The Merits of Menopause

For most women, the "change of life" is not an easy one. The symptoms of menopause--mood swings, hot flashes and night sweats--can be intense, not to mention embarrassing, and in many cases they can interfere with daily life.

But there may be a healthy upside to those hot flashes, according to the latest research. It turns out that women who have these episodes in their 50s or 60s, the typical age range for menopausal symptoms, also have an 11% lower risk of heart disease over the next 10 years, compared with women who don't suffer the same symptoms. And because heart-disease risk increases in women's postmenopausal years as levels of the heart-protective hormone estrogen decline, this risk reduction is potentially lifesaving. Researchers don't know why the symptoms may reduce heart risk, but they theorize that the blood-vessel activity that occurs during flushing primes the heart and vessels to combat plaque buildup and hardening of arteries.

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HOW STRESS IN PREGNANCY AFFECTS YOUR BABY

We know that extreme stress is bad for any living creature and that it can lead to disease and health degradation in our bodies. Pregnancy in itself is a stressful time on a woman's body. The normal physical and hormonal changes can be quite daunting for a first time mom. In this day and age we live in incredibly stressful times. We worry about things close to home like our finances, our relationships with those close to us as well as our safety and security as a nation.

Coupled with these, many women work for as long as possible during pregnancy to maximize their maternity leave after the baby is born. The reality is that excessive stress during pregnancy can have some severe consequences for the health of your unborn baby if you don't learn how to manage it.

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STRESS REDUCTION BOOSTS CHANCE OF PREGNANCY, OFFERS ALTERNATIVE TREATMENT TO RESTORE FERTILITY

Women who are struggling to get pregnant may want to try to reduce the stress in their lives before visiting a fertility clinic. In a pilot study, researchers from Emory University in Atlanta found that stress can cause fertility problems by disrupting a woman's menstrual cycle. For some women, stress can prevent ovulation completely.

The research showed that stress-reducing psychotherapy restored fertility in 80 percent of the women in the study. None of the participants had experienced a normal period for more than six months when the study began, and all had high levels of the stress hormone cortisol. During the study, half of the women received cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) to reduce stress levels, while the other half did not receive any therapy.

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ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE INHERITED THROUGH MATERNAL LINE, STUDY FINDS

A family history of Alzheimer's disease significantly increases the risk for developing this disorder, but a new study in Biological Psychiatry suggests that which of your parents has the disease is very important.

Alzheimer's is the most common form of dementia in late-life, affecting over 5 million elderly in the United States alone. In order to develop preventative treatments, it is necessary to identify those individuals who are at highest risk for developing Alzheimer's.

Although individuals with a parental history of Alzheimer's are at increased risk for developing the disease, the specific biological and genetic mechanisms accounting for this increased risk are not known.

An important consideration may be a phenomenon called genomic imprinting, where the pattern of the inherited disease differs based on whether the risk genes are inherited from the mother or the father.

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Three Ways To Handle Stress Through Nutrition

Think of good nutrition as good medicine when you are dealing with stress.

We all experience some form of stress every day; and how we handle it depends on our state of health. I like to think of my health as my bank account; health reserves that I can draw upon in times of stress.

There are 3 main methods to deal with stress. They are nutrition, exercise and rest. For this article, Ill focus on diet and nutrition.

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