Think of the YOU in 10 years!
Wow, we were absolutely delighted to be joined by Dr Carys Sonnenberg from Rowena Health. She is a good friend of Let's All Talk Menopause and was absolutely brilliant during our session on menopause, ageing and future health. A huge territory to cover!
Dr Sonnenberg is a GP with a special interest in women's health and menopause and she's also a member of the British Menopause Society.
Our hormones change
So, she started off by talking about hormones. When we go through the menopause, our hormones change. We may go through peri-menopause, or we may be suddenly thrown into menopause via induced or surgical menopause. Our hormones change significantly, and because of the role that those hormones have in the body and the protective effects that they particularly have; we see changes happen in the body that will impact upon our future health.
As we age, things happen to us anyway, so we have two things going on. We have the loss of our oestrogen and progesterone and the reduction in testosterone, and then we have us just getting older. Both of those together impact upon things which can happen to us in the future.
Fortunately, as women, we are quite protected from cardiovascular disease in comparison to men. Well while we have our oestrogen around…but then when the oestrogen drops, our body changes, we see metabolic things happen to our body, that can then affect our future health. Suddenly we reach menopausal age - we get to our sixties, seventies, eighties, and our risk of heart disease goes up! So cardiovascular disease causes 35% of deaths in women, per year… so that’s a staggering amount.
Dr Sonnenberg notes that “lifestyle is hugely important because you want to be thinking of the YOU now at whatever age you are and the YOU in 10 years and the YOU in 40 years. And you know, where are you going to be in that and how?”
Think long term from NOW!
When we go through menopause, we see a rise in blood cholesterol and we see a rise in blood pressure. 50% of people over the age of 60 will have high blood pressure. So, we want to make sure our blood pressure is checked regularly. Whether its at home with a monitor or at the surgery or pharmacy.
Metabolic Syndrome
Metabolic syndrome is a mixture of things which increases our risk of heart disease. As we go through menopause, we lose oestrogen, which has a beneficial effect on the body. As we go through menopause our body shape changes, so we may gain fat around our middle and this is visceral fat. Visceral fat is inflammatory. So that also impacts upon our future.
Insulin resistance is another big one in metabolic syndrome; you see a higher blood glucose as we go through menopause, so we become more insulin resistant. Which means that we put on body fat more easily, particularly highly inflammatory visceral fat, and it becomes really difficult for us to lose that fat because the insulin resistance keeps increasing. Then it causes you to crave carbohydrates because of that low energy, which just makes it worse.
A Mediterranean type diet is the one that seems to be the best for metabolic health. So you're looking at lots of protein in the diet which will keep you fuller for longer so therefore your blood sugar will be more stable.
We have various things going on in during this stage of life and the best way to assess our metabolic health is by:
Having a blood test
Checking your blood pressure
Doing a waist & height measurement (our waist should be less than half of our height).
All in all, from listening to this session, its strikingly clear that in looking after your future health you need to start NOW.
The lifestyle choices you make today will impact the future YOU.
To watch Dr Sonnenberg’s talk again, head here – it’s essential viewing for all women wanting to protect their future wellness.