Nutrition for Women

Kimberly Day has written for several health newsletters and magazines, and is the co-author of Susan Lark’s Hormone Revolution. She is also the Founder/Chief Decadence Officer of Decadent Health, LLC and pens a free food eLetter entitled Food for Thought: Quaffs and Cuisine for Decadent Health.

Women produce two major sex hormones, estrogen and progesterone. These hormones help to keep in balance the various functions of the nervous systems, and they can have a strong impact on how you respond to stress. For example, estrogen tends to affect the levels of serotonin and acts as a natural mood elevator, whereas progesterone affects the levels of dopamine and has a sedative or calming effect. When these hormones (and subsequently, neurotransmitters) are out of balance in relation to one another, stress symptoms can be aggravated.

Additionally, stress itself can cause or aggravate hormone imbalances. In fact, it can interfere with your ability to ovulate, thereby blocking progesterone production and pushing further into estrogen dominance. This can lead to severe PMS, menstrual cramps, anxiety, fibroids, endometriosis, and infertility.

Studies from journals as varied as Human Stress, Psychosomatics, and Acta Psychiatry of Scandinavian have all shown that women with stressful lives are much more likely to experience PMS symptoms. In fact, a study from the Archives of Family Medicine found that women who suffered from PMS scored four times higher on a stress scale than other women.

Another Scandinavian study looked at baboons living in captivity. Researchers found that those who developed endometriosis had higher stress levels and were less able to react positively to stress as compared to baboons in the wild.

Like their estrogen dominant sisters, estrogen deficient women must also manage stress carefully. Not only can stress reduce estrogen levels, but it can reduce production of all female hormones. This can lead to a worsening of menopause symptoms, including hot flashes, insomnia, depression, and vaginal and tissue dryness, as well as other related issues, such as heart health.

A study from the journal Menopause looked at more than 400 women between the ages of 37 and 47 who were still menstruating. Researchers gave the participants an anxiety test at the start of the study and again six years later. By this time, many of the women were experiencing irregular periods and hot flashes.

The researchers found that those women with the highest anxiety levels had almost five times as many hot flashes as the less anxious women. Women with moderate anxiety had three times as many hot flashes. A second study from the Maternal and Child Health Journal found that vaginal dryness (also a common symptom of estrogen deficiency) was significantly associated with high emotional or psychological stress.

For more information on stress and female hormones, visit Dr. Lark’s Web site.

Stress can exacerbate virtually every female problem, from PMS through menopause symptoms, by interfering with the production and function of normal female hormones.

Dr. Lark has seen this first hand in her practice. Women come in with severe PMS symptoms, fibroid tumors, and endometriosis, as well as hot flashes, insomnia, and night sweats. When she asks them what is going on in their personal life, more often than not, they have an extremely stressful situation they are dealing with. 

Unfortunately, even if you are eating the perfect diet, exercising every day, and taking the recommended nutritional supplements religiously, excessive stress can literally neutralize the benefits of everything positive that you are doing. But the good news is that the reverse is also true. You can create miracles by handling stress in a positive, self-nurturing, life-enhancing manner.

By discovering and taking the emotional and spiritual journey towards a stress-free life, you’ll begin to notice several amazing changes. Your mood will lift and even out, you’ll feel much more loving and joyful, you’ll begin to sleep like a baby, you’ll experience more positive dreams, and you’ll have a new appreciation for your friends and family. What you may not also realize is that your health will greatly improve too, particularly your hormone health.

For more information on female hormones, visit Dr. Lark’s Web site.

Numerous studies show that women are markedly less able to tolerate alcohol than men. Women metabolize alcohol slower than men, thus it takes longer to clear out alcohol’s toxic effects.

Alcohol is particularly problematic for women with estrogen dominance, as it increases estrogen levels, and is associated with fibroids, endometriosis, heavy bleeding, and the development of breast cancer. Plus, it may inhibit ovulation. Moreover, excess alcohol can tax your liver, making it more difficult to detoxify excess estrogen, thus allowing more free estrogen to be circulated in the blood. This can lead to a whole host of issues for estrogen dominant women.

Plus, alcohol worsens menopause symptoms, including hot flashes and mood swings. It is particularly pronounced in women who suffer from night sweats and insomnia. And, alcohol is a diuretic. This means that overconsumption can lead to dehydration of your skin and tissues, as well as loss of essential minerals through urination.

For more information on foods that affect estrogen levels and other hormone issues, visit Dr. Lark’s Web site.

Whether you have estrogen dominance or are looking for menopause relief, eliminating dairy can help.

Dairy products are one of the primary sources of food allergies in the standard American diet. Symptoms include fatigue, depression, bloating, intestinal gas, bowel changes, wheezing, nasal congestion, and frequent colds.

If you have estrogen dominance, dairy can also make your PMS symptoms worse, and weaken your adrenal glands over time, greatly increasing your susceptibility to stress. Also, the high saturated fat content of many dairy products is a risk factor for excess estrogen levels in the body. Unhealthy, anaerobic bacteria in the intestinal tract actually convert metabolites of estrogen into forms of free estrogen that can be reabsorbed from the digestive tract back into the body. This elevates your body’s estrogen levels, which can aggravate conditions such as fibroids and endometriosis.

Women suffering from menopause symptoms may also notice that dairy causes anxiety, irritability, depression or mood swings, insomnia, fatigue, dizziness, confusion and disorientation, headaches, and joint pain.

Even if you are not allergic to dairy products, they can be difficult for many women to digest. Plus, the artificial hormones, as well as the pesticides used in livestock feed, make cow’s milk an unhealthy choice.

For more information on foods that affect estrogen levels and other hormone issues, visit Dr. Lark’s Web site.

I recently came across Beanitos, a new snack “chip” that is made from black beans or pinto beans, whole grain rice and/or flaxseed, sea salt, and vegetable oil. They are corn-free, gluten-free, and soy-free. They are also low glycemic, high in fiber, and are packed with essential fatty acids and protein. In short, they are a Godsend for women with estrogen dominance!

Essential fatty acids (EFAs) are health-promoting nutrients your body needs to perform a whole range of functions. For women with estrogen dominance, EFAs are particularly helpful for reducing inflammation, false fat, and the pain that often accompanies conditions such as endometriosis and menstrual cramps.

The fiber helps to eliminate excess estrogen from your body. According to a study from Tufts University Medical School, vegetarian women excrete two to three times more estrogen in their bowel movements than do other women who eat a diet lower in fiber and higher in fat. This is great news for women with estrogen dominance who are trying to reduce the estrogen load in their body.

And since estrogen dominant women are prone to insulin resistance, the low glycemic, high protein is a huge boon! Plus, they taste great…I paired them with homemade guacamole to get even more great EFAs.

So, if you have estrogen dominance, switch away from your other chips and give these a try.

For more information on estrogen dominance, excess estrogen levels, or other hormone issues, visit Dr. Lark’s Web site.

One of the many oh-so-pleasant things about having estrogen dominance is the tendency toward false fat. As you likely know, false fat occurs when you have excess bloating and fluid retention around your abdomen.

In addition to choosing foods that work to reduce inflammation and bloating, you can also use a specific acupressure point. Dr. Lark has found that this particular exercise helps to relieve bloating and fluid retention, and helps minimize weight gain. I use it every day as part of my natural weight loss plan.

• Sit with your back against a wall and your legs straight out in front of you.
• Place your left hand on your crease of your left groin, where you bend your leg. Place your right hand on your left leg, about two to three inches above the knee. Hold for one to three minutes.
• With your left hand still pressing on the crease of the left groin, place your right hand just below the inside of your left knee. The point is on the underside of the curve of the bone just below the knee. Hold for one to three minutes.

For more information on natural weightloss, estrogen domiance, or other women’s health related topics, visit Dr. Lark’s Web site.

According to a new study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, people who drank three to four cups of regular or decaf coffee or tea a day reduced their risk of developing diabetes by 25 percent! Researchers attributed magnesium and antioxidant lignans (among other things) to the potential health benefits of these beverages.

I personally find about half of this news to be good. As I’ve written before, a study from the October 2001 issue of Fertility and Sterility found that caffeine elevates estrogen levels in women. Similarly, a from the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston found that the more coffee a woman consumed, the higher her estrogen levels were likely to be. Researchers went on to caution women against drinking more than two cups of coffee per day.

Conversely, the news about tea (especially green tea) is all good! Not only does tea appear to help protect against cancer, but it also helps promote natural weightloss. Plus, it has been shown to be cardio-protective, while also ease the pain associated with rheumatoid arthritis.

My advice?  To help decrease your risk of diabetes, opt for green tea and skip the java. You can lower your blood sugar without raising your estrogen levels, while also promoting natural healthy weight loss. Now that’s something to cheer about!

For more information on female hormones, weight loss, or other women’s health related topics, visit Dr. Lark’s Web site.

I just finished reading a great book that celebrated the power of female friendships, and shortly after, received this email from my mother-in-law. Clearly, the universe is telling me to pass the love along and remind us all to cherish our female friends.

The story apparently comes from the head of psychiatry at Stanford University (ironically, Dr. Lark served on the clinical faculty of Stanford’s Medical School and taught in their Division of Family and Community Medicine). During a lecture, he said that “one of the best things that a man could do for his health is to be married to a woman whereas for a woman, one of the best things she could do for her health was to nurture her relationships with her girlfriends.”

Naturally, everyone laughed, until it became clear that he was serious. He went on to explain:

“Women connect with each other differently and provide support systems that help each other to deal with stress and difficult life experiences. Physically this quality ‘girlfriend time’ helps us to create more serotonin—a neurotransmitter that helps combat depression and can create a general feeling of well-being.

“Women share feelings whereas men often form relationships around activities. They rarely sit down with a buddy and talk about how they feel about certain things or how their personal lives are going.  Jobs? Yes. Sports? Yes. Cars? Yes. Fishing, hunting, golf? Yes. But their feelings? Rarely.

“Women do it all of the time. We share from our souls with our sisters and, evidently, that is very good for our health. He said that spending time with a friend is just as important to our general health as jogging or working out at a gym….In fact, he said that failure to create and maintain quality personal relationships with other humans is as dangerous to our physical health as smoking!”

We all likely know inherently that our friendships (usually!) bring us joy and peace. So, I encourage us all to reach out this week to all of our amazing women friends.  Be it your mother, sister, aunt, family friend, in-law, niece, child, grandchildren, or best girlfriend…tell them you love them. Make time for them. Listen. Share. Laugh. Love.

For more information on overall health, female hormones, or other women’s health related topics, visit Dr. Lark’s Web site.

Lycopene is one of the most concentrated carotenoids found in the blood, organs, and tissues of the body. One of the most important health benefits of lycopene is its ability to reduce the risk of cancer, particularly cancers of the reproductive tract.

One study in particular from the International Journal of Cancer found that the 75 percent of women who ate the least amount of tomatoes (a rich source of lycopene) were three to five times more at risk for pre-cancerous lesions of the cervix than those who ate a lycopene-rich diet. Another study found that a diet high in lycopene significantly reduced the risk of ovarian cancer in women in premenopause. Investigators suggested that consumption of fruits, vegetables and food items high in carotene and lycopene, particularly raw carrots and tomato sauce, may reduce the risk of ovarian cancer.

Help reduce your risk for estrogen-dependent cancers by eating foods high in lycopene, including tomatoes and carrots, as well as red peppers, watermelon, apricots, cantaloupe, pumpkin, guava, and sweet potatoes.

For more information on balancing female hormones and premenopause, visit Dr. Lark’s Web site.

Flavonoids encompass a wide group of antioxidants, including bioflavonoids and flavanols. Bioflavonoids are usually found in the pulp and rind of citrus fruit. They have weak, estrogen-like properties, and have also been shown to interfere with the production of estrogen by binding to estrogen receptor sites. In this way, bioflavonoids work to normalize estrogen levels, bringing excessively high estrogen down to more normal levels.

Because bioflavonoids do bind to estrogen receptor sites, they can also act as a supplemental form of estrogen, helping to combat common menopause symptoms such as hot flashes and night sweats.

Flavanols, namely polyphenols and catechins, also bind to receptor sites, which is why they have been found to be so beneficial in protecting women from cancer. By binding to breast tissue estrogen receptors sites, polyphenols work to prevent carcinogens (tumor promoters, hormones, and growth factors) from binding to and harming the cells. In essence, the polyphenols "seal off" the tissue from invasion by carcinogens.

The superior antioxidant properties of polyphenols also help in the fight against heart attacks and other forms of cardiovascular disease. Japanese researchers have found that tablets of green tea extract providing 254 mg of catechins raised blood levels of antioxidants and reduced plaque-forming oxidation.

Foods rich in bioflavonoids include citrus fruits (lemons, oranges, tangerines, grapefruits, and limes) and buckwheat (a gluten-free grain that is not botanically related to wheat). Other good sources are apricots, cherries, grapes, plums, blackberries, papayas, green pepper, broccoli, and tomatoes. Foods rich in flavanols include green tea, apples, grapes, and onions.

For more information on estrogen dominance or natural treatments for menopause symptoms, visit Dr. Lark’s Web site.

Beta-carotene is a plant-based, water-soluble precursor to vitamin A that is abundant in the ovaries, and is found in very high concentrations in the corpus luteum and the adrenal glands—both of which produce progesterone to help balance excess estrogen levels in women with estrogen dominance, and support progesterone levels, even if greatly reduced after menopause.

Research studies have also found carotenoids such as beta carotene are useful in treating or preventing conditions related to estrogen dominance, including ovarian cancer, heavy menstrual bleeding, and benign breast disease. Additionally, studies have shown that high levels of vitamin A can help reverse fibrocystic breast disease.

To ensure that you are getting enough beta-carotene in your diet, be sure to include plenty of the following foods: carrots, kale, spinach, squash, sweet potatoes, mangoes, cantaloupe, apricots, and cabbage.

For more information on estrogen dominance, visit Dr. Lark’s Web site.

Trying to reverse female hormone issues can be quite complicated, especially when you are trying to increase estrogen levels to offset menopause symptoms. And with all the negative side effects surrounding conventional hormone replacement therapy, many women don't know where to turn.

Fortunately, you don't have to look any further than bioidentical hormone replacement. Biochemically identical hormones are molecularly identical to the hormones found in the human body. Moreover, they are produced in the laboratory from natural ingredients such as soy and wild yam, derived from plants, not horse urine. Since bioidentical hormones are biologically similar to the hormones your body produces, they do not appear to have the grave risks associated with conventional HRT.

The bioidentical estrogen that Dr. Lark typically recommends is estriol. Of the three types of estrogen produced within your body, estriol is the weakest and least potent. More importantly, several research studies have found that it is as effective as the stronger, more potent estrogens for treating menopause symptoms.

One study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that estriol was particularly effective in treating vaginal atrophy, mood swings, and hot flashes. Researchers selected 52 symptomatic, postmenopausal women and separated them into four groups, giving each group either 2 mg, 4 mg, 6 mg, or 8 mg of estriol per day for six months. On average, women in every group experienced a decrease in their menopausal symptoms after one month of treatment. Furthermore, in the groups with the three highest dosages, women who had ranked their symptoms as severe now felt that their symptoms were very mild.

Estriol and all biochemically identical estrogen have to be prescribed by your physician. Estriol is available at most compounding pharmacies, as well as a few mainstream pharmacies, including the Women’s International Pharmacy in Madison, Wisconsin, which sends estriol formulations to physicians throughout the U.S.

For more information on bioidentical hormone replacement or other natural hormone replacement therapy options, visit Dr. Lark's Web site.

Reports on the risks associated with conventional hormone replacement therapy (HRT) have filled medical journals for more than 20 years. There was clear evidence that conventional HRT use increased a woman’s risk for heart disease and breast cancer. And yet, many physicians were still insisting on prescribing conventional hormone replacement therapy. And many women were still taking it. But the summer of 2002 forever removed the curtain of doubt surrounding the dangers of HRT.

On July 17, 2002, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) reported on the findings from one part of the Women's Health Initiative (WHI), an 8.5 year project funded by the National Institutes of Health. The WHI involved 161,809 postmenopausal women between the ages of 50 and 79, and outlined the benefits and risks of a variety of treatments designed to lower the incidences of several diseases, including heart disease, breast and colon cancer, and fractures in postmenopausal women. Of this group, 16,608 women who were healthy and had an intact uterus participated in one part of the WHI, which tested the effectiveness of estrogen/progestin therapy.

According to the findings, women taking estrogen/progestin for five years or more had an increased risk for blood clots, coronary heart disease (CHD), strokes, and breast cancer. The researchers concluded, "The results indicate that this regimen should not be initiated or continued for primary prevention of CHD."

The data indicated that if 10,000 women took the drugs for a year and 10,000 did not, women in the first group would have eight more cases of invasive breast cancer, seven more heart attacks, eight more strokes, and 18 more instances of blood clots.

In fact, researchers felt so strongly about the negative implications of long-term combined hormone replacement therapy, especially the unacceptably high risk for breast cancer, that they ended the study three years early! Participants were contacted and instructed to stop taking the drug—immediately.

The Research is Clear

The research leaves no room for doubt about conventional hormone replacement therapy and its negative effects on women’s health.

• It does not reduce a woman's risk of heart disease. While it can improve HDL and LDL cholesterol levels, these improvements are not associated with fewer heart attacks or other heart problems.
• It increases a woman’s risk of heart attack, stroke, and blood clots.
• It does not reverse pre-existing heart disease.
• It raises levels of C-reactive protein, an indicator of inflammation that is a strong predictor of a future heart attack.
• It increases the risk of invasive breast cancer.
• It increases the likelihood of an abnormal mammogram after just one year of use.
• It increases risk of gallbladder disease by 40 percent.

Where Do We Go From Here?

While many physicians and researchers are still hoarding the "fool's gold" known as hormone replacement therapy, complementary medicine is busily mining the mother lode of real gold—and women are taking notice.

Large numbers of American women are either abandoning their hormone replacement therapy or deciding to never start taking it. Many are rejecting physicians unfamiliar with or unsympathetic to natural health supports. They are also realizing the power and wisdom of using natural medicines and herbal remedies for easing menopausal discomforts, and are very interested in natural solutions for heart disease and osteoporosis.

Before changing your hormone replacement therapy regimen, be sure to discuss your plans with your physician. Chances are, you will be able to eliminate your conventional hormone replacement therapy or dramatically reduce the dose you require for symptomatic relief. Either way, you win: Recent research indicates that breast cancer risk returns to normal within a few years of stopping HRT, and it's likely that lower-dose HRT has less of an adverse impact on estrogen-positive breast cancer risk.

For more information about hormone replacement therapy and for a variety of natural hormone replacement therapy options, visit Dr. Lark's Web site.

Not so long ago, conventional hormone replacement therapy's impact on breast cancer risk was still the subject of heated debate. This debate essentially ended when an article described by a Harvard Medical School professor as "close to being the final word" on conventional hormone replacement therapy and breast cancer was published in the Lancet.

Fifty-one studies involving more than 161,000 women were reviewed. The conclusion: Conventional hormone replacement therapy increased the risk of breast cancer with each year of use. Women using conventional hormone replacement therapy for five or more years were at 35 percent greater risk.

Another study revealed that after 10 years of use, estrogen replacement therapy (hormone replacement therapy using estrogen alone) increased a woman's risk of dying from breast cancer by 43 percent. Other similar studies indicate that combined estrogen-progestin therapy, the kind used by most women, increases breast cancer risk even more than estrogen replacement therapy does!

Concerns about combined estrogen-progestin hormone replacement therapy were identified by a large National Cancer Institute study and were reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The study concluded that women who took the combined treatment for five years were 40 percent more likely to develop breast cancer than women taking estrogen alone or no hormones.

Similarly, other studies have confirmed an even higher 60 to 70 percent increase in breast cancer risk with the long-term use of HRT.

While the figures vary from study to study, the evidence is clear, compelling, and consistent—conventional hormone replacement therapy increases a woman's risk of developing breast cancer, and with each additional year of use, that risk gets higher.

Opt instead for natural hormone replacement therapy options, such as maca, black cohosh, and bioidentical hormone replacement.

For more information on HRT and natural hormone replacement therapy options, visit Dr. Lark's Web site.

While estrogen levels decline with age, the amount of estrogen in your body is influenced by a range of other factors, including diet and environmental toxins—a topic that has not received sufficient attention to date.

Meat, poultry, and dairy foods contain estrogens that have been injected into the animals to fatten them for market. One of the synthetic estrogens routinely given to livestock was DES (diethylstilbestrol). DES was also given to women to prevent miscarriages and symptoms of menopause, until it was associated with birth defects in their offspring and was finally banned in 1979. However, today poultry and livestock, especially dairy cows, are still given other forms of estrogen compounds. Hormones such as estrogen accumulate in fatty tissue in the animals we eat as well as in us, and high-fat diets have been associated with changes in human estrogen levels.

Caffeine and alcohol consumption can also influence estrogen levels. Excessive alcohol intake can affect the liver’s ability to break down estrogen for excretion, thereby elevating the body’s blood estrogen levels, particularly of the more chemically active forms of estrogen. Even public water supplies may contain estrogens, if that water is recycled at treatment plants and still contains traces of excreted synthetic estrogens, such as those contained in birth control pills and excreted from the bodies of women using these products.

Additionally, pollutants that have estrogen-like activity when they are taken into the body (xenoestrogens) are found in an enormous range of products for the home and workplace. They are present in cosmetics, detergents and dishwashing liquids, and bug spray. Pesticides and industrial chemicals such as organochlorines, dioxins, and PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) also contain substances related to estrogen.

There are many suspected health consequences of our wide exposure to xenoestrogens, including an increased risk of PMS and breast cancer. This problem has also affected male reproductive health, and has been implicated in lowering sperm counts in men all over the world.

To avoid these dangers, be sure to take the following precautions:

• Eat organic as often as possible, especially when it comes to animal-based products such as meat, eggs, dairy, etc.
• Limit (if not avoid) caffeine and alcohol consumption. Aim for no more one or two caffeinated or alcoholic beverage per week.
• Use natural beauty care products.
• Choose natural, chemical-free household products as often as possible.

For more information on estrogen levels or other issues related to female hormones, visit Dr. Lark’s Web site.

Your two primary female hormones (estrogen and progesterone) are naturally design to create a sort of biological check and balance within your body. These two hormones, working together, help regulate a notably wide range of physiological processes.

For instance, estrogen increases body fat, while progesterone helps the body burn fat for energy. Estrogen also promotes salt and fluid retention, whereas progesterone is a natural diuretic, increasing the flow of urine. Estrogen promotes blood clotting, while progesterone normalizes clotting. Furthermore, estrogen impairs blood sugar control, and progesterone normalizes blood sugar levels.

When these hormones are in balance, they help keep your entire body in balance.

For more information on estrogen levels or other issues related to female hormones, visit Dr. Lark’s Web site.

Estrogen, along with progesterone, is one of the two major female hormones that support the functioning of the female reproductive organs and the menstrual cycle. The ovaries and adrenal glands produce substantial amounts of estrogen during your active reproductive years and continue to produce small amounts after menopause.

While we are accustomed to using the term estrogen, this term actually refers to several different types of estrogens made within the body. At least six types of estrogen have been identified and are classified according to their potency or strength/influence of that particular form of estrogen. For example, estrogen is a growth-stimulating hormone, causing tissues to grow and thicken; it also causes water and salt to be retained within the tissues of the body. The more potent and powerful forms of estrogen cause these effects to occur in a more pronounced fashion.

The three main types of estrogen produced within the body are estradiol, estrone, and estriol.

• Estradiol is the most potent form of estrogen. It is the primary type of estrogen produced by the ovaries during your reproductive years.
• Estrone is an intermediate-potency form of estrogen, 12 times weaker than estradiol. It is mainly produced within the fatty tissue of the body from precursor hormones made by the adrenal glands. Obviously, the more weight a woman carries, the more adrenal estrogen she is capable of making.
• Estriol is the weakest form of estrogen produced by the body. It is 80 times weaker than estradiol.

For more information on estrogen levels or other issues related to female hormones, visit Dr. Lark’s Web site.

Estrogen is the “queen bee” of the female hormones. As one of the two major female hormones, it is an especially important factor in health for women. When many women enter their menopausal years, it’s as if they cross over an invisible line in their lives.

As a result of the decline in their estrogen levels, these women find that many of the functions needed for peak performance, which had formerly been effortless, seem to evaporate or diminish. While women often do complain of menopause symptoms that are strictly physical—such as vaginal dryness, more frequent bladder and vaginal infections, and dryness of the skin—they complain just as often about menopause symptoms that impair their job performance, social relationships, and even their ability to take pleasure in day-to-day activities.

The negative effects of the natural decline in female hormone production during menopause are not uncommon. Menopausal symptoms are so common in the United States that 80 to 85 percent of American women experience them to some degree. A small number of these women are lucky enough to have mild symptoms, such as occasional hot flashes over a period of a few months to a year. However, the majority of women have menopause symptoms that are bothersome enough to cause them to seek the help of physicians or complementary health care practitioners, or to seek solutions on their own by reading books and articles and exploring the use of natural hormones, vitamins, and herbs to relieve their symptoms.

For more information on menopause symptoms or other issues related to female hormones, visit Dr. Lark’s Web site.

Female hormones are produced through a series of chemical reactions, beginning with cholesterol. Of the total cholesterol in the body, about 75 percent is produced in the liver. The remaining 25 percent is supplied in the diet by foods such as meat and dairy products.

Both the overproduction and the underproduction of cholesterol can lead to hormone imbalances. People who go on stringent low-fat diets may lower their levels of cholesterol to such a degree that they don’t have enough to make sufficient amounts of hormones. For example, teenage girls who go on crash diets often have irregular menstrual cycles, as their body’s production of estrogen and progesterone, which regulates the cycle, diminishes.

At the other extreme, people who are obese and eat the high-fat foods of the standard American diet have the opposite risk: Their bodies make too much cholesterol, making them prone to diseases and disorders related to estrogen dominance, including premenstrual syndrome (PMS), fibroid tumors, fibrocystic disease of the breast, heavy menstrual bleeding, and uterine cancer.

For more information on estrogen levels or other issues related to female hormones, visit Dr. Lark’s Web site.