GynoFiles

Is your waist healthy? Do you need to improve? You are picking out that old favorite team gear and now you noticed that you are unable to button your pants as easily? The first clue to your nutritional health is not necessarily your weight. Your weight may not even have fluctuated much, but there it is, the dreaded thicker waist. Just doing a bit less? Having too much wheat based carbs? Eating sugar and forgoing the right fats? Trying the turkey and chicken instead of burgers and steaks?Weight gain in the middle is not good.  As your waist to hip ratio rises, your get thicker in the middle and even if you can button your pants, it's that you are getting that muffin top look. Whether or not you have a good or even relatively healthy 'overweight' BMI, if you have too thick of a waist it is called central obesity,  as measured by waist circumference (men – greater than 40 inches [102 cm]; women – greater than 35 inches [89 cm]). Your BMI is a measurement of your w...

Hormone therapy is one of the most studied treatments in medicine. The effects of estrogen, the main component in most hormone therapy, are so wide ranging, that it's important that each individual work with a provider to decide if and when to begin therapy, what dosages and formulations to use, when to change, how to monitor, and when to stop. Given that large population studies have only given pieces of advice to providers, often women have been told what they perceive is conflicting advice. Much of the confusion stems from an interpretation of 'risk' and what some perceive as too much risk is viewed as virtually no risk to others. Given that some women are willing to assume more risk than other women, we have to recognize that Women do need to discuss their individual risk factors, and it is going to be the most beneficial if you begin your therapy within the first 10 years after your natural age of menopause, or at least by age 60. A new Revised Global Consensus statem...

The menopausal years and the menopausal transition years are critically important for your heart health and you and your gyno need to have a talk, not only what is happening with your sex drive, your moods, and the hot flashes many women get, but you need to focus on what consequences menopause has on your cardiovascular system. According to a new study called ARIC women have significantly increased risk of heart disease before, during and right after menopause. Markers of inflammation soar, blood sugar control falters, cholesterol and blood lipids elevate, and their waist enlarges. the highest risk years for the most rapid changes are ages 45-60. The consequences can be seen in weight gain, bone loss, poorer vision, more skin wrinkling, and basically all the signs of organ aging due to lower nutrients and more body toxins. This study didn't indicate that hormone therapy was 'preventative' of cardiovascular risk, but it was not powered to look at that, and there is no ...

Hormone therapy should be Prioritized which essentially means taking your personal hormonal state, symptoms, and health needs into consideration during prescribing. Hormone therapy has evolved from when only Premarin was available in the 1940s to the current situation now that offers many formulas either from a pharmaceutical company, or made in a pharmacy that uses pharmaceutical grade materials in a uniquely designed amount and content. These hormones can be biologically identical to what we have from our bodies prior to menopause, or something synthetic, or something designed to act on cells in a very unique well. Thus hormone therapy  can be prescribed in so many forms. There are pills, implants, creams, patches, gels, shots, and vaginal rings just to name a few routes of administration. Further more hormone therapy can be of so many compounds: not just estrogen, but testosterone, progesterone, adrenal hormones all may be in the mix of what is prescribed. In fact menopausa...

Hot flashes can be both due to estrogen lows, and be experienced by women long before menopause. When you have hot flashes in your 30s if they are not treated they will have long standing consequences on your health... oddly both positive and negative. They can disrupt sleep and memory, but perhaps they can be just the heart challenge that you need. We are sorting through new information as it comes. Hot Flashes elevate blood pressure in an article published in Menopause Vol 19 2012. In fact the authors from Canada and Australia in this report noted that for each additional night sweat the blood pressure climbed 2 mm of Hg. Interestingly there was a drop in blood pressure by 2 mm of Hg for each time a woman had a day time hot flash. Other studies say these changes may be accompanied by other changes, such as worsening cholesterol, and that these risk factors will vary by your age, your weight, your menopausal status (how long from your menopause you are), and your ethnicity....

Smoking can damage the pelvic floor. Quitting can improve this, and pelvic floor therapy can repair damage. We recommend smokers who are noticing weak pelvic floor or bladders consider the non-invasive treatment of MonaLisa Touch to repair the vaginal tissue damage that smoking has caused. Another gyno lecture about stopping to smoke, and yes, even cutting back will improve your bladder. But as smoking can cause urinary leakage it's time to let your gyno help you stop smoking. Oddly we even see decreased smoking when we put you on a diet with Contrave, so selecting the right medications for the job can have many favorable effects as well as the favorable effects we intended. First determine the cause of the bladder problems leading to pad usage, and we can help you do that . But bottom line, if you didn't realize why you are having increasing problem with over active bladder, urge incontinence or mixed incontinence disorders, well for those of you who still smoke are all li...

The chronic progression of estrogen changes on the vaginal health of women has been in focus that women are coming to understand that some aspects of menopause have to be managed beyond the first few years of menopause. But, the concept of risk management for more serious consequences after we stop hormone therapy is just now coming into focus. If a woman started hormone therapy during the time she transitioned into menopause most studies acknowledge she will have a lower rate of heart disease, but now a new study confirms that over time there are potential serious consequences of stopping the therapy. In 2014 we reported the findings of a group of New York researchers out of Columbia in conjunction with scientist at Bethesda and Gynuity and Christiana Care Health Systems in Newark, DE looked at weight, your cholesterol, and other chronic disease progression, such as hypertension, in women stopping hormone therapy. Hormone Therapy will protect against osteoporosis, cardiovascular...

Endocervical Polyp In perimenoapsue and menopause taking estrogen can cause wide ranging side effects. However, the effects on the lining of the uterus is not one of the benefits. Estrogen can cause bleeding, spotting, polyps, precancer and even lining cancer of the uterus. In a new report we have found that rates of uterine cancers are going up. he study, published May 22, 2019 in the  Journal of Clinical Oncology  the information from NCI's Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database to evaluate trends in uterine cancer incidence rates for women overall and by race and ethnicity, geographic region, and biologic subtype , and found more aggressive and what used to be rare types of cancers of the uterus are increasing.  Whether these things will occur will depend on many factors, including lifestyle, prior therapy, your diet , and your genetics. In the study it was thought that the biggest increases in uterine cancer, were due to cancers that ...

Women should care about pancreatitis as the newest date from the Women's Health Initiative shows that hormone therapy increases the risk of pancreatitis by about 50%. In simple terms pancreatitis is an inflammation of the gland the pancreas that is in our upper abdomen. The condition usually causes pain in the region of the pancreas, the enzyme levels of pancreatic enzymes rise, and often the patient will have a fever. Residing by the gall bladder, conditions that obstruct or inflame the gall bladder can affect the pancreas. Both gall stones and alcohol are known to be causes of the condition, but even injuries, high cholesterol, and viral infections can be the problem. Since the pancreas makes insulin, any disorder of the pancreas can lead to pre-diabetes or diabetes. Treatment will vary on the degree of the condition, the cause and the patient's overall health. In some cases it is rest and observation, in very severe cases surgery may be required. For women, proactively ke...

Painful sex, dry vaginal tissues, chronic urinary tract infections, all are due to the lack of estrogen as a woman ages through menopause. There are both medical and non-medical therapies for this condition. Women who have painful sex in menopause usually have the condition of atrophic vulvovaginitis ,or genital atrophy or what is more commonly known as the thinning of the vaginal walls due to menopausal changes. There are even pap tests to determine if this is the diagnosis, although your gyno can usuall y tell just by looking. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in Feb of 2013 has approved ospemifene ( Osphena , Shionogi, Inc) for treating this condition of painful sex due to vaginal dryness also known as  dyspareunia in postmenopausal women. Dyspareunia, in younger women, can be caused by a number of conditions  yeast infections, bacterial vaginosis, PID, STDs, or endometriosis. In menopausal women it is associated with declining levels of estrogen during meno...

Women are unique and they find that they need choices when it comes to hormone therapy. These choices, include patches, pills, inserts, but also sprays, creams and gels.Choice is important as we need to be consistent with use, and the different delivery systems have different benefits to them. Topically delivered hormones are believed to be a slight be less risky for heart health, and they also have the steady level that keeps moods even. When it comes to at home safety concerns, we have to point out a few facts about hormone treatments. The bottles for hormone pills have long been designed with safety tops to prevent children from taking hormones unwittingly. But we have to think about safety with medications that are applied topically. Although typically hormonal gels dry in about 15 seconds, it is true that if the area is touched, prior to drying, then some of the hormone can be transmitted. Sprays can be even trickier to use. The hormonal spray products have inserted black b...

Estrogen floating around one's blood stream will not affect any symptoms at all. The hormone ha s to bind and then it has to trigger reactions. There are many estrogens and they act through slightly different latch and key mechanisms on the surface of the cells, known alpha or beta receptors for estrogen . Plant estrogens or Isoflavonoids also called Phytoestrogens have a very unique set of physiology. They are in our diet from soy, grains, fruits, and vegetables. These plant estrogens tend b ind more tightly to the beta receptors (ERβ). This is a very attractive property as this type of estrogen inhibits breast cell growth as well as the stimulatory effects of ERα. Soy in the diet, in the right quantities can help decrease cardiovascular disease, decrease ostoporotic fractures and even lower breast cancer rates. If you want to consume more soy, think about the Asian Diet they get their soybean from Tofu, Tempeh, Miso. The soyfood is not metabolized the same by all of us...

Mild hot flashes should be tolerated, and don't need therapy, but once they occur several times a day, or more, and are accompanied by sweating, sleep disturbances or lack of concentration, it's time to try simple therapies, then check with your gyno. Research studies have been frustrating on herbal medicines, for all the reasons herbals are not traditional medications: they vary, they are best used in combinations, and positive thinking is so powerful, that the placebo effects are huge making statistically proving herbals work almost impossible. About 4-6 women out of 10 will get better no matter what herbal we give them. The herbal therapy for hot flashes can be aimed at reducing the flash, reducing the anxiety with the flash, and hoping to improve sleep. One herbal menopausal therapy that may be able to fit the bill and treat all these complaints the herb black cohosh. If you read labels it's in many available therapies. What is black cohosh? Is it something that...