Supplement During Menopause Treatments

Posted by Cathy on May 4, 2013

Hot flashes and night sweats for 3 years, Oh MY! I friend of a friend just confided in me she’s been suffering with menopause symptoms in silence for years. When I inquire as to why, she said, “I just didn’t know what to do and I didn’t want the artificial hormones”.

Not all women need a menopause treatment plan. Menopause is a time of change and all women over 50 will experience an ending to their menstruation sooner or later.

But, not all women will need a treatment plan during their menopause years. According to Dr. Elaine Jolly, director of Ottawa’s Shirley E. Greenberg Women’s Health Centre, “Menopause is seen as not very sexy,” says Jolly. “And the menopause curriculum in medical schools is horrible. And that’s a pity, because mature women benefit from preventive care.” she says.

Jolly suspects she knows why the (menopause treatment) field is not a popular choice for medical students contemplating a specialty. It takes a full hour to have a proper consultation with a menopausal patient — and the pay is lower than other medical specialties. “You don’t get kudos for health prevention,” says Jolly. “In France, if you spend time counseling and talking about these things, you get paid.” Many frustrated women are turning to complementary and alternative medicine, she says. “They are not getting satisfaction through conventional medicine.”

I agree with you Dr. Elaine Jolly, women are turning to alternative medicine especially Chinese herbs for menopause treatment. The herbs used in Menopause Relief Herb Pack are the same ones used for centuries to help women balance their hormones and give them relief from hot flashes and night sweats.

Chinese Herbs Reduce Hot Flashes Says American Menopause Society

Posted by Cathy on April 2, 2013

The American Menopause Society recently published the results of a study on the use of Chinese herbs as a menopause treatment. It's always nice to see a clinical trial like this published in English (many are in Mandarin only) and this study was completed in a manner consistent with top notch clinical protocol. The study was double-blind, randomized and controlled…..ahhhh the gold standard for clinical research.

Chinese Herbal Formulas Can Reduce Menopausal Hot Flashes Safely and Effectively

The women in the study were experiencing menopausal hot flashes and were between the ages of 40 to 50 years old. The participants drank either a concentrated extract of herbal granules twice daily for 12 weeks or a placebo, fake herbal tea. The women who drank the Chinese herb remedy found their hot flashes dropped by 62%. Most importantly, the dosage of herbs was discussed in this trial and the participants used 15 grams of concentrated extracts in a sachet each day. (See Menopause Relief Herb Packet herbal granules here)

It is important to note the herbs were dried into granules and no pills or capsules were used in this trial. Pills and capsules always contain fillers. It is also very difficult to take 15 grams (15,000 milligrams) of herbal concentrate when taking pills or capsules because it requires a high number of pills to be swallowed. In this case it would be 15-20 pills per dose.

THE TREND CONTINUED

Even three months after the study ended, the participants said their hot flashes did not increase after the study ended and they stopped using the menopause herbal remedy. This study shows, compared with Hormone Replacement therapy, Chinese herbs are a safe and viable alternative for menopause symptoms.

Although previous studies have found that Chinese herbs can help reduce hot flashes, those studies were not of the same quality methodology as this study, according to the researchers at Menopause: The Journal of The North American Menopause Society.

SOURCE: Menopause: The Journal of The North American Menopause Society, online February 25, 2013.

Bio-Identical Hormones and Menopause Symptom Relief

Posted by Cathy on February 24, 2013

The question many women suffering with menopausal hot flashes and night sweats are asking is whether bio-identical hormones such as progesterone cream and phytoestrogen (plant sourced estrogen) are safe and effective AS the chemical hormones found in hormone replacement therapy (HRT) drugs?

Many women today are being told "bio-identical" hormones are identical to those your body makes. Even though progesterone and estrogen bio-identical creams may be closer to what your body produces there are certainly risks in using any hormone therapy. Some doctors believe the risks are just as great as taking an hormone replacement therapy drug (HRT) others believe the jury is still out because we have no long term data since these products are still very new to the market. Risks may be tied to the dosage which varies greatly from women to women.

Bio-identical hormones made from plant sources may be perfectly safe in low doses, which is the way we would ingest these chemicals found in yams, soy beans and a handful of herbs but at higher doses may be harmful. Nearly every substance found in nature can be safe in minute doses yet toxic at a higher dose. Even water can kill us when taken in to large a dose over a very short time period. Knowing what dose is right for your body can be tricky depending on blood, urine and saliva testing which may not give an accurate reading of circulating hormones in your blood which changes daily and even hourly.

Bio-identical hormones, make no mistake can be just as powerful and dangerous as taking a prescription hormone replacement drug. Phytoestrogen used in minute doses the way we find in nature may be completely safe and effective. Asian women have a long history of eating soy beans nearly everyday of their life from childhood through adulthood and experience very few menopausal symptoms. The isoflavones in soy are known to act as a hormone balancing chemicals.

So, which should you choose, bio-identical hormones or synthetic hormone replacement therapy for your menopausal symptoms? How about neither! There is a third option that women in Asia have used for centuries and the Western world is just beginning to see on store shelves. Traditional Chinese herbs are another option for menopause symptom relief. You can learn more about it here.

Herbal Medicine Honors For Dr. Guo

Posted by Cathy on February 22, 2013

My favorite nonprofit organization has just announced the recipient for a very special award and I wanted to share the news because it has everything to do with Chinese herbs, one of my favorite topics to write about.

ABC also know as American Botanical Council in Austin Texas just announced its “Excellence in Botanical Research Award” recipient for 2013 will be, Professor De-an Guo, PhD, of Shanghai, China.
Dr. Guo’s research has centered on Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) quality control, biochemistry, and metabolism; his phytochemical investigations of traditional Chinese herbal medicines have resulted in the identification of 100 new chemical entities. In addition to his professorship, Dr. Guo serves as director of the State Engineering Laboratory for TCM Standardization Technology and as director of the Shanghai Research Center for TCM Modernization at the Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He earned his doctorate in pharmacognosy from Beijing Medical University’s School of Pharmaceutical Sciences in 1990, and conducted his postdoctoral studies in the department of chemistry and biochemistry at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas.
Among his many accomplishments, including more than 430 published scientific papers to date, Dr. Guo acted as the vice-editor-in-chief of the 2005 edition of the Pharmacopoeia of the People’s Republic of China and editor-in-chief of the 2010 edition. At present, he sits on the editorial boards of several highly respected international scientific journals, including Planta Medica and Phytomedicine. Dr. Guo is an expert committee member of the United States Pharmacopeia and a member of the ABC Advisory Board.
“Professor Guo is not only an established scientist, he has provided leadership in the modernization of TCM,” said past recipient of ABC’s Farnsworth Award, Professor Ikhlas Khan, PhD, a research professor of pharmacognosy and associate director of the National Center for Natural Products Research at the University of Mississippi. “He is a deserving recipient and I am proud to call him my friend.”

All I can say is WOW! Dr. Guo is more than deserving and a life time of research in the field of Chinese herbs and Traditional Chinese Medicine is nothing short of inspiring. Congradulations Dr. Guo.
ABC Founder and Executive Director Mark Blumenthal said; “He is clearly one of the leading figures in scientific medicinal plant research in China, a country with a vast spectrum of traditionally used medicinal plants that are undergoing modern scientific research and validation.”

Soy Is Not An Effective Menopause Treatment

Posted by Cathy on December 30, 2012

A two and half years study finds no improvement from eating soy as a menopause treatment for cognitive function including what many menopausal women label as “brain fog”.

Brain fog often times refers to the common menopausal symptoms including difficulty in remembering daily events and activities. If you are experiencing memory loss or brain fog as part of your menopausal symptoms be aware that the addition of soy to your diet will not help. Although their were no harmful effects, (stick to organic soy) this study showed no improvements for visual memory and thinking ability.

Dr. Victor Henderson of Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif., and his co-authors randomly assigned 313 post-menopausal women aged 45 to 92 to take either 25 grams of soy protein daily or a placebo with milk protein that looked and tasted the same.

The participants were given tests that measured their memory and other thinking abilities at the start of the study and again after 2.5 years.

“For healthy post-menopausal women, long-term dietary soy isoflavone supplementation in a dose comparable to that of traditional Asian diets has no effect on global cognition but may improve visual memory,” Henderson and his co-authors concluded in Tuesday’s issue of the journal Neurology.

If you are looking for a memory boost, try ginseng!

This study was supported by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, the National Center of Complementary and Alternative Medicine, the Office of Dietary Supplements and the Office of Research on Women’s Health.

Why Staying Current On Menopause News Matters

Posted by Cathy on October 23, 2012

On the same day that I received a wonderful testimonial from a woman taking Menopause Relief Herb Pack, I read the news announcement from the Annals of Internal Medicine, that HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy) creates significant health risks, including stroke and breast cancer.

Wow, what a day!

This news is not really a shocker to alternative medicine practitioners like myself. The Complementary and Alternative Medicine community understands the risks of artificial hormones because we are taught to look at the body from a different point of view than Western medicine doctors. We don't try to cover up menopause symptoms with a drug rather we look for the root cause of the disease and treat the whole body.

Holistic minded doctors have always known that HRT is not the miracle drug it was once made out to be. Yesterdays announcement that risks outweigh the benefits is something we've known all along.

"In this case, the harms – the risk of blood clots, gallbladder disease, those types of things – led us to conclude that, on balance, the harms outweigh any potential benefit" said Dr. Bibbins-Domingo.

She added that for conditions such like heart disease and dementia, there was no evidence of any benefit.

Dr. JoAnn Manson, chief of preventive medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital and a professor at Harvard Medical School who worked on the WHI study, said the latest recommendations track with current medical practice.

Manson said it is important to distinguish between hormone therapy used for prevention of chronic disease and short-term use of hormone therapy to treat menopause symptoms, which the guidelines do not address.

She said many of the same professional societies that caution against use of hormone therapy for prevention endorse its use in healthy women whose lives are being disrupted by symptoms of menopause.

"That is the really key point here," she said.

Because of the potential risks, doctors prescribe hormone therapy for menopause symptoms at the lowest possible dose for the shortest period of time. "We understand that there is a different balance of benefits and risks when hormone therapy is used for short-term symptom management versus long-term disease prevention," Manson said.

The task force said more study is needed on the effects of hormone therapy in younger women.

World Menopause Day Healthy Summit Online October 18th

Posted by Cathy on October 17, 2012

World Menopause Day is October 18th. If you suffer with hot flashes or night sweats or other symptoms of menopause please join me at an online event called:

World Menopause Day Health Summit

Come and join the on-line conversation. Ask the panelist your most pressing menopause questions.

The list of expert panelists will be breaking taboo and talking everything menopause.

Don’t feel alone any longer. That foggy brain feeling you’re not quite sure about…. we’ll be talking about solutions.

Weight gain around the middle that you simply can’t get rid of…. well we’ll be talking about solutions that have worked for that too.

Most women feel their doctor should give them the answers to all their health questions as they age, unfortunately, doctors today often don’t have natural solutions. What they have is a prescription pad.

If you’re like me, you just don’t trust the pills anymore. If you feel confused by all the conflicting information about HRT, (hormone replacement therapy), YOU are not alone.

We’re going to talk about all the other options that work. Diet and life style solutions such as herbal alternatives that really work and have been used for centuries. I guarantee you will walk away with useful information you won’t hear anywhere else.

End the confusion and the mysteries

behind the big “M”,

End Your PMS & Menstrual Cramps Video Interview

Posted by Cathy on October 8, 2012

This interview will give you some insight into the book "Stop Your Bitching…naturally" The Step By Step Guide to Balancing Your Hormones and Ending PMS & Menstrual Cramps. Evita at Healthytarian.com did a super informative interview with Cathy which covers a great overview of the book. Hope you enjoy it.

Chinese Herbs Now In Skin Moisturizers

Posted by Cathy on September 23, 2012

I saw this in the store the other day. It is one of the just a handful of main stream products I’ve seen in the U.S. that is advertising “Chinese Botanicals”!

Very Cool!! Kiss My Face is not just a trend setter they see the writing on the wall. Chinese herbs can and do make your products better. They are used all over Asia in various drinks, hand creams, shampoo’s and cosmetics, it’s about time we start seeing them on American store shelves.

American’s are getting exposed to Chinese herbs slowly but surely. Whether it’s ginseng in energy drinks or goji berries packages we are starting to see greater use of Chinese herbs in everyday products. Kiss Your Face uses both Chinese botanicals, and Chinese herbs on their packaging label.

Here are the three main reasons why Chinese herbs are different than Western herbs and why you're going to start seeing much more of these Chinese botanicals in everyday products.

1. Firstly, most of them have been used for thousands of years so evidence of use is simply much, much longer than Western botanicals that have only been documented for only a few hundred years.

2. Chinese botanicals don’t necessarily grow exclusively in China today. Many grow around the world, including America. All are part of a system of medicine called Traditional Chinese medicine that is thousands of years old and today this system of medicine keeps billions of people alive and well.

3. The third most important difference in Chinese herbs vs Western herbs is their use in combinations or formulas. Western herbs are often used one at a time. For example the use of chamomile for trouble sleeping. But in Chinese Herbal medicine, one herb alone would never be used to help with sleep. A combination of herbs, or formula of herbs would be used because over the centuries people have found formulas or groups of herbs work much better than just using one herb along.

Of course there are many other differences between Western herbs and Chinese herbs, But that's a good start and it's great to see the system of herbal medicine being incorporated into more mainstream products in the United States and around the world.

Is This A Trend? Breast Cancer Lawsuits Against HRT and Wyeth

Posted by Cathy on July 22, 2012

Breast cancer has climbed to 1 in every 8 women and now the finger is beginning to point to drug manufacturers. Wyeth and Pfizer have made combination hormone drugs for over 30 years and these HRT drugs (hormone replacement therapy) are commonly used for menopause treatments. About 10,000 cases against these pharmaceutical giants have already been filed and Pfizer has spent nearly $900 million to resolve about half of them.

Some go to trial, others settle more quietly out of court. Just last week, a Utah jury found Wyeth responsible for one woman’s breast cancer and awarded her $5 million in compensation. Utah does not allow for punitive damages.

Studies, such as the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) study, released this statement with it’s results: “Women using Hormone Replacement Therapy (“HRT”) are more likely to develop breast cancer than those who are not using HRT.”

The National Institute of Health completed the Million Women Study in Britain a few years ago. Based on the results, the NIH concluded that the “Current use of HRT is associated with an increased risk of incident and fatal breast cancer; the effect is substantially greater for oestrogen-progestagen combinations than for other types of HRT.”

One expert testified that his research showed as many as 15,000 cases of breast cancer per year occurred in women taking the combination hormone drug. Yet the “defense witnesses told you the same thing, the same story line, that Wyeth wanted them to tell you over and over — that no one knows what causes breast cancer,” said Russell T. Abney, another attorney representing Okuda. “We are not arguing that Ms. Okuda didn’t have an abnormal cell in her body. What we are arguing is that [estrogen plus progesterone] promoted that abnormal cell to grow.”

Women don’t have to choose between drugs and cancer for debilitating symptoms of menopause. There are other choices of menopause treatment.

References:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12927427

China’s Obsession – Bigger Is Definitely Better

Posted by Cathy on May 28, 2012

In China, BIGGER is definitely better.

Take a look for yourself. These pictures tell it all.

If you are going to build a statue in Asia, it's got to be big. I mean really BIG.

Here in the U.S. we don't have much to compare with these. Mount Rushmore comes to mind but it is over 70 years old.

These huge statues, all in China, have all been built in the last 20 years.

What's the reason BIGGER is better? Not sure, what do you think?

AD 803		1994

		Located 30 kilometers south of Guangzhou city, South China's Guangdong province, the 40.8-meter Kwan-yin statue is the tallest gold-plated bronze statue in the world. It was completed in 1994.

		1996
Situated 160 kilometers north of Chengdu city, Southwest China's Sichuan province, the 71-meter Leshan Grand Buddha was built in AD 803 during the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907). It is still the biggest stone-carved Buddha in the world and was included on the World Heritage List. It was the world's biggest Buddha for 1,200 years. Now, it only ranks seventh in China in terms of height. [Photo/Asianewsphoto]		The 88-meter Lingshan Grand Buddha built in 1996 is the main tourist attraction at Lingshan Buddhist Scenic Spot in Wuxi, East China's Jiangsu province. It is a bronze statue of Sakyamuni, the founder of Buddhism. [Photo/Asianewsphoto]
1998

Xijiaoshan Kwan-yin Statue is 61.9 meters high, situated on the top of a hill in Foshan city, South China's Guangdong province. It was completed in 1998 as the highest sitting Kwan-yin statue.

2005		2006

		Golden Statue of Puxian on Emei Mountain, in Sichuan province, was built in May 2006 and is 48 meters high. This 66-ton bronze likeness is endowed with 10 heads "to catch winds from 10 directions."

The giant Kwan-yin statue is 108 meters high, located at Nanshan Temple in Sanya, South China's Hainan province. It was built in April 2005. [Photo/Asianewsphoto]

2008		2007 The 106-meter statue of Yandi (left) and Huangdi emperors was finished in April 2007 in Zhengzhou, Central China's Henan province. Chinese often refer to themselves as "sons and grandsons of the emperors Huangdi and Yandi."
The Spring Temple Buddha built in 2008 is a statue depicting Vairocana Buddha in Zhaocun township of Lushan county, Central China's Henan province. At 128 meters, which includes a 20-meter lotus throne, it is the tallest statue in the world. If the statue's 25-meter pedestal is taken into account, the monument has a total height of 153 meters. The hill on which the statue stands was reshaped to form two more pedestals. The total height of the monument is now 208 meters. It is made of 108 kilograms of gold, 3,300 kilograms of alloy-copper and 15,000 tons of special steel. [Photo/Asianewsphoto]

2009
2009		2010
		The huge statue of Guan Gong, an ancient Chinese marshal from the Three Kingdoms Period (AD 220-280), in Yuncheng city, North China's Shanxi province, is made of copper and measures 61 meters. It was built in 2010, becoming the tallest statue of Duke Guan in the world.

A thousand-hand Kwan-yin statue was finished in 2009 at Weishan Mountain in Central Hunan province. The statue is 99 meters high.

Harvard Unlocks Secrets of Chinese Herbs

Posted by Cathy on May 22, 2012

Harvard School of Dental Medicine has discovered the secret behind an herb used in Chinese herbal medicine. The herb commonly known as Chang Shan, is a type of hydrangea with a bioactive ingredient that can treat autoimmune disorders. This is not the first time a Chinese herb has been found to have chemical constituents with significant health benefits. Most drugs today have their origins in phyto or plant chemicals.

Chinese medicine has been using plants, insects, fish and shell fish for more than 2,000 years to treat mankind’s illnesses. Learning the secrets behind the power of these herbs is still an emerging field and scientists are continually learning how various herbal compounds in plants block or stimulate pathways in the body, triggering other reactions.

In this case, the hydrangea plant contains halofuginone (HF) a compound which blocks the development of a harmful class of immune cells called TH17 cells. These cells have many implications in autoimmune disorders.

“HF prevents the autoimmune response without dampening immunity altogether,” said Malcolm Whitman, a professor of developmental biology at Harvard School of Dental Medicine and senior author on the new study. “This compound could inspire novel therapeutic approaches to a variety of autoimmune disorders.”

Traditional Chinese Medicine is proving more amazing everyday.

This study involved an interdisciplinary team of researchers at Harvard-affiliated and Massachuetts General Hospital and published in Nature Chemical Biology, Febuary 2012.

Prior research had shown that HF reduced scarring in tissue, scleroderma (a tightening of the skin), multiple sclerosis, scar formation, and even cancer progression. “We thought HF must work on a signaling pathway that had many downstream effects,” said Keller.

Recognized only since 2006, Th17 cells are “bad actors,” implicated in many autoimmune diseases such as inflammatory bowel disease (IBS), rheumatoid arthritis (RA), multiple sclerosis (MS), and psoriasis. The researchers found that minute doses of HF reduced multiple sclerosis in a mouse model. As such, it was one of a new arsenal of drugs that selectively inhibits autoimmune pathology without suppressing the immune system globally.

Click here to browse our line of natural and traditional Chinese Herbs.

This research was funded by the National Institutes of Health and Harvard University.

Reference: http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2012/02/secrets-of-ancient-chinese-remedy-revealed/

Tag: best herbs for menopause

Chinese Herbal Formulas Can Reduce Menopausal Hot Flashes Safely and Effectively

Traditional Chinese Medicine is proving more amazing everyday.

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