Products I Like: This Handcrafted, All-Natural Soap Is a Winner

For several years, I’ve been making an effort to reduce my exposure to chemicals in my food, my home and especially in the products I use on my body.  When you consider just how many personal care products women typically use just to get out the door in the morning, it makes sense to switch to brands that contain only natural or organic ingredients whenever possible.

This explains my ongoing quest for finding the perfect, hand-crafted soap: chemical and synthetic free, not sweet or overly scented, moisturizing, with a pretty good lather. I seek them out at farmers markets and boutiques wherever I go, near and far. I’ve found some good ones over the years, but I really hit the jackpot last Fall with a soap made by Montclair Skin Care, a start-up company located in the San Francisco Bay area where I live.

The founder, Kim Emanuel, an engineer by trade, started making soaps for his wife, who had become ultra-sensitive to the chemicals found in commercially-made, personal care products when she hit the menopause years. He was soon making soaps for her friends, and friends of friends, then selling them, along with additional skin-care products he developed, at local farmers markets on weekends, where they were a big hit. Keeping up with orders from his website and now, four Bay-area Whole Foods Markets, has become more than a full-time day job for Kim.

A GI Doc Talks About Bloat and Why Women Have More Of It Than Men

A common, but uncomfortable symptom of menopause is bloating of the abdomen. It’s so prevalent among women in their 40s and 50s that Dr. Robynne Chutkan, a Gastroenterologist and founder of the Digestive Center for Women near Washington, D.C., is writing a book about it. In a recent telephone conversation she told me that bloat is one of the most frequent complaints she hears from her patients. So, I asked her to explain the causes of bloat and why so many women (and so few men) experience it. Here’s an excerpt of our conversation.

First, what motivated you to spend the time to write a book about bloat?

Dr Chutkan: There isn’t a cocktail party, yoga class or school meeting that I go to when I don’t get asked about this condition. Every woman I meet seems to suffer from bloat at some point in her life and there are many causes, besides just constipation, that people don’t know about.

Why is bloat more common in middle age and why don’t you hear men complaining about it too?   

Dr. Chutkan: To begin with, the problem is linked to motility (how fast food moves through the digestive tract). This tends to slow down around the time of perimenopause in women, most likely due to fluctuating hormones.  It happens to men much later in life – usually in their 70s and 80s.

Then, there are the significant anatomical differences between the male and female colon. For example, it takes me three times longer to do a colonoscopy on a woman than a man. That’s because the female colon is 10 cm longer and much like a slinky- all tangled up with lots of redundancy. By contrast, a man’s colon is shaped like a gentle horse-shoe.

This Gorgeous Cookbook Will Inspire You To Eat More Vegetables

I’ve never thought to recommend a cookbook before, but Plenty: Vibrant Recipes from London’s Ottolenghi  is worth a shout out.  If you’re on a plant-based diet, or you consider yourself  ”mostly vegetarian” like I do, then this is the book for you. Ottolenghi, the chef-owner of four eponymous food shops in London, shows that vegetarian, healthful dishes don’t have to be ordinary.

Consider the eye-catching eggplant dish on the cover, which Ottolenghi calls “rustically elegant.” He pairs it with a sauce of buttermilk and greek yogurt and adds lemon thyme and pomegranate seeds. Yummy!  This is just a hint of his unique, fresh approach that you’ll find throughout this book, which contains 120 recipes organized by ingredients (roots, fruits, funny onions, leaves etc.). He pairs these everyday ingredients with innovative flavors, in imaginative ways: Pear Crostini

What I’m Reading

Here’s my pick of the three most interesting or newsworthy articles I’ve read this week.

Rodale’s The Daily Fix Newsletter – Why Women Shouldn’t Eat Factory-Farmed Chicken.

Years ago, I felt (and tasted) the difference when I stopped buying Foster Farm-brand chicken and switched to organic, locally raised poultry. Now I know why. As this article points out, tests by ConsumersUnion regularly show that as much as two-thirds of grocery-store chicken contains bacteria. That means that “dirty factory farms are filling our guts with bacteria that can cause all sorts of infections. And for women, that could mean more uncomfortable urinary tract infections (UTIs).”  Did you know that 80 to 90 percent of routine UTIs are caused by E. Coli? And supermarket chicken could be where all that bacteria is coming from, according to a Canadian researcher.

More Magazine (March issue), “Anti-Aging Arsenal: Four Nutrients You Now Need” 

We’re so busy counting calories and fat grams, we often overlook the importance of consuming micronutrients that are essential to the proper functioning of our bodies. As the author of this article points out, avoiding certain foods such as meats and eggs,

Give Yourself A Break

Next week is National Wellness Week, where many spas, wellness centers and fitness studios are offering spa treatments, private training, yoga instruction and other services for either half off or flat-rate $50 deals. It’s a national initiative, so chances are there are great deals and special events taking place where you live.  In New York City, for example, I counted 56 businesses that are offering discounts on everything from Hot Chocolate Manicures to Chiropractic exams and Table Thai Massages.  To book a treatment at a participating spa or wellness center near you, go to the SpaFinder/Wellness week website, enter your zip code, and check the “wellness week” filter on the right side. The website also offers expert advice from wellness professionals.

If you could use a “time out” that lasts more than an hour, and you’re able to get away for a few days of physical and spiritual rejuvenation, and learn something to boot, here are some events and destinations that might interest you.

What I’m Reading This Week

Between Twitter feeds, magazines, health newsletters, blogs and three daily newspapers, I read a lot about women’s health and healthy aging.  So I’m going to start a weekly post in which I pick a few of the best articles that I think you’ll find interesting too. Consider me your personal information sherpa.

This week, there were two articles about exercise in the “Well” Column in the New York Times that are worth calling out.

The first, “Getting Fat but Staying Fit?,” references a study that explored whether you can be fit when you’re overweight. Researchers concluded that exercise does, in fact, mitigate the health risks associated with being overweight.  You’re in trouble when you are overweight and sedentary.  The bottom line, Ms. Pope writes “exercise by itself won’t erase the heart risks of extra body fat, but it may blunt them.”

Hormone Use During Menopause: One Size Doesn’t Fit All, According to the Latest Guidelines

In the decade since the Women’s Health Initiative study (WHI) of postmenopausal hormone use was abruptly stopped due to a reported increase in the risk of breast cancer, heart disease, stroke and blood clots, researchers have learned a great deal more about the risks associated with HT. For example, it’s now believed that the type of formulation that’s used, how it is administered, as well as the timing and duration of therapy together produce different benefits and risks for women. So, every year, an advisory panel of the North American Menopause Society (NAMS) issues a position statement to provide the guidance that women and clinicians need to make informed decisions about treatment options.

The latest guidelines, issued this week, state that the “absolute risks of Hormone Therapy (HT) in healthy women ages 50-59 are low. In contrast, long-term HT or HT initiation in older women is associated with greater risks.” Here are more details contained in their position paper, which you can read in its entirety here.

1. For women taking both Estrogen and Progestin, the risk of breast cancer increases with more than three to five years of use. Women who only take Estrogen (those who have had a hysterectomy) have a more favorable benefit-risk profile with no apparent increase in the risk of breast cancer during an average of  seven years of use. There is a lack of safety data supporting the use of hormone therapy in breast cancer survivors.

This Doctor Says There’s No Such Thing as Too Much Fiber in Your Diet. Here’s Why.

If there was ever a time when you thought about fiber, and how much of it you consume, it was probably because you were constipated. And if you had a drink of Metamucil or another fiber supplement, it probably did the trick. However, I learned today, after listening to a presentation by Dr. Robynne Chutkan, a Gastroenterologist and founder and medical director of the Digestive Center for Women in Chevy Chase, MD., that fiber is really a natural miracle drug (my words not hers) and the benefits of this plant part are too numerous to cover in this short blogpost. So here’s the headline:

Consuming optimal levels of soluble fiber has been shown to reduce the risk of coronary artery disease, lower blood pressure and cholesterol levels, control Type 2 Diabetes, slow the progression of IBD; help with GERD, constipation and hemorrhoids; and promote weight loss. 

Unfortunately, most Americans don’t realize these benefits because our diets are woefully deficient in fiber. Our typical daily intake, according to Dr. Chutkan, is only 15 grams.  How much should we be consuming? “Twenty-five grams for women and 38 grams for men,” she said. “Just increasing our intake of soluble fiber by 10 grams a day has been associated with a decrease in risk of all coronary events.”

Fiber might also be just the appetite suppressant you need to lose extra pounds. That’s because “high fiber foods are less dense in calories compared to high fat foods; and it’s the bulking of viscous properties of fiber that contribute to fulness that, in turn, curbs appetite,” explained Dr. Chutkan.  A high-fiber diet also slows down the absorption of sugars, so you stay full longer.

Intimate Care Products Designed By and For Women

Valentines Day seems like a good time to talk about intimacy and the difficulties that prevent mid-life, estrogen-starved women from enjoying a satisfying sex life. We’re talking about vaginal dryness. I don’t know if it’s because I write a blog about menopause, but I’m hearing more and more women talk openly about this problem. Personally, I think that’s a good thing. I imagine that our mothers, who never talked about the “M” word to begin with, certainly didn’t utter the V-word either. And they must have felt alone, or ashamed.

Of course, now it’s different.  As Samara O’Shea recently wrote in the Huffington Post, ”now we say ‘vagina’ here, there and everywhere.” So, it makes sense that in anticipation of this one special day for romance, I received numerous emails from companies wanting to get the word out about their vaginal lubricants and moisturizers for women.  In the past, I’ve told you about products like Replens, AtLast Naturals and Collective Well-Being. This year I’ll pass the word about two, women-founded companies that are relatively new to this growing category of products. I haven’t heard about them until now, so I have not personally “road tested” them for you. If  you plan to give it a whirl, do tell us if they made a difference:

Inner Intimates offers two products: Vaginal Renewal Complex, which is described on their website as “a blend of four natural oils, doctor-developed as a complete program to help restore vaginal lubrication, moisture and suppleness.”  The second product, a Vaginal Wash with Sponge,” is described as a mild, soapless cleanser containing Evening Primrose Oil and Tea Tree Oil.  The claim? “By exfoliating the vaginal area, it stops the discomfort caused by clogged pores, ingrown hairs, irritation and uncomfortable itchiness that can be caused by vaginal dryness.” These products were created by a team of physicians with Olga Cohen, a 66-year old woman who experienced vaginal dryness at a young 43 years of age, when she went into early menopause.