Navigating through Menopause

Additional Info

• Segment Number: 3
• Audio File: wellness_for_life/1514wl5c.mp3
• Featured Speaker: Daved Rosensweet, MD
• Guest Website: Target Method
• Guest Bio: Dr. Daved Rosensweeit is a nationally known lecturer and frequent presenter at The American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine (A4M) and The American College for Advancement in Medicine (ACAM). He is a Principle Investigator for a scientific study of female hormones sponsored by Genova Diagnostics and Meridian Valley Lab. Dr. Rosensweet is author of the book The Target Method: A Woman’s Guide to Navigating Menopause. He is also Organizer of a National Summit Committee on the Treatment of Women in Menopause with Bio-identical Hormones. He was formerly on the Board of Directors of the American College of Advancement in Medicine and the Chairman of its Endocrine Committee.
  
  Dr. Rosensweet graduated from the University of Michigan Medical School in 1968. He has been in private medical practice since 1971, and has had offices in New Mexico, California, and Colorado. He is currently in practice in Southwest Florida. Formerly the clinical physician involved in the very first Nurse Practitioner training program in the USA, and was in charge of health promotion for the State of New Mexico. He teaches medical professionals about the treatment of women in menopause with bioidentical hormones.
• Transcription: RadioMD Presents: Wellness for Life Radio | Original Air Date: April 3, 2015
  Host: Susanne Bennett, DC
  Guest: Daved Rosensweeit, MD
  
  It's time to feel better with help from Dr. Susanne Bennett. Allergies, nutrition, ultimate wellness, all discussed right here, right now. It's Wellness for Life Radio on RadioMD. Here's your host, Dr. Susanne.
  
  DR. SUSANNE: Whether you're going through menopause or perhaps you're in symptoms that menopause is just around the corner, the one thing every woman of age will share is that it is truly a unique journey. My next guest is here to help you figure it out and navigate through this inevitable transition. The title of his latest book says it all. The Target Method: A Woman's Guide to Navigating Menopause.
  
  Please welcome to the show the author, Dr. Daved Rosensweet. Hello!
  
  DR DAVED: Hi there, Susanne.
  
  DR SUSANNE: Good to talk to you, Daved. Now, let's talk about the most basic questions. What exactly is menopause? Now, we all know about it, but I want you to just give us a basic so that we can start talking more about it.
  
  DR DAVED: Well, it has a lot of biological issues to it and one of them relates to hormones. A woman's hormones actually start declining from their peak in maybe their early 30's or mid 30's and by the time they're in their 40's, mid 40's, early 50's, the ovarian hormone levels—the ovaries producing estrogen, progesterone and testosterone—they are really declining and they go from being very robust to very low levels. There is a threshold in which the estrogen gets so low that periods stop. New to the human race is about 10 years earlier, which is more common than ever before, the progesterone production can go way down. That can lead to a woman in her mid-30's, for example, it's not uncommon for her to start developing breast tenderness and menstrual cramps because she's not getting the progesterone to balance the estrogen. That's what you've mentioned is estrogen dominance and that's not a beneficial situation. Breast glandular tissue gets overstimulated. The uterus gets overstimulated. You can get fibroids. So, menopause is really a gradual decline. It begins in the 30's but it has these landmark times when the periods stop and that's when menopause officially is announced, on year from the last menstrual period, is medically the beginning of menopause. But, I try to point out that the decline is gradual and better you should pick up on it when the decline is beginning.
  
  DR SUSANNE: Oh, absolutely. So, us ladies, we really need to look at our hormonal health, really even during the phase when you're still having babies, right? A lot of women end up wanting to get pregnant a little bit later in life because they're professional women, they've got a lot of things that they're doing, or they get married at a later age. These women should also take a look at their hormones, don't you think?
  
  DR DAVED: Absolutely. Healthy reproductive life can be benefitted by, for example, if the progesterone starts declining, to take a little bioidentical progesterone to bring your levels up to decency so that your period will continue in a regular way and it will help support ovulation regularly. These hormonal declines lead to imbalances that will go so far as to effect ovulation. So, keeping regular with the additional hormones can make a difference.
  
  DR SUSANNE: Right. You mentioned the hormone replacement. Are there any other things that we can do to ease some of these irritating symptoms that we have as we're going into the peri-menopausal state?
  
  DR DAVED: Well, there are a lot. Keeping one's general health up through nutrition, through proper exercise, through acquiring the information tools that can help you deal better with the stress in your life. Sometimes dealing with toxicity. All these things that you mention in your shows. They all matter because a healthy person has a better shot of keeping those hormones up and a person who is having a way exaggerated response to stress, on the other hand, can deplete those hormones very significantly and unbalance them.
  
  So, there are herbs. There are nutritional supplements. There are a wide variety of things. Herbs, to me are some of the most elegant of medicines, but they're still medicines. They force the body to respond to them because they're not identical molecules to what's in the body. To cut to the chase, long ago, I started preferring the hormones that were actually what is going on in menopause. Way diminished estrogens, way diminished progesterone and eventually testosterone and DHEA and even thyroid. I started favoring and replenishing, not to use full levels. That's not needed. But to replenish the actual molecules than dealing with something that tries to force the body into a response, which is okay in the short run, but not in the long.
  
  DR SUSANNE: Got it. Got it. Now, tell us about your book. You wrote the book, The Target Method. What made you decide to do this? Obviously, you see a ton of patients in this field.
  
  DR DAVED: Well, I started realizing early on in my career in dealing with menopause that an informed woman can do much better out there getting the programs right because, like anything else in life, the approach to menopause can be rather rudimentary and it was for decades, even centuries. Or, it can be responsive to the beautiful amount of information and knowledge we have about hormones. Hormones are so powerful in medicine, I say, "Get them right." This is not a venture for the amateur. So, because so many women in America were meeting up with practitioners who weren't necessarily terrifically knowledgeable about it, about 10 years ago or 13 years, I wrote the first edition of books on menopause to make the women informed. The informed women in my practice, gosh. It was so much easier to work with them because we have to do a process to arrive at the right levels and the women who knew about it, it was so much easier and cost efficient for them to work with me. So, that's how it all started. Plus, I enjoy writing and this has evolved and this is a different book, entirely, than the original. But, I think there's good stuff in it if you want to learn about menopause.
  
  DR SUSANNE: Absolutely. Thanks so much for gifting me that book because I definitely love everything that you've written about it. In my book, The Seven Day Allergy Makeover, I originally wrote it just the way you say. It was for my patients because there is so much information you want to give to your patients so they get the best results and they need the foundation, as you're saying. They need to know and be informed about everything.
  
  Thanks so much, also, for giving our RadioMD Wellness for Life Listeners the $5 off your book. Now, everyone, to go get that book, you can go to DrSusanne.com/TargetMethod. I've given you this pretty link because it goes directly to his link for just our RadioMD Wellness for Life people so that they can get that $5 off.
  
  So, again, DrSusanne.com/TargetMethod is where you're going to find that information to get this book.
  
  So, besides this what we're doing regarding the book, now can you go ahead and tell us one thing right now, someone can do so that they can start to feel better.
  
  DR DAVED: Well, you know, I would like to avoid oversimplifying it. When these hormones decline, the very best thing I could say to a woman is, learn about it and select a health professional that is really knowledgeable about how to assess and treat a woman with bioidentical hormones. You know, there are other opinions on how to approach menopause but I want to give you my best shot. The very best thing a woman can do is learn about it. There are many books on this topic, many excellent ones. A woman may be at a place where it is time for her to go shopping to select the ideal health professional to guide her in that process and to prescribe hormones for her. Because these are prescription items, you need to have a medical doctor or a nurse practitioner or an osteopathic doctor, or a naturopathic doctor who is licensed to provide prescriptions.
  
  DR SUSANNE: Totally makes sense.
  
  DR DAVED: That's what I would say. Find the perfect person to work with.
  
  DR SUSANNE: Right. Got it. And, I know that you can find that also on the website that you've provided for us, DrSusanne.com/TargetMethod.
  
  Everyone, go and take a look at his book, The Target Method: A Woman's Guide to Menopause, even if you're not in menopause, if you're in your 30's go ahead and read the book so you can prepare and be informed as Dr. Rosensweet has stated. Thanks so much, Daved. Really great to have you here.
  
  Now, you can always go to my Wellness for Life radio page on RadioMD.com. I'll have a link up there for you so that goes and you can get that $5 of his book, The Target Method.
  
  Until next time, this is Dr. Susanne sharing natural strategies for ultimate health and wellness right here on RadioMD.
  
  Stay well, everyone.
• Length (mins): 10
• Waiver Received: No
• Host: Susanne Bennett, DC