health Organization have been able to identify any differences in tooth decay and dental health between countries that fluoridate versus countries that do not follow that practice. Beyond the less than stellar dental results and the direct link to thyroid dysfunction, fluoride has also been identified as an endocrine disruptor that can lead to reproductive problems and cancers as well as many other health concerns.

So with little good and a host of concerns, I find myself asking why do we continue?

I suspect some day we will look back and call this one of the great medical experiments that did not result in good. There is already so much fluoride in foods processed with fluoride-rich waters that we can be taking in more than we should without even realizing it, let alone what is found in water, toothpaste and other dental products.

So what can we do about too much fluoride?

We can’t avoid it completely but we can be aware of its presence and try to reduce exposure to it.

  • Avoid bottled water as it often contains hidden fluoride as well as BPA and other concerns.

  • If you have fluoridated tap water, look into a filter that is proven to remove fluoride.

  • Be extra careful not to swallow any toothpaste or dental rinse.

  • Eat more iodine-rich foods such as sea vegetables, saltwater fish and other seafood, or iodized sea salt to offset the impact to your thyroid.

  • Get your thyroid tested. This is especially true for women during perimenopause, but if you’ve been exposed to fluoridated water all your life or you are seeing any dental spotting or staining, you should definitely get your thyroid tested.

  • Take a high quality multi-vitamin to support your body’s healthy response to exposure and elimination of toxins.

We cannot change the world but we can change our response to it. If you are experiencing perimenopausal or PMS symptoms and struggle to feel good, it may be your thyroid or it may be your body’s need to rebalance from toxic exposures so that your hormones can realign. We’ve helped thousands of women to reclaim their health and feel like themselves again. We can help you too.

For more information on a healthy thyroid read our article here

To purchase a high quality multivitamin or our thyroid support product click here

The Hype about Probiotics: Is Yogurt Really the Answer?

womentowomen on May 28, 2015

One of the things I love about being a health practitioner is that I get to help people make sense of things that are confusing for them. I just love the feeling when that missing puzzle piece is uncovered and it all just clicks for my patients. Often my patients at Women to Women (and sometimes even other practitioners!) will come to me with questions about something they have heard or read about. There is so much conflicting information out there and one of the amazing things about living in today’s world is new discoveries are being made about health and nutrition all the time. Some days I can hardly keep up!

Sometimes a woman will come to me confused about a new headline that says this food is now bad or good for you. Or maybe it’s a new product and they are not sure if it is something they should pay attention to or just a passing fad (remember the pet rock?). While it happens often, it always surprises me when a woman comes to me asking about probiotics.

Probiotics have been on the front pages of newspaper and magazines for the last 5 years and probably every one of us has seen the yogurt ad featuring Jamie Lee Curtis, touting the benefits of eating probiotic yogurt for digestive health. At Women to Women we have been talking about probiotics for decades now so we’ll be the first to say probiotics are not a passing fad. But many people still aren’t sure whether they should be taking probiotics or simply eating more yogurt.

Let’s talk about probiotics: what they are, why they can help, and the best way to use them.

What are probiotics?

Probiotics actually comes from the words “pro,” which means promoting, and “biotics” which means life. Probiotics promote life: literally the opposite of anti-biotics, which we take to kill bacteria that can cause disease. Probiotics are actually healthy microorganisms that live in our digestive tract; we need them to help break down and absorb the nutrients in our food.

We have trillions of these bacteria, often called beneficial flora or good bacteria. These healthy bacteria are necessary for a strong immune system, the creation of vitamins, and healthy digestion.

When our good bacteria are healthy, we are healthy. But when we get sick, these necessary bacteria can be killed or damaged, upsetting the perfect and delicate balance that exists between good bacteria and bad bacteria in our guts. When our good to bad bacteria ratio gets out of balance, disease and illness becomes more likely. That’s because our gut is considered our second brain; while it doesn’t do any thinking, we now know that the gut runs the show as far as a healthy body is concerned.

So how does our bacteria get out of balance?

There are several ways this can happen and usually my patients have experienced at least one of them. First, antibiotics can kill off healthy bacteria while they are attacking the bad ones. While antibiotics are one of the greatest inventions for our health and survival, if you take a course of antibiotics, you should know that the balance between good and bad bacteria will also be affected. Taking a probiotic for a couple months after antibiotics will help restore a healthy balance in your digestive tract and keep your body and your digestive tract functioning optimally.

Another way your bacteria can be thrown off balance is if you experience a flu or a food-borne illness that results in vomiting and/or diarrhea. In this case, you’ve definitely imbalanced your flora and a round of probiotics afterwards will likely also be necessary to restore a healthy balance in your gut and your body.

I know here in New England during our cold snowy winter last year many people experienced a stomach flu that went around. Now that spring is finally here, I like to tell my patients that it’s time to plant new healthy bacteria in our stomachs along with spring flowers in our gardens!

You may also experience a flora imbalance if you have experienced an intestinal disease or illness such as celiac disease, crohn’s disease or irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). If you currently experience digestive concerns including cramping, bloating, diarrhea, constipation, or gas, consider taking a probiotic to help restore a healthy balance as well.

In addition, if you have chronic headaches/migraines, urinary tract infections, yeast infections, lactose intolerance, bad breath, fatigue or irritability or worsening allergies, asthma, PMS or perimenopausal symptoms, you may wish to consider a round of probiotics to restore your digestive health.

Even if you do not experience any symptoms, if your diet is full of fast foods or other nutrient empty calories, you will definitely want to replenish your good bacteria. A recent study showed that eating at McDonald’s for 10 days resulted in the loss of 1400 types of gut bacteria, or almost 40% of the test subject’s total bacteria varieties! To make things worse, when he returned to a healthy normal diet, the bacteria that were lost did not return!

If you’re like many of my patients, you are saying “Yes, that’s me” to one of the above. If you’ve experienced any of those symptoms or situations, you may be wondering how to restore that perfect balance between good and bad bacteria so important to our health.

What do I need to know about taking Probiotics?

In my three decades at Women to Women, I’ve come to see first-hand that most of us could benefit from taking a good probiotic. So how do you find a good one?

There are many different strains of bacterias but most researchers agree that the benefits of two primary strains are significant: lactobacilli and bifidobacteria. That’s why our biotic product at Women to Women contains a 50/50 combination of at least 15 billion L. acidophilus and B. lactis Bi-07 bacterias.

It’s also important that the biotic you take be dairy and gluten free, as these two ingredients cause digestive concerns for many of us. Even if you are not allergic to dairy or gluten, you may be sensitive to these ingredients without even realizing it and your bacterial balance may be impacted as a result of that sensitivity.

I always say to my patients “Why would you want to take more of something you may be sensitive to as a hidden ingredient in a product you are taking to try to help restore the balance that a hidden food sensitivity may disrupt?” That just wouldn’t make any sense.

It’s important to read the labels on your probiotic carefully as recent newspaper headlines have revealed that many probiotic supplements actually contain gluten!

If you’d like to get more probiotics in your diet naturally, try some fermented foods such as kefir, sauerkraut, miso, tempeh, and kombucha. Most of us don’t eat these foods on a regular basis and they are probiotic powerhouses. (Though for some of us with digestive issues, these foods may be too much and could increase irritation, so go slowly.)

As for yogurt, like other foods that probiotics are sometimes added to, it is not as effective as the naturally fermented foods above: adding cultures to food after the fact makes them less available for absorption than when they occur naturally. And if a yogurt is pasteurized, as store-bought yogurt is, the pasteurization process will kill off the bacteria; that’s the whole point of pasteurization. So in addition to any bad bacteria, good bacterias will be destroyed as well.

Unless you make your own yogurt, and eat a lot of it, you’re better off taking a probiotic supplement than eating yogurt every day (not to mention that many yogurts on the market today have more sugar than a soda!).

If you’ve had a stomach flu or food illness or taken an antibiotic, even if you have no digestive concerns now, you should take a probiotic for at least one month. If you have or are currently experiencing digestive concerns or entrenched premenopausal symptoms, such as gas, bloating, cramping, constipation, diarrhea, fuzzy thinking, allergies or asthma, or skin problems, a probiotic can make a big difference.

With a high quality probiotic, you should see and feel a difference within the first few weeks of use; most of my patients report feeling much better after the first two weeks.

Even if you have no symptoms, if your diet is not ideal or consists of nutrient empty calories such as fast foods, you should also consider taking a probiotic.

If you are experiencing digestive symptoms, you don’t have to suffer. We’ve helped thousands of women restore a healthy bacterial balance and heal their digestive tracts. We can help you too.

To learn more about probiotics, read our in depth article here.

To order our powerful dairy and gluten free probiotic, click here.

Surprising Sources of Stress

womentowomen on April 3, 2015

I remember when Time Magazine called stress the “Epidemic of the 80’s” in its cover story back in 1983. I was so excited to see that Time Magazine, a popular and accepted news source, was talking about something the medical profession rarely recognized back then.

With more than 30 years of wisdom since, not much has changed in many ways: stress continues to plague us and contribute to a myriad of health challenges and I see it in my patients every day. In fact, many of them tell me that life in the 80’s seems calm in comparison to the busy pace of life now.

However, there is some good news: more and more practitioners are recognizing the importance of adrenal health and its connection to stress. Adrenal fatigue as a significant health condition has only been introduced into the main stream recently, and even now, many doctors don’t recognize or understand it, but at least the movement has started.

At Women to Women, we’ve been talking about and treating adrenal fatigue for decades. When I ask my patients to describe something stressful, most of my patients can produce a personal example pretty quickly: being stuck in traffic and being late to a child’s recital or game, missing a flight connection, having an enormously long to-do list to prepare for an event or a holiday, or a tight deadline at work for a big project coming due. What many of us don’t realize is that it’s not so much the one time situation as it is the little stresses of every day life can do damage to our health; it is the cumulative and repetitive stressors over time that do the most harm.

Now a new study reveals the surprising fact that most people are more stressed at home than at work. I’d like to talk more about why that may be and share with you some sources of stress I see with my patients at Women to Women every day. Many of these surprising stress sources are things that most people don’t even consider or recognize as having an impact on their health but these stressors can do significant harm to your health and hormonal balance over time. Maybe some of these will be familiar to you, too.

Stress is Higher at Home Than Work

Last week I shared that while I was traveling to and from the Institute of Functional Medicine, where I was facilitating workshops and training new practitioners, I had the chance to catch up on some reading. One of the headlines that caught my eye was a study done by researchers at Penn State that revealed people have much lower stress levels at work than at home.

What made the study especially interesting to me was that more than simply asking people how they felt and determining stress levels purely anecdotally, the researchers also measured the cortisol levels of the participants at home and at work. (Cortisol is a biological marker of stress; more on that later.) We’ve always heard that work is the source of so much of our stress and home is where we re-charge, but this new finding reflects what many of my patients have told me for years: home is not a stress-free haven.

Rather, home can actually cause stress, especially for women. Before we delve deeper into some of the reasons why, one of the really interesting conclusions of the study was that women (as well as men) reported significantly lower levels of stress at work than at home and this included parents, although the decrease was not quite as big for parents as for non-parents. But something really shocking came out beyond having less stress at work. Women (unlike men) reported that not only was stress lower but their happiness levels were higher at work than at home: many found work to be renewing!

This conclusion supports numerous other studies published over the years that show that people who work have better mental and physical health than those who do not. In fact, mothers who work full-time outside the home through their twenties and thirties have better health at age 45 (an age at which stress can wreak havoc on hormonal balance heading into menopause) than mothers who worked part-time, had periods of unemployment, or who chose to be stay-at-home moms.

Perhaps because they have to deal with so much, the full-time working moms are forced to find better ways to manage their stress levels and wellness, whether it’s hiring help around the house, or making sure they hit the gym or get that massage. Or perhaps, because they have an outlet or a place to escape the frenzy of home, somewhere they can make a valuable contribution and be recognized for something other than being chef, maid and chauffeur, those chores and labels don’t cause the same emotional stresses that can impact health over time.

Regardless, it does not mean that full-time working mothers have stress-free lives. But they do seem to have lower stress levels than other women overall and the research shows that that full-time workingwomen do experience better health. (Though clearly, if you hate your job, that will change things significantly and may cause stress and health concerns, not prevent them.) Beyond the overall health and wellness impacts of full-time work, I had to wonder, and you may too, why it is that work is seen as a place of renewal and home is seen as chaotic and stressful for women?

My patients have given me some other surprising sources of stress that may help shed some light on why home can be a source of stress for many men and especially women today. As I considered what they have shared with me, I found other experts recognized the same concerns as potential sources of stress that my patients have shared. Let’s see if any of them resonate with you.

Surprising Sources of Stress

Your Partner/Significant Other

When we first merge our lives with someone, it can be stressful adjusting to so much that is new. Then we settle in and as time goes on and life evolves, money, parenting and life choices can bring on stress as well. If you don’t see eye to eye with your partner on any big issue, whether it’s money, kids, intimacy, shared workload or how you spend your time, being at home will be stressful!

In addition to struggling with a particular issue, not having alignment on some foundational relationship basics such as communication styles, intimacy preferences, how you show affection, love, appreciation and support for one another, and how much time is spent together as a couple, can wreak havoc on a relationship as well. Relationship challenges or differing styles can cause stress and may create distance and an emotional gap that in and of itself can create stress as well.

I believe relationships are so important to our overall health and well being that I am working on a new and exciting project, coming this summer. I’m excited to be bringing you a whole new series of websites providing a new way of learning about the differences between men and women and how together we can create a great intimate partnerships. I can’t wait to help you create better health through better partnerships!

(Watch for more information, coming soon.)

Multi-tasking

For so long we’ve been taught that we should multi-task and as women, let’s face it, we do it because we can! But new studies show that not only are people more successful and accomplish more when they focus on one thing instead of trying to do several at once, but they are less stressed. One particular study measured heart-rate variability as a reflection of mental stress and found that people who answer emails during the day as they work instead of setting aside time each day to respond to all their mail at once experience more stress. (More on email as a stressor below)

Digital Devices and Social Media

When Time Magazine talked about stress in the 1980’s, we weren’t walking around with smart phones and tablets in our pockets and bags or lying in bed at night texting or checking Facebook. We wonder why we are stressed when we never take time to unplug and reconnect with nature, family and friends! How many times have you seen families (or done this yourself) out to dinner or watching TV, all on their own devices simultaneously?

Whenever we read or see a message, email or post that is stressful or unfortunate, we take on some of that stress ourselves. Subconsciously, we may think or worry that it could happen to us and a post or a comment impacts us much in the same way that watching the violence and negativity on nightly news may. Research also shows that negative body image and longer periods of post-break up pain are just two of the downsides associated with social media use.

Apart from exposure to negative or stressful messages, using technology before bed can also interfere with sleep and excessive technology use can reduce your availability for connection and intimacy with your partner and family.

We also lose the warmth that comes with a direct interaction that is not transferred through an email or text exchange as well as tone and context; that’s why it’s never a good idea to discuss anything important, particularly with your partner, over email or text.

And while setting aside an hour for email while you’re on vacation is definitely better than checking your phone every 5 minutes, it’s hard to remove all the information, requests, ideas, problems, and tasks from your head and not have them creep into your thoughts while you should be playing and relaxing with your family or friends. This distraction will take hold at home if you check mail after leaving work or before bed as well.

Housework

For some people housework and creating order in the home is relaxing. For others, it is exactly the opposite and is a huge source of stress. Even if you do enjoy it, if you feel that you don’t get enough help and support from others in getting it done, or you have to face a messy or disorganized environment on occasion, it can become a source of stress for you as well. Dividing up the workload in a manner that everyone feels comfortable with and feeling supported in your role is key. This can be challenging for many couples and families to accomplish, however, and may be a source of significant stress in the home.

These are just a few of the sources of stress that impact us at home and may play a big role in why work can feel like an escape at times. When I ask my patients for examples of big and stressful things, however, as I shared with your earlier, these are not the things they name first. Any one of these can become a big and divisive issue, but even if it is not the biggest challenge you face, each of these smaller stressors can bring steady and unrelenting stress into your daily life that can lead to relationship challenges, less happiness, and health concerns such as hormonal imbalance and adrenal fatigue.

Stress and Adrenal Fatigue

When we are in a dangerous or stressful situation, our adrenal glands, which sit on top of our kidneys, release adrenaline to make us more alert and focused, and cortisol, to convert protein to energy and release our stored sugars, glycogen, so we can respond quickly. The adrenal response will prepare us to fight or flee by releasing energy, sharpening our senses, and slowing our digestion. Once the threat is removed, adrenaline rapidly vanishes and cortisol slowly returns to normal again.

When stress is ongoing or daily and not a once in a while occurrence, the adrenal glands focus the resources required (including estrogen) to make cortisol, resulting in hormonal imbalance. In addition, too much cortisol can damage healthy tissues. When the adrenals become totally burned out from this repetitive process, adrenal exhaustion and serious health concerns may result.

But before they are fully exhausted, the adrenals will function at limited capacity, resulting in hormonal imbalance and adrenal fatigue. In this case, you may experience symptoms such as weight gain, depression, cravings, insomnia, fuzzy thinking, and mood swings.

While I see this often in my practice, the good news is that Women to Women’s foundational nutrition and lifestyle recommendations can help stressed out women get back on track and restore their adrenal health. Our adrenal health system products also play a key role in restoring hormonal balance and providing adrenal support by delivering foundational nutritional support that is just not available from today’s food supply.

Our products and programs have been helping thousands of women to restore hormonal balance and repair adrenal fatigue for more than three decades. Together we can help you reduce your symptoms, restore your health, and finally feel like yourself again.

If you experience any of the stressors in this article or any other sources of stress on an ongoing basis, if you feel tired or worn out, have trouble sleeping or are wired, if you feel stressed more than occasionally, or if you would describe your life, or home or work environment as stressful, that stress can significantly impact your health over time. In fact, you may already have hormonal imbalance and and adrenal fatigue.

Stress doesn’t have to wear you down and wipe you out or leave you wired and unable to sleep. You can feel better. We can help. To learn more about adrenal fatigue click here.

To purchase our adrenal support system or one of our adrenal support products, click here.

Will My Hot Flash Lead to a Heart Attack?

womentowomen on March 27, 2015

Last week I was in Tucson, facilitating workshops at the Institute of Functional Medicine. It is such an honor to be asked to facilitate and assist in training so many brilliant minds and amazing health professionals.

I love working with like-minded professionals and I get excited about sharing my knowledge, passion and energy with my peers. I know I’ll return to the clinic re-charged. One of the benefits of traveling (and having my plane delayed for mechanical reasons) is that I had the chance to get caught up on reading a number of new research studies that I’ll be sharing more about with you over the coming weeks.

I always love it when I see studies come forward that make the connections that we have seen in our patients at Women to Women and have been talking about with you in our newsletters for years. I’m a Functional Medicine practitioner and what that means is that we know that everything is connected; Functional Medicine practitioners understand that if we can learn more about what is happening “upstream,” we can begin to prevent and cure the symptoms and conditions that ultimately occur “downstream.” So I love to see research that helps us to “connect the dots.”

While I try to stay up to date on all the latest studies, I always pay extra close attention to research that confirms what we believe about the connection between symptoms of hormonal imbalance and other health concerns. That’s because we usually find that the “downstream” symptom has an “upstream” cause. One study recently connected the dots between hot flashes and heart health and I’d like to sum up the major conclusions and share what it really means for YOU.

The study, which was conducted by the University of Pittsburgh, found that women who have hot flashes at younger ages, and who have them more frequently, might have a greater risk of heart disease.

Specifically, the research showed that when a woman experiences her first hot flash at age 42 or younger, her endothelial function (which is tied to heart attack risk and is considered an indicator of heart health) is significantly poorer than in women who had their first hot flash at an older age.

In addition, the more hot flashes the women in the age group of 52 and younger had in a 24-hour period, the less healthy their endothelial function was and the greater their heart attack risk.

While we know that this is not conclusive and further study is warranted, it is an interesting connection and one that makes sense to us since we know that hormonal imbalance is something that does not occur in isolation. We know that insulin resistance plays a role in heart health and also leads to menopausal symptoms such as hot flashes so that is just one way that these two may be connected. It will be exciting to see if more research can probe the link and make the insulin connection in the future.

As we wait for further information, however, one thing these results do suggest is that women at younger ages experiencing hot flashes should be more vigilant of their heart health.

One way you can take better care of your heart is to engage in regular exercise, especially exercise that raises the heart rate. Exercise is known to force blood vessels to dilate and to help them remain healthy, improving the poor endothelial function that the study found which was so concerning; women in this group should be even more conscious of ensuring they remain active and exercise regularly as they age.

We have talked about the burst form of high intensity interval training with you before, as this is the form of exercise that we always recommend. Exercising for too long a period of time actually can increase oxidative stress.

In addition, managing other factors such as weight, blood pressure, and diet, especially glucose levels are important for long-term heart health; as we’ve seen and shared with you, correlations have been proven between internal inflammation, blood sugar levels, and heart attacks.

At Women to Women, we think it’s important for all of us, but especially women with frequent hot flashes and flashes occurring at younger ages, to take preventive action with respect to heart health. But we also know that it is equally, if not more, important to try to prevent or eliminate hot flashes before they do damage to the endothelium and ultimately, the heart.

To bring hormones back into balance, we work with our patients to focus on what they eat and how they live: we know that a good night’s sleep, reducing stress, regular exercise, and a healthy whole food diet, which includes being aware of the overall carbohydrate content and quality, will go a long way toward restoring wellness.

In our nutritional guidelines, we recommend high-quality proteins such as grass fed meat and wild caught fish, fresh fruits and vegetables (organic if you can) and minimizing packaged and processed foods. If organic is not possible all the time, at least buy organic when consuming the toxic 12 fruits and vegetables. (Link to our article.)

We see so many patients in our clinic who tell us that it is extremely difficult today to eat all the nutrients needed for hormonal balance during perimenopause, even if they do try to eat a healthy and balanced diet. Numerous studies show us that the nutritional content of food today is diminished due to farming practices, long transportation times, and our desire for perfectly beautiful produce.

So in addition to eating well, the body may require more support, especially if you experience a lot of stress in your life. We have found that we can reduce or eliminate hot flashes with our patients by supporting the body’s hormonal balance with a pharmaceutical grade multi-vitamin and omega-3 supplement.

We actually went out and created our own to ensure it had the ingredients and the purity we knew women needed to restore balance and feel well. Our patients have had great success with them for over 3 decades and we take them too!

In our clinic, these two products help virtually all patients we see to reduce symptoms, whatever they may be, and to feel like themselves again: whether they suffer from hot flashes or not!

If hot flashes or other menopausal symptoms are causing discomfort, we also recommend a third product that is formulated specifically to alleviate symptoms of hormonal imbalance. Our proprietary and proven Menopausal Support System can reduce or eliminate annoying symptoms, including potentially heart-unhealthy hot flashes, so you can feel like yourself again.

This week, to celebrate spring (which is hopefully coming to Maine soon!), we are offering 10% off any of our proven Menopausal Support System products. Use coupon code springsale at checkout. If you’d like to learn more, click here.

To learn more about heart health, hot flashes or how to manage your blood sugar levels, see our library at www.womentowomen.com/health-library/

The Surprising Truth About Hot Flashes

womentowomen on March 6, 2015

When I ask my patients which menopausal symptoms drive them the craziest and disrupt their lives the most, they give me a variety of answers: fuzzy thinking, weight gain, anxiety, disrupted sleep, decreased libido or painful sex, and mood swings all come to mind.

At our clinic, Women to Women, we have seen first-hand that the range of symptoms women experience in the years leading up to and immediately after menopause is extensive, and that each woman is affected differently. Despite the myriad of symptoms my patients complain about, however, it seems that one symptom in particular is nearly always on the top of my patients’ “most bothered by list:” that symptom is hot flashes.

Studies show that 4 out of 5 women will experience hot flashes and night sweats before or after menopause, which means most of us will experience them at least once. For many of us, they are life disrupting for far longer than we’d like. If it seems like your temperature shifts are not getting better or showing any signs of going away, you’re not alone.

A new study published in JAMA Internal Medicine shows that these vasomotor symptoms (or VMS) last on average for more than seven years. For some ethnicities, the average duration can be over ten years; that’s a long time to be kicking off blankets and peeling off clothing layers!

The good news is that you don’t have to suffer through a decade of misery. At Women to Women, we’ve been helping our patients manage their hormonal imbalance and regain control of their health – and their body temperatures – for decades. Let’s look a little more closely at hot flashes and night sweats and what we can do to feel better now, not ten years from now!

Treating Hot Flashes and Night Sweats

If you’ve had a hot flash or night sweats, you know how uncomfortable and awkward it can be. Thankfully, there are more options than just keeping the thermostat down, avoiding spicy foods, which several authors suggest as treatment options, or opting for hormone replacement therapy (HRT), which has been linked to breast and ovarian cancers even when only taken for short durations.

When your body is experiencing symptoms of hormonal imbalance it means that your systems and hormones are out of alignment: your symptoms are a message from your body asking you to pay attention.

During our transition before and after menopause, our hormones are shifting and the ratio of estrogen to progesterone and testosterone is constantly changing. When these ratios get out of balance, we experience symptoms such as hot flashes and many other well-known menopausal complaints. It IS possible to bring these hormones back into a healthy balance and our Menopause Support System has proven very effective in helping the body do so and alleviating symptoms during this transition.

But while nutritional supplementation and support is a critical component, it’s not as simple as just popping a pill and making it all go away; to receive optimal relief and restore health so that you can feel like yourself again, you’re going to need to make some simple lifestyle and diet changes as well.

That’s because our sex hormones, estrogen, progesterone and testosterone, are secondary hormones and our primary hormones of insulin, adrenalin and cortisol take precedence when it comes to getting the support and nutrition your body needs to perform optimally. If these hormones are out of balance, your body will focus on restoring harmony there first and your best efforts to address your menopausal symptoms may not yield the results you are seeking.

For example, insulin controls your blood sugar levels so if your diet is full of sugar, starch and carbohydrates, your menopausal complaints may well be more severe and will likely stay around longer. Similarly, if you live a very stressful chaotic life and you don’t take time for relaxation, meditation and self-care, you may experience adrenal fatigue because your adrenalin and cortisol will be out of balance. If there is an imbalance in any of the primary hormones, it will slow down symptom relief.

But the good news is that by making some simple diet and lifestyle changes, you can begin to feel much better and alleviate not just hot flashes, but weight gain, mood changes and all of your other menopausal symptoms as well.

The first step is to minimize processed foods and sugar and instead opt for fresh whole foods: grass-fed meats, wild caught salmon and omega-3 rich fish, and organic produce whenever you can will go a long way to restoring balance and helping you feel better. It’s important to watch out for hidden sugars such as high fructose corn syrup that wreak havoc on your insulin levels and to avoid vegetable oils and other omega 6 processed oils and the boxed foods that contain them.

You can learn more about sugar in our article here.

In addition, in the study, researchers also found that lifestyle concerns and psychosocial factors have an impact on how disruptive hormonal imbalance symptoms may be. In other words, the scientists are saying that if you have stress or distress in other areas of your life, it is more likely to show up in the form of symptoms in your physical body than if you don’t. We’ve seen this first-hand at women to women for years.

Those women in the JAMA study who experienced symptoms for longer periods of time included those who were under financial strain, under greater perceived stress, experiencing more depression or anxiety, seemed to be more sensitive to their symptoms and those who experienced symptoms at younger ages. So it’s important to reduce stress from your life by making changes where you can and by implementing stress relief practices such as meditation, yoga, tai chi, journaling, deep breathing, eating well and getting a good night’s sleep.

Menopausal Symptom Relief Is Possible

One of the major conclusions of the JAMA study was that most physicians are unaware of the severity and the duration of many menopausal symptoms including VMS. If your practitioner thinks they will go away on their own, or that living with them for a few months (or years!) is ok, find a practitioner that will work with you to improve your diet and lifestyle and give your body the support it is crying out for. Symptoms of hormonal imbalance mean your body is out of alignment and needs to be re-balanced. And with the study results indicating that this imbalance can last as long as a decade, taking a wait and see attitude is not the best solution for your health, or your comfort.

At Women to Women, we have been successfully treating symptoms of hormonal imbalance including hot flashes and night sweats for three decades. We have found that in addition to changing your diet, basic nutritional support in the form or a pharmaceutical grade multi-vitamin and omega 3 fatty acid supplement fill in the nutritional gaps that can result in your body’s sensitivity to symptoms such as VMS.

In today’s world with our busy lives and our compromised food supply, it is nearly impossible to get all the vitamins, minerals, enzymes, and co-factors your body needs for optimal function in a form that your body can absorb. In addition, if you are experiencing more severe, more frequent, or more numerous physical or emotional symptoms, our proprietary blend of natural herbs to support you will provide the relief from your symptoms you are seeking and help to restore your hormonal balance so they don’t come back. While diet and lifestyle changes go along way, when you add in nutritional supplementation support, it’s possible to go symptom-free and finally feel like yourself again.

Let today be the last day you have a hot flash – or the last night you wake up hot and drenched! Order now.

To learn more about our Menopause support system click here.

If you missed our last newsletter on vitamins, you can read it here.

The Truth About Vitamins

womentowomen on February 28, 2015

Every so often, a new study about vitamins dominates the headlines announcing that vitamins don’t work, they are a waste of money, or they aren’t what you think they are. I’m always amazed at how they can spin things to make such sensational headlines!

After looking at thousands of research studies over my years in practice, I know that it isn’t until you delve into the specifics of the study: how it was done, what they actually looked at, and who funded it, that the real headline emerges.

A few years ago, a scathing review conducted by Consumer Reports concluded that vitamins were a total waste of money. They looked at individual supplements for vitamins, such as vitamin E and other vitamins, in isolation and concluded that they weren’t effective.

As a Functional Medicine practitioner who treats the body as a whole, recognizing that every system, process and function is interrelated and connected to others, it’s no surprise to me that a vitamin taken in isolation, without all the necessary enzymes and co-factors that support its metabolism, would have little impact.

Earlier this year, another study concluded that many of the supplements you purchase at stores like Walmart, Target, GNC and Walgreen do not contain what they claim to. This isn’t the first of these studies. A similar study on omega 3 fish oils in California a few years ago revealed wild disparities between the concentration and purity of the products and the stated label claims. Several other studies have revealed similar results.

Given we are often looking at a vitamin in isolation or evaluating vitamin products that do not contain the ingredients or doses they claim to, it’s no surprise that the media proclaims that vitamins don’t work, aren’t necessary or are a waste of money: in those cases, it’s likely true!

At Women to Women, however, over the past three decades, we have seen first-hand that high-quality supplementation can make an incredible difference in the health and healing of our patients. That’s because we formulate our vitamins to be of the highest quality and purity, designed for optimal absorption and laboratory-tested to ensure efficacy and potency: our patients see and feel the difference.

Vitamins can help support your health, but only if you are getting high-quality nutritional support that is proven to impact wellness; otherwise, you’re just “wasting your money,” as the headlines claim. Let’s look at what you need to know about buying and taking vitamins so you can get the benefits that high-quality supplements can provide.

Why Isn’t Good Food Enough?

When I ask my patients about their diets, most confess that they eat out more than they should, they choose the convenience of packaged or processed foods a bit too often, and they don’t always get the highest quality ingredients such as organic fruits and vegetables and grass-fed meats because they aren’t readily available or affordable.

Given the way food is raised and grown today, it’s no great surprise that they are often experiencing symptoms resulting from the deficiencies or ‘gaps’ that can arise from incomplete nutrition. For the majority of my patients, once we look at their diets, they immediately understand that their bodies need more support and see a high-quality multi-vitamin can help to “bridge the gap.”

Occasionally, I have a few conscientious patients who are making all those good choices, at least most of the time, and they are sometimes surprised that it is still not enough. The truth is that given today’s farming practices, where foods are picked before they are ripe and before they have developed their full nutritional profile in order to make it to markets, often a long distance away, before spoiling, even organic produce often lacks sufficient nutrients. One study showed that to get the same level of vitamin A from eating two peaches back in the 1950s, today you would have to eat 53! I’m pretty sure none of us are doing that!

That’s why virtually all of my patients benefit from a high-quality multivitamin supplement, whether they are experiencing hormonal imbalance or other symptoms yet, or not. Those who are not experiencing life-disrupting symptoms still recognize that the chronic lifestyle-related diseases that are today’s greatest causes of death and illness all have roots in diet and nutrition and that supplementation is a small price to pay for prevention.

Stress, Diet and Vitamins

Even if we do our best to eat well and cook from scratch, many of us have not done so religiously over the years. Let’s face it: we didn’t know or talk as much about food when we were younger and we ate anything we wanted and generally got away with it! Convenience foods came into being in the 60’s and 70’s and we shifted away from home cooked meals every night into convenient fast food and processed options.

Who can’t remember their first TV dinner and how exciting it was to have that tray and eat in front of the TV? While we could get away with it for a while, for many of us, those choices caught up to us and resulted in dieting of some sort, at some point in our lives. More than half of American women are on a diet at any given time and often these diets rob our bodies of critical nutrients.

In addition, stress plays a huge role in our physical health and wellness, our absorption of nutrients, and our weight gains and losses. The more stress we have, the harder it will be to maintain a healthy weight and the more likely we are to make poor food choices, which will then impact our weight. It’s a vicious cycle!

Regardless of it’s impact on weight, however, stress, whether it is environmental stress such as pollution and radiation, or the every day craziness of rush hour traffic or busy kids’ schedules and work deadlines, also impacts our bodies’ abilities to absorb and process nutrients, making it even more important that we receive high-quality support to stay balanced.

Taking vitamins in isolation has not been proven to be effective so we recommend a high-quality, pharmaceutical grade multi-vitamin that will provide all the key nutrients as well as their supporting co-factors required to ensure maximum absorption. In addition, we recommend every patient take an essential fatty acid (EFA) supplement in order to provide the omega 3 support our bodies require.

EFAs are essential, meaning our bodies cannot make them, so we must ingest them. Today’s diet is heavy in omega 6 vegetable oils that are the foundations of processed foods and restaurant cooking, but our bodies desire a ratio of 1:1 omega 3 to omega 6. To compensate for our heavy omega 6 diets, we must ingest omega 3s in order to balance out that ratio and our nutritional health. Many patients say just this one supplement makes a huge difference in how they feel, both mentally and physically.

How Do You Get The Right Vitamin?

As we’ve discussed, if the vitamins you take cannot be absorbed, they aren’t going to help! Cheap generic vitamins are rarely fully absorbed, and some have even been shown to pass through the stool whole or just partially decomposed. If they are broken down fully and completely in the body, they are often lacking the appropriate doses (Recommended Daily Allowances or RDA’s are the bare minimum required to prevent diseases such as scurvy and rickets, not the optimal amounts a healthy body needs) or they lack the co-factors needed for the nutrients to be processed and utilized effectively. As scientists put it, bioavailability is key: if they aren’t bioavailable, they won’t be effective and you will be wasting your money.

So what should you look for when choosing a nutritional supplement? There are six main points that we think are essential in making your choice.

  • Complete is crucial. The latest nutritional science suggests that women need at least 30 vitamins and minerals, along with a rich essential fatty acid formula.
  • Bioavailability matters. There are six patented chelated formulas we recommend be included, and the vitamin must meet USP standards for solubility.
  • Natural is the only way to go. Supplements must be free from artificial preservatives, dyes, allergens and other contaminants. The fatty acid formula must be certified free of mercury and lead.
  • Reliability is essential. While there are no manufacturing standards for nutritional supplements issued by the FDA, there are several sets of standards with international recognition. The manufacturer must meet at least one of these recognized standards.
  • Laboratory testing to back up claims. Every production batch of a nutritional supplement must be tested to ensure it contains exactly what the label claims.
  • You must feel results. You are the best judge. If a supplement doesn’t make you feel better within 30 days, it’s time to try another. Though symptoms may not disappear in that time frame, you should feel a marked difference.

Working with our patients who were struggling with hormonal balance, adrenal fatigue and thyroid concerns, weight management issues, and concerns about bone density and aging well, we knew we had to provide an affordable option that our patients could trust to be free of impurities and bioavailable. We wanted to ensure that we maintained control over both the quality of the ingredients and the manufacturing process in order to deliver the highest possible quality of supplementation available, one that would yield maximum results for our patients.

Our proprietary products, Multi-Essentials and EPA/DHA Support, have all of the above qualities, and provide the foundation women (and men!) need. We have done our homework, including visiting the manufacturer, talking with their scientists and reviewing processes and controls. We’ve used these products successfully with patients in our clinic (and online) for decades and we take the products ourselves.

It isn’t enough to live longer – we must also live well. With the help of a high-quality nutritional supplement, we know living well is possible. High-quality supplements like the ones we offer at Women to Women are such a small investment in your health. You’d readily invest in a gym membership to get your body in shape if your health required it; nutritional supplementation is an investment that will pay off in a big way health-wise, both now and as you age. Thankfully, it’s easy and doesn’t take any time out of your busy day!

We should all feel great: full of energy and free of limitation. Our patients tell us our products help them to do that: Don’t you deserve that as well?

To learn more about our products….click here.