GynoFiles

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...

It's tough to know how exercise is going to translate into health for all your body parts, and ultimately end up with the right amount of fitness, the ideal weight range, and your healthiest body shaping while maintaining healthy bones, joints, breasts and waist. Both shape and fitness goals are often in concert, but some fine tuning may be necessary. If you suffer injury, or are slow to recover, you need additional adjustment to fitness. Your physician's exercise goals may be quite extensive, whether you have discussed or not! Fitness program goals for you includes: to maintain enough exercise to be vigorous, have better cardiovascular health, to lessen risks of strokes and blood clots, to think better, to sleep, to have better sex, to feel better, keep your weight in the healthiest range it can be, prevent obesity, and finally perhaps to look better! While all those benefits can be obtained, for long term sustaining of those benefits you have to look at exactly the relations...

Skin wrinkles due to collagen loss and loss of the fat of our skin is very visible and a known consequence of menopause. We naturally lose 30% of the dermal collagen in our skin as we transition through menopuase, and we dramatically loose our muscle mass as well. Sarcopenia is the medical term for muscle mass loss. Aging, illness, lack of exercise and poor nutrition produces muscle loss as much as bone loss. Muscle mass decreases about 3% per year after menopause and by age 80 you have lost about 50% of your muscles. Actually true muscle strength loss proceeds at half that rate. So we lose muscles faster than we lose overall muscle strength. We don’t know why this is it seems to be a scientific controversy that is not yet solved by may be related to various cardiovascular issues. It is also thought that immune system dysfunction, changes in our metabolism as we age, or changes in our nutrient intake cause this overall loss of strength due to muscle mass deterioration. Poor diet ...

Chew on these facts about the calcium you need and your overall health. Calcium is healthy for you. Osteoporosis, the bone disease which is the loss of calcium in one's bone until the bone is weakened and at risk for fractures, is a fairly common disease. If you don't lay down enough bone in youth and young adulthood, you will never have bones as strong as they could be. So in youth you need good calcium, as well as a diet that will not block the calcium you are consuming.And taking calcium with soft drink may inactivate the calcium you have taken, so not together!  But regardless of how excellent your calcium intake is and how strong your bones are: through genetics, or weight training or extra calcium; we inevitably lose bone as we age, regardless of our calcium intake. We will lose about 1/2% per year in our late 30s and 40s, by the time we are in menopause we begin to lose 4%/year, and in old age we still lose 2-4%/year. In menopause, the loss of estrogen is responsible fo...

For women with osteoporosis the challenge has been that no one medication both adds bone and prevents bone loss. Most treatments for low bone mass just prevent loss, yet a fairly simple and apparently safe treatment has just been found that may both add bone and prevent loss. This was nitroglycerin ointment and it was studied at the endocrine research unit at the Mayo Clinic. The study was very preliminary and it remains to be seen if this bears fruit in large studies.