Women’s Health:
How can natural medicine relieve hormone imbalances?

Naturopathic medicine can support a woman’s health at all stages in her life from menarche through menopause.

Naturopathic doctors are primary care
doctors specializing in hormone imbalances
and bio-identical hormone replacement

Proper hormone balance through a woman’s life can prevent occurrences such as: PMS and other menstrual disorders, infertility, menopausal symptoms, osteoporosis, and cardiovascular disease. Naturopathic medicine uses natural treatments to support the body in production and detoxification of hormones in order to create a more balanced hormonal response. This can help to ease you through the many hormonal transitions in a woman’s lifetime. Our clinic specializes in keeping women healthy to allow for vital, happy, productive lives.

The naturopathic approach to women’s health concerns includes dietary/lifestyle changes, homeopathy, intracellular detoxification, herbal medicine, nutrient therapy, and natural hormone replacement therapy. We also provide full laboratory testing from basic blood work to in depth hormonal panels in order to investigate the best possible treatment options for you. Our approach provides a powerful and effective combination of therapies which will encourage the body’s natural ability to heal itself. The therapies that we utilize are safe and have very few or no side effects, even for extremely sensitive individuals.

Dr. Destia Skinner, ND has advanced specialty training in the areas of childbirth, pregnancy, and gynecology. She is gifted in the support of a woman’s ever changing body.

Naturopathic Medicine provides effective solutions for the following:
• Natural/Bio-Identical Hormone Replacement Therapy
• Adjunctive Post-Partum Care
• Pregnancy Support
• PMS / Menstrual Disorders
• Menopausal Symptoms
• Fertility Concerns
• Osteoporosis
• Ovarian Cysts and Fibroids
• Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome
• Female Cancer Prevention
• Cardiovascular Disease Prevention
• Common Complaints of Pregnancy

Basic Ways to Promote Healthy Hormone Balance

Prevention

Natural medicine is effective
in supporting a woman’s
ever changing body

• Regular aerobic and weight bearing exercise
• Maintain a balanced body weight
• Reduce your stress response and learn stress reduction techniques that work for you.
• Eat a whole foods diet
• Half your plate should vegetables and/or fruit at each meal.
• Eat an abundance of essential fatty acids in your diet Dietary Recommendations

Reduce
• Pesticides and hormones in the animal products that you consume (fish, beef, chicken, dairy)
• Refined grains and flour
• Sugar and table salt

Increase
• Fruit and vegetables – Eat the rainbow of colors
• Dietary fiber
• Legumes and soy
• Nuts and seeds (flax, pumpkin, sunflower, perilla)
• Whole grains
• Wild, cold water fish (salmon, mackerel, sardines, herring, halibut)

Increase your water intake
• ½ your body weight in pounds should equal the number of ounces to drink each day.
• Water is important to every cell!
• At birth, the body of a full-term baby is 78% water and this declines with age.
• Every nook and cranny not filled by proteins, fats, carbohydrates, or bone components is filled with water.
• The brain alone consists of 85% water, muscle tissue is 75%, fat tissue is 10%, and bone tissue is 22%.
• All digestive and metabolic processes in your body need water.

Increase vegetables in your daily diet
• Half your plate at lunch and dinner should be vegetables.
• Important sources of bioflavinoids, nutrients and antioxidants to support your body. No multivitamin can replace the synergy of vegetables and fruit.
• Research shows vegetables and fruit; increase immune function, lower heart disease risk and reduce cancer risk. This is not shown with multivitamins.

Increase good essential fatty acids in your diet
• People with a diet high in EFA’s show lower risk of heart disease
• Important in hormone production
• Beneficial effects on bone density
• Eat 4 oz. of wild, cold water fish, 4 capsules of fish oil (Carlson, Eskimo 3), or 1 tablespoon of flax oil or cod liver oil per day
• We recommend that you do not eat fish over 3 times a week due to heavy metal toxicity and chemicals in our oceans
• Eat only wild fish

Phytoestrogens
• They are found in many foods including fennel, soy, nuts, seeds, apples, alfalfa, and whole grains.
• Phytoestrogens are not hormones
• A constituent in a plant which can bind weakly to estrogen receptors
• They can have upregulating or downregulating effects – balancing and modulating effects
• Phytoestrogens do not raise estrogen levels in the body since they are quickly broken down and eliminated

Why Soy?

Natural medicine is effective
in treating the symptoms
associated with menopause

• Rich source of phytoestrogens – isoflavones (genestein, daidzein, and glycitein)
• Decreases menopausal symptoms
• Improves cholesterol levels, lowers blood pressure, decreases platelet aggregation,
• Associated with decrease in cancer risk
• Suppresses osteoclastic activity – prevents bone breakdown
• Only 1 serving recommended per day- do not over consume soy products
• Examples of one serving:
soy milk = 1 cup
tofu = 1/2 cup
tempeh = 1/2 cup
soy nuts = 1/4 cup
soy protein powder =1-2 scoops
• Recommended as a whole food, not as a supplement – all components present and balanced
• Non-GMO sources (non-genetically modified soy) – we are not sure how the body sees this material