UPCOMING SCREENINGS!

KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI
SCREENLAND CROSSROADS
1656 Washington St., Kansas City, MO. 64108
(816) 421-9700
www.screenland.com/crossroads tickets online now
May 25th, 26th 27th, Evening Showings   7:00 PM

Afternoon Matinees 1:00 PM Saturday & Sunday

 

CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA
 

Invites you to join us
6pm Wednesday, May 30
at the Mint Museum Randolph
2730 Randolph Road Charlotte, NC 28207
(704) 337-2000
Ticket Information: http://mintviewhotflashhavoc.eventbrite.com/

 

---

Heidi Houston

 

 

 houston@hotflashhavoc.com

What Your Mother Never Told You: 

 A Continuing Series of Articles by the Experts:

Did your mother tell you that you were preprogrammed from birth to run out of eggs thus setting you up for menopause?
 

Dr. James Simon, one of our HOT FLASH HAVOC experts, was recently interviewed by Barbara Harrison of NBC News in Washington D.C.  Dr. Simon discussed treatments to ease the discomforts of menopause.  He also explained women around the world go through menopause when their ovaries run out of eggs.  There is nothing you can do to avoid it.  The timing on when you will run out of eggs is preprogrammed from birth.
 

Check out the entire interview.  It is professional, savvy and informative.
 
http://www.nbcwashington.com/video/#!/on-air/as-seen-on/Understanding-Menopause/149519775

Heidi's Book of the Month Review:

Screaming to Be Heard: 

 Hormonal Connections Women Suspect ... And Doctors Still Ignore.............By Elizabeth Lee Vliet, M.D.
 
Dr. Vliet is the doctor that changed my life and inspired me to produce the movie HOT FLASH HAVOC. SCREAMING TO BE HEARD validates what I and other women had suspected all along:  hormonal cycles DO play a role in many health problems that affect women in greater numbers than men.  Dr. Vliet explains the complex connections between hormones and brain messengers that regulate memory, mood, sex drive, appetite, and other body changes.  She blends various treatment options to help women find wholeness in the fragmented, sympton-based approach of both alternative and traditional medicine. 

"We wanted to answer a question in this newsletter for the younger women experiencing bone loss because of stressors; remember the menopausal woman is much more prone to bone loss as she loses her estrogen."

Ask Jerilynn C. Prior, MD, Centre for Menstrual Cycle and Ovulation Research

Why do I have Osteoporosis? I'm Way too Young! 
 
Q:
I slipped on some soggy leaves while walking home from work. I ended up breaking my upper arm. I'm only 36-this kind of fracture typically happens in 80 year olds! My bone density shows a Z-score of -3, meaning I have osteoporosis by bone density as well as low trauma fracture. But how I could have osteoporosis since I am so young and do everything right?
I walk about an hour a day (my commute), I eat yogurt and cheese and drink 3 glasses of skim milk a day-all my life I have taken a multi vitamin. My weight is perfect. I've never skipped a period and they come predictably every 27 days. I don't even have osteoporosis in my family. Why did I break my arm???
A:
I'm very sorry about your fracture. The good news is that, given your healthy life, your fracture will likely heal rapidly. Also, I believe that you (working with your family doctor) can prevent further bone loss and subsequent fractures. But first I will try to answer your question. 
 
Why do young women break bones?
Despite enough calcium, vitamin D, good exercise and normal estrogen levels (as indicated by regular menstruation), young women do occasionally fracture. Sometimes it is because of obviously abnormal nutrition (anorexia, weight cycling, being underweight). Other times it is because of obviously abnormal reproduction, such as a first period when older than age 16, or amenorrhea (the period stopping and low estrogen and progesterone levels). Osteoporosis can also occur because of alcohol, cigarette or drug abuse plus the unhealthy lifestyles that often go with those addictions. But it sounds like you have none of those problems.  
 
How can a regularly menstruating, normal weight woman lose bone?
That was totally mysterious until recently. We at CeMCOR recently presented a meta-analysis combining the data from all the scientific articles that reported on the rate of bone change in menstruating women and also tracked women's ovulation. There are now five published studies (1-add reference to J. Osteoporosis 2010). Although these reports used different ways to document ovulation (release of an egg), as described in an earlier CeMCOR newsletter (link), quantitative basal temperature (QBT) was the most common. This simple-to-do method also provides the luteal phase length, meaning the number of days in the cycle during which progesterone is high-normal, by QBT, is 10-16 days. Women with the most disturbed ovulation despite regular menstruation-either frequent anovulatory or short luteal phase length cycles-lose about one percent of spinal bone density a year while those with less frequent or no ovulatory disturbances gain bone.  
 
Why are ovulatory disturbances related to bone loss?
During the normal menstrual cycle, estrogen rises from a low level during flow to a mid-cycle peak just before ovulation. Estrogen's "job" in bone is stop bone loss. But the other side of the coin is that, as estrogen levels decrease, bone loss is stimulated. And estrogen levels decrease from the middle of the cycle until the next mid-cycle peak. Therefore, to prevent bone loss, we need progesterone to do its "job" which is to stimulate the building of new bone. Therefore, unless ovulation occurs normally there will be some bone loss in young women.  
 
Why would a healthy, regularly menstruating woman not ovulate?
Surprising as it may seem-worry or stress or illness-are sufficient to disturb ovulation. I'll explain the bone-worry and bone-ovulatory disturbance connections in turn.
All of us experience some worry or stress-I like to think of these as being a "threat" to our well being. The hypothalamus in the centre of the brain has the job of assessing the level of threat by integrating signals about nutrition related to bodily needs and activity, emotions and environmental factors. If we are under increased threat (whether from too few calories for what we burn, illness or a stressor like the death of a loved one or sexual abuse) the response is an increase in hypothalamic stress hormones (such as corticotrophin releasing hormone [CRH]) that triggers the pituitary to release its stress-stimulating hormone [ACTH]. ACTH causes the adrenal gland to make more stress hormones like Cortisol and DHEAS. Cortisol, although it is absolutely necessary for our whole-body response to threat, has very negative bone effects in high doses or prolonged durations-it increases bone loss and paralyzes bone formation. (Medicines similar to cortisol, like Prednisone, are very negative for bone and cause fractures.)
A second stress response system involves the catecholamines (hormones that are part of the 'fight or flight' response) that are made in the adrenals and by nerve endings (epinephrine and norepinephrine). These also are likely negative for bone (although we know less about how they relate to bone metabolism).
Thus, the first way threats relate to bone is through stimulating bone-negative stress hormones. The second way is by suppressing reproduction. Silent ovulatory disturbances within regular cycles are likely the most common end result of stress for women. Ovulatory disturbances within regular cycles probably occur in about a third of all menstrual cycles (1).  
 
What kinds of worry are associated with bone loss?
Every imaginable worry is associated with bone loss.................. 

.... Read the Full Article at HotFlashHavoc.

How to Pre-Order a DVD:

Get yours ordered today: 

In case you can't get to one of the Hot Flash Havoc screenings, you can pre-order the DVD online through www.hotflashhavoc.com.
 

We will ship it out to you later this summer.....