International menopause experts at odds over HRT

http://www.fleshandstone.net/healthandsciencenews/hrt.html
Women want to know: Is HRT an unnecessary risk or a maligned therapy?

Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) is safer than the medical community and public have been led to believe, according to some global experts in menopause who made the announcement at the Madrid Menopause Congress being held May 19-23 in Spain.

Leaders of the International Menopause Society (IMS) issued their statement of findings May 20 “to enable women and clinicians to make informed judgments about whether or not to use HRT in early menopause.”

The IMS’s message is that HRT is safe if you are young, healthy, don’t smoke and intend to take hormone supplements for only a few years. The organization, based in Switzerland, says there’s not enough evidence that hormone replacement therapy is bad enough to discourage its use in younger women. This is in contrast to the position of the National Institutes of Health, however, and most U.S. cancer experts who consider some kinds of HRT very risky and that the nominal benefits of HRT don’t outweigh the risks.
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"the American Indians" I know those ladies supposedly made little to do with birthing. They squatted and then went back to work. They were probably like the women I see with brand new babies, and no body fat? Those people do exist. But I'm thinking some women have different needs. How did our predecessors successfully deal with this?

LOL you don't know very much about Native Americans, do you? Native Americans generally gave birth in the same way that one could think of women giving birth at home now. That is, they had their babies and they may have been mobile, rather than strapped to a bed with a thousand wires coming out of them, but they hardly ever went back to work the minute after they gave birth, unless they had an asshole white man for a husband who believed such bullshit.

As for my Native American experience: My childhood was spent in Arizona. I was fortunate to be invited to camp in the Northern Mountains on the Indian Reservation-with my white father, and family. Some of my classmates were Native American. I also taught art one summer on an Indian reservation. I love Arizona, and cringe to see what McCain has turned my beloved childhood state into.

I live in Florida, so I cry when I see what Jeb Bush did to my state.

I'm sorry I sounded so harsh. I just cringe when someone brings that myth up. And *I* should have pointed out, as well, that there were literally hundreds, if not thousands, of different tribes, with different customs in America, so I also shouldn't make blanket statements about their birthing practices.

However, while women were generally more mobile after they gave birth, and the birth was treated like a natural event, they still didn't send them back into the fields until they were healed (I don't know as much about the Navajo, Apache and others in the Arizona area. Most of my research has been on the Northern Plains Indians (Lakota, Cheyenne, etc). They could certainly do light work, though. I had my last daughter at home with a midwife and the experience was about 180 degrees from a hospital birthing experience. It was treated like a natural event and not an impending emergency or some sort of illness.

I was out of bed and walking around within an hour of birth. The midwife brought me some tea and gave my older daughters a bath and put them to bed so my husband and I could be with the baby. Then, the midwife checked me again a couple of hours later and went on home.In the hospital, they take off with your baby and "manage" you until a couple of hours later when you finally get to see the baby again.

As far as experiencing Menopause, I don't know how our Native mothers dealt with it. I SUSPECT that it wasn't as bad for them, as they didn't have the same sort of contaminants and hormones present in their water supply and in their bodies. It's possible, for them, that things just ceased, a natural event just as child birth was.

which anybody knows if they've read an OB text, much less had a baby.

It's been used for millennia to shame women who suffer during childbirth and don't get the lord and master's supper on the table that night. Men don't want us to scream and they want us to get up, dragging afterbirth, and wash their shorts.

As for menopausal symptoms, we don't know. Our foremothers were shamed into silence about those, too.

personal agenda. The important point is that I'm suspecting that treatments other than horse urine for women are around and have been around for some time, but were silenced. I'm suspecting someone else is providing a pharmaceutical fiction

People seem to forget that we are living a LOT longer than our predecessors/ancestors ever did.

Does anyone take herbals? I know the pharmacuticals have been trying to block our access to this area of plants.

An older woman herbalist reccomended dong quai years ago, and now I need it it REALLY helps.

My mix also has astragulus in it, as well as a couple of other herbs. When I remember to take it, it helps, when I forget, well, suffice to say I remember to take it again.

I will never take horse pee, partly because of the side-effects, but mostly because of the humanitarian issues. Remeber the spate of starving horses being found/rescued? Part of the reason for that was the 'hording' of mares to impregnate to sell their urine. Which leads to a surplus of horses and where do all the surplus horses go...to be inhumanely slaughtered, etc, etc. I'll stick to herbs thanks.

That seems to be what you're saying.

And it's not true that "the pharmaceuticals" are trying to block access to herbals. Just some wild & crazy f'ed up liberals who want to insist on things like quality, purity, and efficacy. You know, that kind of stuff.

once they'd survived childbirth. They even survived the 1918 flu epidemic.

They were shamed into silence. Anything of a sexual nature, especially when it concerned a woman's body, was whispered about and only when absolutely necessary.

I guess you had to be there.

had LOTS of babies, and about 50% of the time the women died fairly young after popping out 10-12 brats. Those that survived tthe rigors of having huge broods lived into their 90's. But they were most likely not willing to speak about any issues they may be having health wise, if their descendants are anything to go by. Both the men and the women were stoic farmer-types and NEVER talked about being in pain, ill-health, etc. You could probably cut an arm off and my gram would just say ouch, and my grandpa only had his knees checked out (and shortly afterwards replaced, they were *BAD*) because they were affecting his bowling and golf games.

I suspect menopause wasn't as big of an issue among Native Americans in the old days because
they got plenty of exercise, didn't eat processed foods, were in tune with the aging process, and many died before menopause symptoms developed.

If in doubt, do without, and let mother nature do its job. Exercise, quit smoking, taking vitamins, watching my weight and getting involved seems to keep my hot flashes and other symptoms down to tolerable levels. No worse than going thru puberty.

Natural is the best way. Worked for me and had no problems at all.

which will help in other areas besides menopause symptoms.

With the way the research goes back and forth, I'd rather be safe than sorry.

http://www.minniepauz.com/

But to answer your question, I believe caffeine is one of the triggers. (I choose not to go without coffee, as well.)

hormonal replacement. My mom didn't take it. But she was a maverick and did whatever the hell she pleased, and she was a R.N. Opps-I'm going to be just as upity as her I suspect.

A few folks asked how traditional societies handled menopausal symptoms. Traditional Chinese Medicine has treated the symptoms with herbs. One particular herbal formula is Liu Wei Di Huang Wan. There are others also, depending on the symptoms and person's constitution.

Helped my sisters too, but some of my friends felt no relief from it.

I am through the change now and feeling fine without hormone replacement.

I believe my dear Mom took it for far too long from her mid-50's til she died. Her doctor feels it may have played a role in her quite early death at 71.

DemEx