If you're new here, check out the popular posts about herbs for menopause. Thanks for visiting!

For the second time in two decades, a backlash is developing against hormone replacement. The first came around 1975, when studies found a higher rate of uterine cancer among women taking estrogen. Hormone use declined until the 80’s when doctors began prescribing estrogen-progestin combinations to avoid uterine cancer.

Numerous studies found that hormone replacement cut heart disease risks by half and osteoporosis related bone fractures by nearly two-thirds.

Still, fewer than 30 percent of women 45 or older take hormones, and many soon stop because of menstrual-like bleeding from the drug combinations.

And there are other concerns, examined exhaustively by Sandra Coney in “The Menopause Industry. How the Medical Establishment Exploits Women” (Hunter House).

She criticizes doctors for “unbridled enthusiasm for hormones” and feminist leaders for trivializing the problems some women have managing menopause symptoms.

Making too little of symptoms causes women to “blame themselves for not coping better,” says Coney, a New Zealand feminist and cofounder of a women’s health group.

The renewed push for hormones comes largely from male doctors, “mostly gynecologists who are quite out of step with women.”

For relief of menopausal symptoms, particularly hot flashes, Coney suggests lowering coffee intake, avoiding spicy food, drinking more water, layering clothes, using fans and trying herbal remedies and acupuncture.

Dr. Charla Blacker, a menopause expert at Detroit’s Hutzel Hospital, believes hormone replacement offers women the greatest benefits for protection against heart disease and osteoporosis. But she also has this advice: Women not taking HRT need about 1,500 milligrms a day of calcium - about five 8-ounce glasses of soy milk, or five servings of fish or dark green vegetables - to ward off osteoporosis.

I would also recommend staying away from all dairy products, as there is growing evidence that dairy actually weakens bones by leaching calcium out of them, rather than the opposite.

If you take a calcium supplement, don’t take it all at once, with a high-fiber meal or iron supplements, or in more than 600-milligram doses; all of which reduce its effectiveness. Some calcium supplements work better than others. Test yours by dropping it in vinegar. It should dissolve quickly.

Doses of 400 international units of Vitamin E may help reduce hot flashes. Do weight-bearing activities such as walking or cycling 30minutes a day, three times a week.

Don’t drink excessively or smoke. And know that some herbal remedies have side effects - but usually considerably less that prescription drugs. I have a review of some herbs for menopause that you may also be interested in.