3 Ways to simultaneously to prevent the devastating effects of the hormone replacement therapy in menopause

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1. KNOW YOUR HORMONE LEVELS!

If you're like most women experiencing Peri-Menopause, Menopause and/or Post-Menopause in our society, you probably don't know where to turn for help. With all the potential health risks associated with Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) and the controversy surrounding BioIdentical Hormone Replacement Therapy (BHRT) it's no wonder we're at a loss and suffering needlessly. I understand first-hand the challenges faced by women entering peri-menopause all the way to post-menopause. I know the frustrations of watching your body change right before your very eyes. Gaining weight while still exercising and dieting, experiencing unrelenting hot flashes, anxiety, insomnia, & apathy are just a few of the symptoms that can be experienced at this time of life.

After searching for answers for myself, I, like many, have discovered that you can stop and reverse the degenerative changes that most women think are natural or normal as we grow older.

Hormones are extremely powerful substances in very tiny amounts and because of this they are precisely and carefully monitored and controlled in your body. They are chemical messengers that are regulated by your nervous system and your nervous system is working overtime to assure that everything is going as planned to keep you at your optimal health. Hormones are so tiny they are measured in nano and pico-grams. If you are constantly stressing your body and nervous system by poor diet, unhealthy lifestyle and modern-day stressors your hormones are going to react. That reaction will be an imbalance in the steroid hormone family tree and play havoc on your body. The most important thing for you to realize is that symptoms are your body's way of telling you that something is wrong. Take heed! If you ignore these symptoms and put a band-aid on them (medication) you will temporarily feel better but you will pay the consequences with poor health including, but not limited to, weight gain, menopausal depression, anxiety, hot flashes, insomnia, loss of sex drive, decreased energy, increased pain. I am listing only symptoms here, remember, symptoms are your body's way of communicating a larger problem. The more devastating effects are; high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, uterine and breast cancer, accelerated aging, auto-immune disease, and more.

Your hormone levels can be determined from a simple saliva test with a reputable laboratory. Once you know your levels you can begin to make the appropriate changes with whole food supplementation, stress reduction, dietary and lifestyle changes.

To clear up a bit of confusion about blood and saliva testing I will briefly explain the differences. For a more thorough explanation visit Diagnostechs website (see below). When hormones are tested in the blood they are testing the inactive form of the hormone, although good information it does not tell you what hormones are active and functioning in your body. These hormones are attached to proteins and not active until they are called upon. Testing the free hormones in the blood is a better alternative but very costly and most insurance companies will not pay for them. Saliva Testing will give you the free and active form of the hormones, telling you what is and isn't happening in your body and giving you a roadmap to what needs to be done to rebalance your hormone family, and you don't have to go to a lab.

The next 2 most important steps that you can take right now is to acknowledge and address the stressors in your life and diet. Both will put undue stress on your adrenal glands and over time change the function and balance of your hormones causing you to experience the dreaded symptoms of menopause and ultimately your declining health.

2. BE CONSCIOUS OF WHAT YOU PUT IN YOUR MOUTH!

What does your diet consist of? What's for breakfast? Bagels, toast, donuts, pastry, egg McMuffin, OMG pop-ups, cereal, processed bread, non-organic eggs, coffee, tea? We are constantly being assaulted with this garbage in the grocery stores, commercials and fast food restaurants. They are fast, easy, taste good and relatively cheap, but at what expense? Do you even eat breakfast at all? What gets you through the day? What's for lunch, dinner, night-time snack? Do you drink soda, alcohol, fruit juices, eat sugars, sweets?

Why is it we are able to eat this way all of our lives until one day you just don't feel good anymore? Are young bodies better able to digest? Are they immune to these poisons? Is it just because you're getting older? The truth is the human body is not designed to ingest processed, non-nutrient food products. The body will rid itself of these toxins for as long as it can but there will come a time when it will fatigue and can no longer handle the stress and much of the time it is when our body building steroid hormones are on the decline. These anti-nutrient, so-called foods will repeatedly tax all the body's organs and systems, including the endocrine system throwing off the hormonal regulation needed for overall health and vitality, creating disease and ultimately, burn out.

So what's the answer? What are you going to eat? The answer is, keep it simple; whole foods, organic fruits and vegetables, whole grains (if you are not gluten sensitive), organic eggs, organic free range poultry, grass-fed beef, wild salmon and more. You can be very creative and there are many cookbooks for healthy living that are available to us today. Be careful, stay away from fad diets and stick to the basics. A good plan to follow is the Lower Carb Mediterranean Diet consisting mainly of protein and fat, with a small amount of complex carbohydrates.

LOWER CARB MEDITERRANEAN DIET

Eat every 2 to 3 hours to maintain blood sugar levels
Do not eat carbohydrates alone, always add protein and healthy fat to your meals and snacks
Avoid stimulants - caffeine, sugar, alcohol etc.
Avoid dead, de-vitalized and junk foods
Avoid trans-fats and rancid fats
Eat real, whole, fresh fruits (organic is best)
Salt your food liberally with Celtic Sea Salt
Drink plenty of water, half of your body weight in fluid ounces is recommended
Eat foods rich in Omega 3 Fatty Acids such as cold water (not farm-raised) fish, including salmon, tuna (not recommended due to its high level of mercury), trout, herring and mackeral. Eat walnuts, flaxseeds and green leafy vegetables. If you prefer, take an Omega 3 supplement such as Tuna Omega-3 Oil from Standard Process.
Use monounsaturated oils, especially extra virgin olive oil as your primary oil or fat source. Do not use canola oil (rapeseed oil) as it is highly processed to take away the offensive taste and smell. Other oils that are good for you, contrary to popular belief, are saturated fats such as coconut oil, lard and butter.
Eat seven or more servings of vegetables and fruits every day (fresh, frozen, not canned). More vegetables to fruit if you are trying to lose weight.
Eat natural sources of protein, (not man-made deli meats), and preferably organic meats (grass-fed, no hormones or antibiotics).
Eat only organic whole grains (noncommercial). No refined carbohydrates (white flour, white pasta, white rice, white sugar).
The best breads are found in the frozen section of the health food store. Look for organic sprouted grain breads.
Minimize oils that are high in Omega 6 fatty acids, including corn, safflower, sunflower, soybean, and cottonseed oils.
Reduce or eliminate your intake of trans-fatty acids (all hydrogenated oils), which are prevalent in margarine, vegetable shortening, and almost all commercially prepared packaged foods.
Make complex carbohydrates, such as breads, pasta, and grains, your smallest food group.

The Mediterranean-Type Diet, also known as the Crete Diet and Omega Diet, was compared to the Standard American Heart Association Diet in the Lyon Diet Heart Study in 1994. "Compared to those on the AHA diet, patients on the Mediterranean Type Diet had an unprecedented 76% lower risk of dying from cardiovascular disease or suffering heart failure, heart attack, or stroke! Remarkably, the new diet had proven more effective at saving lives than any other heart diet, drugs, lifestyle, program, or any combination of these elements." (see The Omega Diet: The Lifesaving Nutritional Program Bases on the Diet of the Island of Crete, by Simopoulos, Artemis, P., M.D., and Jo Robinson, Harper Collins Publishers, Inc., 199. p9)

3. DECREASE YOUR STRESS!

Are you allowing the stressors of everyday life to ruin yours? Limit the stress in your life. Living in today's society brings many stressors into our daily lives. Add on an unexpected loss or trauma and our bodies must and will react. We are brilliantly designed to handle short-term stress then return to a state of ease. Prolonged and unrelenting stress, real or imagined, will create chaos within. Hormonal imbalance, blood sugar dysfunction, adrenal fatigue, anxiety, diseases, depression all can be created from a prolonged stress response. Identify your stressors! What does stress mean to you and why? Ask yourself if you believe you have any control over it and if you do, what can be done to eliminate or reduce it? For the stressors that you have no control over ask yourself; what is the worst case scenario? Can you change the way you perceive this event or situation?

There are a multitude of stress reducing techniques that you have available to help you better understand and deal with stressful situations including and not limited to; yoga, tai chi, meditation, walking, exercise, gardening and square breathing, MBSR (Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction) http://www.umassmed.edu/cfm/stress/index.aspx. Decide which works best for you and incorporate this into your daily routine. Surround yourself with positive, happy people. Remember, we may not be able to control the stress in our lives but we can control how we perceive it.

Don't let circumstances run your life or your health - You are the boss - Take control of you!

No matter how long you have been suffering with poor health, low energy and/or other symptoms of peri-menopause and menopause, it's not too late to restore your body's natural balance. The good news is: You can begin to incorporate the 3 Simple Steps to Optimal Health and avoid the devastating effects of Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT).

Visit http://www.diagnostechs.com for more information about saliva testing.

If you are interested in more ways to avoid suffering the symptoms of menopause and to live a healthier, more energetic life, visit up at http://www.managingmenopausenaturally.com/ and pick up your free copy of '9 Secrets to Feeling Energized and Staying Young'.

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Home Remedies For Menopause - Natural Healing Remedies to Help You Get Through Menopausal Effects

Are you one of the thousands of women who suffer severely with the effects caused by menopause? It seems that some women simply breeze through menopause while others have a very hard time. Luckily there are natural ways to help you so in this article we will look at some home remedies for menopause symptoms.

The biggest complaint that most woman voice about menopause is the hot flashes which can be very uncomfortable as well as embarrassing. You feel as though your body is an oven and somebody has turned it up to the highest level causing you to sweat uncontrollably.

Here are some of the more popular home remedies for menopause that you can try. Not all remedies work for every woman so you may have to try a few different ones until you find what works for you.

1. Vitamin E - Vitamin E is a natural antioxidant that has proven to be helpful in combating hot flashes and night sweats. I've read that your body temperature rises by as much as 8 degrees during a hot flash and since these come on suddenly it is no wonder that they bring such discomfort. So a helpful tip would be to keep your home cool as well to help your body recover after the hot flash has passed.

2. Evening Primrose Oil - Evening primrose oil is used for conditions that affect a woman's health, such as breast tenderness that is associated with her menstrual cycle, menopausal symptoms, and PMS or premenstrual syndrome.

3. Meditation - meditation helps by providing stress relief which helps the woman to be calmer overall and deal with the menopausal symptoms easier.

4. Massage - Massage therapy again helps to relax the woman which helps her in coping better with the symptoms of menopause

5. Exercise - Exercise helps in so many ways, by relieving stress and by improving mood as mood swings are also a negative side effect of menopause. It is also good in preventing weight gain which is another negative by product of menopause sometimes.

6. Progesterone Cream - I once had an encounter in a retail store where the cashier was in the midst of a hot flash and the customer in front of me happened to be a nurse. It was then that I learned that progesterone cream can be helpful for women going through menopause as this nurse recommended it to the cashier to help ease her hot flashes and other side effects of menopause.

So there you have 6 remedies to help you cope with this stage of your life. I hope that you find your remedy among these but, if not, remember that there are many other home remedies menopause out there you just have to be persistent and keep researching until you find the one that works for you. Good luck and stay well.

Visit Top Natural Remedies now for additional menopause natural healing remedies at the first signs of menopause.

For a FREE report on Disease Prevention,10 Natural Ways, visit http://www.TopNaturalRemedies.com.

TopNaturalRemedies.com covers many conditions that affect both humans and pets and offers natural and home remedies to resolve them, including simple conditions such as the common cold and more life-threatening conditions such as cancer and heart disease.

Side Effects Of Bioidentical Hormones

Bioidentical hormones are often synthesized from plants, and processed to make them resemble, or become entirely identical to the hormones within our bodies. Bioidentical hormone preparations are often compounded by pharmacists, with respect to the quantity recommended by the doctor.

We have a conflict of interest here with the pharmaceutical industry, because they are unable to patent human hormones that are molecularly identical to actual substances in the body. Therefore everything that you hear about bioidentical hormones must be viewed with a skeptic eye, because of the pharmaceutical companies massive influence over the health industry.

These hormones are mainly used by females, to alleviate the signs and symptoms of menopause. A scientific study compared the usage of bioidentical progesterone cream to placebo, and learned that women using the cream experienced a massive decrease in symptoms, including hot flashes and night sweats. The cream had no effect on bone mineral density though.

Bioidentical hormones are generally prescribed as a healthier replacement for regular hormone replacement therapy, which has been proven to have serious adverse effects. Many people have voiced their criticism about this kind of treatment because it hasn't been analyzed extensively enough in clinical studies.

However, some scientific studies have demonstrated that these hormones are indeed healthier and also bring less risk of adverse effects than the synthetic versions. This includes significantly less risk of blood clots as well as cancer, the two primary issues concerning conventional hormone replacement therapy.

It's imperative that you realize that these types of hormones haven't been studied as extensively as the standard, artificial ones. This is very understandable because the main sources of research funds are the drug companies, and they have absolutely no interest in studying a substance that can not be patented or marketed for massive price tags.

Unfortunately, because scientific studies are missing, it is not easy to find details about the side effects of bioidentical hormones in the literature, but it appears obvious how the side effects tend to be less severe than with regular hormone replacement therapy.

I'm not really thrilled about individuals playing around with the hormones in their bodies, because this might have unpredictable consequences. If the symptoms of menopause are leading to big problems in that case bioidentical hormones can be a safe alternative to standard treatment.

I would personally also suggest using as little of them as possible, for as brief a time as possible. Menopause is really a natural occurrence that happens with getting older, and even though treatment methods are possible, doesn't mean they're always the right thing to do.

Make sure that if you are undergoing any kind of hormonal treatment, to do it under supervision by a physician who has knowledge of these matters, hormones are nothing to play around with.

Kris is a medical student from Iceland and runs the very popular health oriented website Kris Health Blog at http://www.kriskris.com/

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Proper Medical Command Is Mandatory To Stay Away From Side Effects Of Hormone Replacement Therapy

Well, there really are two sides to a coin, and for that matter every other thing!!! Same is the case with Hormone Replacement Therapy. Over the period of time it has been known to serve as cure for many ailments caused due to lowered levels of testosterone in human body. On the other hand, there has been an array of unwanted side effects associated with it as well, if administered without the supervision of a qualified and experienced medical officer.

Previously, hormone therapy had also been suggested and used for the treatment of prostate cancer quite often. Well, quite recently, according to the findings of National Institute of Health, the use of hormone therapy for prostate cancer has been put under a big question mark.

Earlier, men diagnosed with prostate cancer spreading beyond the prostate gland, or those who have had experienced recurring of the disease had been treated with a specific kind of Hormone Replacement Therapy; it comprises of (sometimes) surgical and more often pharmacological castration.

What it actually did was to contribute towards shutting down the source of male hormones (also referred as testosterone ) and dihydrotestosterone (DHT or 5 alpha-dihydrotestosterone; another male hormone that gets converted from testosterone within prostate). Recent research greatly hints towards this practice contributing towards fueling cancer.

This recent study greatly suggests that the side effects of this kind of chemical castration caused by Hormone Replacement Therapy in such circumstances can be of disastrous consequences, majorly including:

Reduced or total lack of sexual drive and desire
Impotence
Increased experience of lowered energy and fatigue
Loss of lean muscle mass
Growth of male breast tissues
Hot flashes
Depression
Deteriorated bone conditions leading to osteoporosis

Research also reveled another biggest of the side effect associated with Hormone Replacement Therapy under these conditions which contributes towards forceful hormone blocking approach in use for treatment of prostate cancer patients dramatically increases the risk of (often fatal) cardiac issues.

The study conducted under the supervision of eminent epidemiologist Mieke Hemelrijck of King's College in London, observed the records of about 30,642 Swedish males with different states of prostate cancer who got Hormone Therapy as primary treatment for their ailment and established the fact that their risks of getting infected with various cardiac diseases, heart attacks, arrhythmia, and heart failure were as high as 19% to 26% as compared to the individuals who were never treated with such a therapy for prostate cancer.

Their findings indicated that the prostate patients treated with Hormone Replacement Therapy were exposed to significantly higher risks of developing all types of cardiac issues and majority of them were more likely to succumb to those symptoms as a cause of their death as compared to those who never had such a treatment particularly for prostate cancer.

In the past this kind of therapy has been used for dealing with a host of other issues, particularly related to treating various symptoms of aging with great success, and medical specialists can keep doing so with equal significance, only if Hormone Replacement Therapy is applied under strict expert medical supervision in the right areas.

NationWidesi is a clinic that provides Information and treatments on Hormone Replacement Therapy, HGH (Human Growth Hormone) and testosterone for men and women seeking to restore hormonal balance, thus make them feel healthy and younger again. For more detail please visit: http://www.nationwidesi.com/