Resources

A new gym has recently opened here in San Francisco that’s perfect for any one who thinks their memory is getting a bit mushy with age.  It’s called vibrantBrains and their focus is on building our mental muscle to improve and maintain memory and attention as we age.  [click to continue…]

If you’ve discussed with your physician which approach you should take for alleviating menopausal symptoms — botanical, bio-identical or hormone replacement – you’ve probably heard him or her refer to research studies that have proven or dis-proven the efficacy of one treatment or another.  You might even have been tempted to track down a research study to see for yourself what conclusions were reported, but didn’t know where to start.   Now, there’s a new Website, available through the National Library of Medicine (NLM)that offers health research from scientific journals and other peer-reviewed sources. [click to continue…]

 Much has been much written about the consequences of declining estrogen levels on bone health.  That’s why a dosage of 1200-1500 mg of calcium daily is recommended  for menopausal women along with a bisphosphonate like Fosamax and Boniva to stem or even reverse bone loss if it has already begun to occur.  If you’re concerned about your bone health, you should take a look at a new “risk calculator” developed by researchers from the Women’s Health Initiative that guages a woman’s risk of breaking a hip in the next five years. 

If you go to this website you’ll see an online questionnaire that identifies 11 factors that together may predict hip fractures more accurately than bone density (as measured by a DEXA scan) alone.  Included in the known risk factors are diabetes, inactivity, corticosteroid use, family history and smoking. It’s a good way to see how some lifestyle changes can improve your risk profile.

In my interview with Shaila Schwartz, a Naturopathic Doctor in San Francisco, I asked her about botanical medicines that she has found to be most helpful with her patients.  Her response follows: [click to continue…]

In previous posts, I’ve written about my decision to forego synthetic hormone replacement therapy and try instead, a natural approach.  Both my general internist and gynecologist told me that for most women, natural, botanical products don’t alleviate menopausal symptoms, but I had heard enough anecdotal evidence from friends and friends of friends to want to try it.  [click to continue…]

I recently had an opportunity to interview Dr. Marsha Nunley, a San Francisco-based physician, about bioidentical hormone replacement therapy and her opinion about the FDA’s recent action against certain compounding pharmacies. She made several compelling points that I want to share with you on this blog. [click to continue…]