Health & Wellness

I’m proud to see that my home town, San Francisco, is among the top five places for women to live according to Self Magazine’s annual Survey of America’s Healthiest Places for Women.  Their criteria for ranking 100 of the largest metropolitan areas included:

• rates of diseases such as cancer and depression
• factors that affect access to health care including the number of doctors per capita
• environmental and community measures such as air quality and crime rates

Interestingly, this year, “quality of sleep” was added as a determining factor.  Charleston, WV took the prize for being the worst sleeping area with the average woman experiencing insomnia 3 to 4 nights per week.  What’s going on there?

In front of San Francisco were Burlington, VT  in the top spot (which has 40 percent more ob/gyns than the list’s average), followed by Bethesda, MD, Portland, ME, and Cambridge, MA.

Additional results?  Women in Madison, WI exercise the most while those living in El Paso, TX have the fewest health clubs to choose from.  Raleigh, NC has the cleanest water but Riverside, CA has the most toxic sites.  Women in Las Vegas have the fewest Pap smears and Rockingham County, NH has the fewest STDs.  And even though San Francisco ranks high among the best places for women to live, we seem to have the most allergies and asthma.  I guess you can’t win ‘em all. It’s a beautiful city anyway.

Details of the survey can be found in Self Magazine’s November issue. You can log onto their website to see how your own state fared.

If unemployment, money woes, and the incessant stream of negative news about our economy are getting you down and perhaps contributing to anxiety-related health problems,  try listening to Dr. Christine Northrup’s free audio clip in which she offers an affirmation for dealing with fears around money — words of wisdom that, she says, once helped her through a rough patch.  It’s an excerpt from an on-demand web class called Is Today’s Economy Hurting Your Health?, so if you find inspiration from her message, you can pay a modest fee to hear more.

If hot flashes and insomnia are getting you down, you’ve probably lost your Mojo along with your estrogen!  What’s Mojo, you ask?  Well, according to Dr. Lissa Rankin’s Pinktionary, which I found on her wonderful website, Owning Pink, it speaks to the “aliveness, spark, energy, joie de vivre, passion and wholeness” that makes us live life fully..and with gusto!

Just the definition makes me sit up straight! When’s the last time you felt any of that? If you’re unsure of where you stand on the Mojo scale, check out her blogpost, “20 signs that you’ve lost your mojo.”  If you identify with more than three, you should probably check in with one of the Mojo Mentors on her website for help in reclaiming your Girlytude! (see the Pinktionary for an explanation).  If you live in the San Francisco Bay area, you could also attend one of her “Pink Workshops,” including the one called “Owning Menopause.”

The latest issue of Nutrition Action Newsletter hit my doorstep this week and there’s an interesting article, “Rooting for Fruit,” about using our fruit bowls as a medicine chest. Of particular interest to me was the explanation for why cranberries can help prevent urinary tract infections (UTIs)  if consumed regularly. [click to continue...]

Exercise makes women around the time of menopause feel better, even when they don’t lose weight and even when they devote less time to it than is generally recommended. That’s what researchers concluded at the end of a six-month  controlled study that measured the effect of 50 percent, 100 percent and 150 percent of the physical activity recommendation on 430 sedentary postmenopausal women.

“Our results indicate that improved quality of life can be added to the list of exercise benefits and that these improvements are dose dependent and independent of weight loss, at least among people similar to this study’s sample,” Corby K. Martin, PhD, from Louisiana State University System, in Baton Rouge, and colleagues write.

The study was published in Archives of Internal Medicine, a bi-weekly, international peer-reviewed journal.

A writer for PREVENTION MAGAZINE, told me in an email that she is looking for women who have not yet been treated for their perimenopause/menopause symptoms and would like to get help from an expert as part of a hormone health makeover for a story she is writing. (The makeover would involve only natural and alternative remedies – NO HRT).

She’s specifically looking for women whose main menopause symptom(s) are:
•  hot flashes/night sweats
•  trouble sleeping
•  low libido
•  difficulty concentrating/poor memory

If you are interested in being profiled in the article, please email elumiere@nyc.rr.com directly with your name, age, hometown, and a brief description of your main hormonal complaint.

Please note that you  must live in or close to New York City (nearby NJ or CT is okay) and be willing to let the magazine publish your name, age, and photo. Candidates also might be asked to appear in a photo shoot in NYC at the end of their hormonal health makeover.

Dr. Brandith Irwin is a Seattle-Based dermatologist and the author of  The Surgery-Free Makeover: All You Need to Know for Great Skin and a Younger Face.  I recommend it to anyone who is concerned about skin changes that occur during the menopause transition.  Dr. Irwin’s book does a good job explaining the reason for these changes (dryness, wrinkles, etc.) and what, if anything you can do about them.

Of particular interest to me was her chapter on brown spots and age spots.  A cluster of them have formed a big dipper constellation on one of my hands and I asked her if there was anything I could do to make them vanish.  Since I know I’m not the only 50-something woman who has contemplated wearing gloves to keep my hands pretty (or is it too late?), I’ll share her advice here.  Dr. Irwin’s own website has lots of information that you’ll find helpful too. [click to continue...]

The connection between insomnia and weight gain, both common complaints of mid-life women, has been well established, but a new study by UCLA researchers has revealed why.

The culprits are two hormones; ghrelin, often referred to as the “hunger hormone” because it stimulates appetite and increases before meals; and leptin, which tells the body when it is hungry and when it is full.  Sleep loss apparently leads to increased ghrelin and decreased leptin -  a “double-whammy” that stimulates appetite.

By the way, a year ago I wrote about a Canadian research study that concluded that too much sleep can cause weight gain.  I guess you just have to figure out how much shut-eye is right for you.

Ever since I read that people who keep a food diary tend to be more successful at weight loss, I began carrying around a small notebook noting my caloric intake along with estimates of fat and protein content.  But I recently discovered a number of online resources and tools that can make it easier to stick to a diet and fitness plan.  Here are some links to a few websites that I recommend: [click to continue...]