Anti-Depressants Can Help Some Women With Hot Flashes…Some of the Time

Finding a non-hormonal remedy for hot flashes, one of the most common and disruptive symptoms of menopause, is the holy grail for women who will try just about anything if there’s even a speck of a chance that it could help reduce their frequency or severity. In recent years, there have been a number of research studies investigating whether antidepressants are effective in reducing hot flashes but it’s been a mixed bag of results.

Last summer, I wrote about a randomized, placebo-controlled study (the gold standard in research) that showed 55 percent of women, given the anti-depressant, Lexapro, saw a significant reduction in the frequency and severity of hot flashes they were experiencing daily, though the women on placebo saw an improvement as well, just not as much.

More recently, a double-blind, placebo controlled clinical trial, with 205 participants, also showed some promise. These women were experiencing at least 28 bouts of hot flashes or night sweats a week. The results of that study, published last month, found that compared to placebo, 10-20 mg of Lexapro for eight weeks improved their quality of life by reducing hot flash “interference” and helping with sleep problems.

But another study involving two trials of 36 women, found that Lexapro didn’t help at all. The difference in results might be explained by the “placebo effect.” In the first two studies described here, the women kept a diary to record their hot flash symptoms, filling out a questionnaire every month. In this last study, participants wore detectors to capture objective measures.

Apparently, our desire for something – anything – to work is so powerful that just wishing for some relief makes you feel better.

Nevertheless, researchers continue to explore the use of antidepressants, such as Paxil, Prozac and Effexor, for hot flashes, and a few studies, using these products at low doses, worked for some women, but not all.

To date, the only solution that has been proven to work for hot flashes is hormone therapy. For women looking for a hormone-free alternative, there isn’t better news on the “natural” front. Herbs such as Black Cohosh, Dong Quai and Red Clover (shown here), can help some women for some period of time, but the results are often as unreliable as anti-depressants.

I’d love to know what, if anything, has worked for you.  What have you tried that you gave up on?

A Stylish Solution to Hot Flashes

It takes a clever woman like Constance Sherman to come up with a stylish solution to hot flashes. A former art director with fashion magazines and department stores, Constance decided she rather wear cool pearls than a wet bandana when her hot flashes acted up. But not just any pearls. Really cool pearls-the kind that you store in the freezer and use over and over, thanks to a non-toxic gel that’s placed in the bauble’s inner core.

Called Hot Girls Pearls, they are available in three different lengths as well as a matching bracelet; in three colors – white, blush and gunmetal- and come with a travel purse with icepack. The bracelet sells on her website for $32 and the necklace costs from $56 to $60 depending on the length.

Hot Girls Pearls would get my vote for a product of the year award. It’s a fabulous idea.

Shared Medical Visits Could Be Ideal for Menopausal Women

If I had one word to describe menopause, I’d choose complicated. Though it first creeps up on you slowly in your 40s, with mostly benign symptoms like insomnia or occasional hot flashes, a 50-something woman can experience a cascade of symptoms that can have serious health implications later. That’s why it’s so important to understand hormonal health; what we can expect as we get older; and what treatment options we should consider to stay healthy.

But who can we turn to for answers and guidance? The internet is rife with biased and and unreliable information. Research findings that make headlines are often contradictory from one week to the next. And a brief, 10-minute office visit with your doctor just won’t cut it. As I said, it’s just too complicated.

Dr. Lisa Larkin (pictured above), a gynecologist who is Director of University of Cincinnati Health’s Women’s Center, understands the short-comings of a brief office visit for all patients, but particularly for menopausal women who require more education. That’s why she began organizing 90-minute group appointments called shared medical visits for these women as a way to enhance and supplement the care they receive individually.

An Expert on Smoothies Explains What It Takes to Make A Nutritious Drink “Hormone Friendly”

Earlier this week, I posted the first part of my email conversation with Kristine Miles, author of the just published The Green Smoothie Bible. The first half of the book is a primer on smoothies: what they are, how to make them, and why they’re so good for you. The second half is a recipe book –  300 of them arranged by health benefit, as well as by season, so you can use ingredients that are fresh and readily available. I asked Kristine about the chapter called “Happy Hormones.”  I was curious: what makes a smoothie “hormone friendly?”  Here’s the rest of our conversation:

Please explain what makes a smoothie “hormone friendly.”

With the right ingredients, a smoothie can deliver the nutrients you need to achieve two goals:  correcting estrogen dominance, which can cause symptoms such as mood swings, migraines and weight gain; and balancing your blood sugar, which is vital for management of weight and hormone health.  My recipes thus include fiber dense foods, low glycemic carbohydrates, the minerals chromium, magnesium and zinc, as well as cinnamon, Vitamin C and coriander/cilantro.

What are some examples of foods that are especially beneficial for women?

Whenever I can, I like to include beets, spinach, goji berries, avocados and lots of leafy greens because these foods contain the compound Betaine, which can combat high levels of homocysteine, an important amino-acid, that in excess can contribute to conditions such as heart disease. There are also foods that can help remove “bad” estrogens, derived from our daily exposure to toxins and chemicals, that can lead to estrogen dominance. These foods include lemon and lime peel, apples, cruciferous vegetables and iodine-rich foods such as seaweed. In addition to a whole-food, plant-based diet, hormone health can be boosted by adequate intake of essential fats; vitamins B3 (abundant in cremini and shiitake mushrooms) and B6 (bananas, watermelon); super-foods such as maca, bee pollen and cacoa; and the minerals magnesium and zinc.

All About Smoothies: A Conversation with Kristine Miles, Author of The Green Smoothie Bible (Part 1)

If you’re a fan of smoothies, or if the proliferation of smoothie bars has piqued your interest, then you’ll love Kristine Miles’ new book, The Green Smoothie Bible, which contains everything you need to know about this super-nutritious, milk-shake-like drink: what they are, why they’re so good for you and how to make it. Kristine, an Australian physiotherapist, is a life-long vegetarian, and raw-food enthusiast who is passionate about nutient-packed smoothies. After years of research and experimenting, she has given us her 300 best recipes, organized according to the health benefits each one offers. So, if you’re looking for a daily dose of greens that will support cardiovascular health, weight loss, or hormone support, Kristine has a recipe for you.

In a recent email conversation, I asked Kristine about her passion for smoothies and the basics of smoothie-making. Later this week, I’ll post the second part of our conversation, in which she explains what makes a smoothie hormone-friendly.

My passion for smoothies, green smoothies in particular, came from reading the raw food book “Green For Life,” by Victoria Boutenko, the pioneer of the green smoothie movement. The concept of blending greens to maximise nutrient assimilation and combining them with fruit for palatability, instantly resounded with me.  I have always loved just fruit for breakfast, but it never sustained me ’till lunchtime. Green smoothies solved all of these issues. 

Wendy: What’s your favorite smoothie — the one you probably have a gallon of in your refrigerator?

My favourite smoothie varies depending on the seasons. I am a big fan of seasonal smoothies. I love it in late spring and early summer when mangos are everywhere and I love combining mango with banana, or with orange. But by late summer, I am well and truly over mango smoothies! In my book I devote a chapter of green smoothie recipes each to each season.

What I’m Reading This Week

Here’s my pick for the three best, noteworthy articles I’ve read this past week. I think you’ll find them interesting too.

Is it Crohn’s Disease or Lactose Intolerance?
Healthline.com

This article, which provides an important comparison between the symptoms of Lactose Intolerance and Crohn’s Disease, can be found on the front page of Healthline.com (where you’ll also find my article about “Foods to Boost Memory”). Many of the symptoms are the same and it’s possible to be misdiagnosed. Since one is harmless, and the other isn’t, it’s a good idea to be knowledgeable about the differences.

Younger Women Need Improved Awareness of Their Heart Disease Risks
Women’s Health Advisor (A subscription newsletter published by Weill Cornell Medical College) April 2012

This newsletter’s lead story reports on the need for women to be more educated about the risks of heart disease and stroke.  In general a higher percentage of women than men die as a result of

Eating Chocolate Makes You Thinner? I Knew It Was Too Good To Be True

Eat Chocolate and Get Thinner. Chocolate Makes You Fitter. Those were the headlines last week, based on the findings of a study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine and an a University of Calif.-San Diego press release titled “Regular Chocolate Eaters are Thinner.”  What delicious news! We all so wanted to believe that chocolate was a “free” food. But was it believable? I think deep down, we knew it must have been one of those PR type things. But heck, an ounce a day of chocolate can’t hurt anyway. There seem to be so many studies showing that chocolate is good for you!  We’ve even know about the benefits of Resveratrol thanks to a 2008 study by Hershey’s Center for Health and Nutrition.

But one doctor, Yoni Freedhoff MD, the founder of a nutrition and weight management center in Ottawa, has blown the whistle in an article that appeared last week on his blog, “Weighty Matters.”  He argues that there’s no growing body of evidence suggesting that chocolate is magically calorie neutral (or calorie negative). Moreover, he wrote, the study that these headlines were based on was grossly flawed (my words, not his);

“Basically here we have a study with no controls whatsoever rendering conclusions impossible, authors who rather than mention their study’s pretty much insurmountable methodological limitations instead made up a “growing body of literature” on magic calorie neutral or negative foods, a press release that spins it all as fact and as a result, as of early this morning, less than 24 hours after publication, there were already 443 ‘chocolate makes you thin’ stories on the newswire to further misinform an already nutritionally confused world.”

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.