ALTERNATIVES TO HRT
Who would have believed, a generation ago, the current popularity of ‘alternative’ therapies and the challenge they have thrown down to orthodox medicine? There was little to indicate in the 1970s that the so-called fringe therapies like naturopathy, homeopathy, traditional Chinese medicine and herbal medicine would attract a vast pool of clients who alternated between orthodox and less conventional practitioners with breezy savoir-faire.
Equally unexpected were the greening of the Western diet and the enthusiastic adoption of power walking, jogging, aerobics and weight training by women of all ages. Many older women took to the challenge with gusto, viewing their increased involvement in physical activity as an antidote to the lack of strenuous exercise in their lives. When the 1991 Bulletin/Qantas Businesswoman of the Year, Sara Henderson, was writing her bestselling autobiography From Strength to
Strength and its sequel (still to be published at the time of writing), she felt the need to restructure her writing days to include short time-outs for exercise.
‘I’d played sport till I was forty-five, mainly tennis and squash. And there was a lot of physical activity at Bullo, down in the yards, working gates, building fences, lifting cases of beer in and out of the store. [Sara and her daughters own and run Bullo River, a remote Northern Territory cattle station.] To keep in nick when I’m writing twelve hours a day, I take a few minutes off every hour or so and do a couple of hundred skips. In the evenings I walk some kilometres along the airstrip with the dogs and, before going to bed, I do weights for my upper body for twenty minutes or so.’
Sara went through a fairly straightforward menopause when she was fifty. There were several months of irregular and heavy bleeding, followed by a return to normal periods, then irregularity again and so on, the whole process taking about three years and coinciding with the deaths of her husband, mother and son-in-law. Sara has not had HRT, says that people comment on how well she looks, and remarks on how well she feels. She enjoys a balanced diet mainly of fresh meat, vegetables and fish, does not smoke, and since the age of forty-five has drunk alcohol on special occasions only.
Whether women choose HRT or not, they should be aware of the range of lifestyle changes and alternative or complementary therapies capable of lessening menopausal symptoms and enhancing long-term health.
A common criticism of alternative therapies is the lack of solid scientific evidence about their effectiveness and safety, a problem compounded by the lack of quality control in the manufacture of some substances. As with HRT, uncertainties about effects should be considered carefully in assessing the benefits and risks.
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Tags: Hormonal