Perimenopause Symptoms

Supplements for Undoing Estrogen Dominance

Tuesday, October 7, 2008 by Susan Lark

In addition to the diet recommendations I gave in my last post for undoing estrogen dominance (the most common perimenopause symptom) http://blog.drlark.com/blog/dr-lark/0/0/undoing-estrogen-dominance-with-diet, I urge you to take the following supplements to help to reduce estrogen levels.

• Soy isoflavones—50 to 100 mg as food and in pill form. Soy isoflavones have estrogen-like effects similar to your own estrogen, but in a much weaker and less toxic form.
• Bioflavonoids—750 to 2,000 mg. Bioflavonoids are found in the peel and pulp of citrus fruits and buckwheat and are weakly estrogenic.
• Flaxseed oil or ground flax meal—1 to 2 tbsp of flaxseed oil; or 4 to 6 tbsp ground flax meal mixed into cereals and shakes. Essential fatty acids, such as flax, are critical for reproductive health.
• Vitamin B-complex—25 to 100 mg daily are necessary for the liver to detoxify estrogen.
• Herbs such as turmeric (400–500 mg two to three times a day), or dandelion (150–500 mg daily) or milk thistle standardized extract (150–175 mg one to three times a day) and amino acids like L-methionine (200–1,000 mg) or L-cysteine (200 mg twice a day) also promote healthy liver detoxification.
• Oat or rice bran for fiber (1–2 tbsp per day in 8–12 oz water).

In addition to reducing estrogen levels in your body, you also have to promote progesterone production. This will move you from estrogen dominance back to hormonal balance.

• Take vitamin B-3 (25-100 mg), B-6 (50 mg twice a day), zinc (15-30 mg), vitamin C (1,000-5,000 mg), and magnesium (400-600 mg)
• Vitex, or Chaste tree berry, (40 mg daily) increases the production of the luteinizing hormone that triggers ovulation at midcycle, promoting progesterone production. It also inhibits release of the follicle-stimulating hormone that stimulates estrogen production in the first half of the menstrual cycle. So it normalizes the secretion of hormones and helps to bring estrogen and progesterone into balance during perimenopause (premenopause).

Undoing Estrogen Dominance with Diet

Wednesday, October 1, 2008 by Susan Lark

Estrogen dominance is often the cause of the perimenopause symptoms many women experience. Estrogen dominance is when your hormones are imbalanced and your body produces too much estrogen and not enough progesterone. My perimenopause program corrects estrogen dominance by reducing estrogen levels and promoting progesterone production. In this post, I will give you my diet recommendations to reduce your perimenopause symptoms, including estrogen dominance:

Eat soy foods, buckwheat, citrus fruit rind and pulp (not the juice), and ground flax meal in shakes and cereals. They help to reduce estrogen production and prevent the hormone from binding to tissue receptors.
Avoid caffeine, alcohol, chocolate, sugar, soft drinks, fruit juices, fried or fatty foods, and salt—all of which hamper the process that metabolizes estrogens and eliminates them from your body.
Eat a low-fat, high-fiber diet to help your intestines eliminate estrogens so they are not reabsorbed into your body. Include plenty of fresh fruits, vegetables, whole grains and legumes (beans, peas).
Reduce or eliminate red meats. They not only elevate estrogen levels but they also contain the type of fats that cause menstrual cramps and worsen the inflammation of endometriosis. Instead, eat fish such as salmon, mackerel, sardines, trout, and tuna which are high in beneficial omega-3 fatty acids that reduce the pain of menstrual cramps and endometriosis. Range-fed chicken or poultry are also good dietary options. In addition, instead of hamburgers and hotdogs, buy vegetarian Gardenburgers or Boca Burgers to prepare at home.
Avoid dairy products since they have a negative effect on reproductive health similar to that of red meat. Use soy or rice substitutes, including soy and rice milk, cream cheese, sour cream and soy yogurt.

Using Progesterone to Balance Estrogen

Monday, July 28, 2008 by Susan Lark

With so much attention given to estrogen, many women don’t know what role progesteron plays in the body. In short, progesterone balances the effects of estrogen. Where estrogen is growth stimulating, progesterone is growth limiting. Estrogen is mood elevating; progesterone has a sedative effect on mood. One of progesterone's tasks is to prevent menstrual bleeding from becoming too profuse or long lasting and prevent the uterine lining from becoming too thick, which may lead to uterine cancer. This is the reason progesterone is often a part of hormone replacement therapy.

I suggest looking into progesterone supplementation if you have menopause symptoms or signs of menopause. There are natural forms of progesterone, which has no known side effects at the usual dose of 20–40 mg daily. Be sure to consult a physician who is knowledgeable about natural progesterone before beginning treatment with it.

Although it's available in pill form, many women prefer natural progesterone in a skin cream base, which you can get without a prescription. Topically applied creams are absorbed into body tissues immediately. Oral progesterone is first metabolized by your liver and converted into three different compounds. You can also use a transdermal spray such as Progest-Ease, that can be applied to the skin and absorbed into the blood stream without going through the liver.

A typical dosage of natural progesterone cream is 20 mg a day or one-quarter to one-half teaspoon amounts applied to any clean area of the skin twice a day. Look for a product that contains 400–600 mg of progesterone per ounce like Pro-Gest or Fem-Gest.

Perimenopausal women can apply the cream from day 12 to day 26 of their menstrual cycle. Menopausal women not taking estrogen may use progesterone for two to three weeks each month. And don't buy products that list wild yam on the label. Unprocessed, wild yam can't be converted to progesterone in your body. This conversion from the plants can only be done in a laboratory. And don't buy progesterone products that are made with mineral oil, which blocks the progesterone from entering your body. You can find a good natural progesterone cream at the Women's International Pharmacy (www.womensinternational.com).

Black Cohosh for Menopause Relief

Tuesday, June 3, 2008 by Susan Lark

So many women come to me looking for relief from such common menopause symptoms as night sweats, hot flashes, vaginal dryness, and insomnia. I tell all these women the same thing: One of my top solutions for menopause relief is an herb called black cohosh.

Right now in Germany, a special extract of black cohosh is the most thoroughly studied and widely used natural alternative to hormone replacement therapy. Clinical studies have shown that black cohosh extract not only relieves menopause hot flashes, but also depression and vaginal atrophy.

In one of the largest studies on black cohosh, women with menopause symptoms received 40 drops of liquid black cohosh extract twice a day for six to eight weeks. Within four weeks of treatment, a distinct improvement was seen in nearly 80 percent of the women. After six to eight weeks, all symptoms had completely disappeared in half of the women.

If you have signs of menopause or menopause symptoms, I suggest taking 80–160 mg of a standardized extract of black cohosh twice a day. This dose should contain 2 to 4 mg of the active components (triterpenes, calculated as 27-deoxyacteine). Black cohosh is available in most health food stores, nutrition centers, and even some pharmacies.

Taking on Perimenopause

Tuesday, May 27, 2008 by Susan Lark

As women, we always hear about menopause-this, menopause-that. But there’s another stage in the menopausal process that you may not be familiar with: perimenopause. Perimenopause refers to the time period preceding menopause, when your periods completely stop. Perimenopause can last one to two years, or as long as seven to ten years. During this time, progesterone levels are declining. In fact, if you’re in your 40s or early 50s, you may be experiencing a decrease or even cessation in progesterone production during many menstrual cycles, due to a lack of regular ovulation and aging ovaries.

Let me give you a little “biology lesson” to explain what happens. As ovaries age, they actually undergo physical and structural changes. They begin to shrink and become less responsive to signals from your hypothalamus and pituitary glands. Additionally, you have fewer eggs available to mature, and the eggs that are left are older and less functional. This situation often prevents a follicle from maturing enough to expel an egg. When this happens, the second-half of the menstrual cycle never kicks in, so progesterone isn’t produced. Meanwhile, fluctuating estrogen levels may range from unusually high to unusually low. The result is an almost constant state of imbalance known as estrogen dominance, which is often the cause of perimenopause symptoms. These include irregular menstrual cycles, breast cysts or breast tenderness, sleep difficulties, fluid retention, anxiety, weight gain, lowered sex drive, brain fog, endometriosis, fibroid tumors, and heavy, irregular menstrual bleeding.

Some of the nutrients I recommend to bring perimenopause symptom relief include:

Chaste tree berry or Vitex (175–275 mg daily of a standardized extract) appears to have a progesterone-like effect on the body during perimenopause. It is useful in treating periods that are either too frequent or too heavy and helps normalize and regulate the menstrual cycle.
Citrus bioflavonoids (750–2,000 mg daily) put a damper on overall estrogen activity by binding to estrogen receptor sites and blocking the body’s own high-octane estrogen. Many studies have shown that the combination of bioflavonoids and vitamin C reduces heavy menstrual bleeding by strengthening blood vessels.
Quercetin (50–300 mg a day), a potent antioxidant, reduces the inflammation of endometriosis. It also helps reduce excessive estrogen levels, while helping maintain healthy cholesterol levels, good blood circulation, and proper digestion.