Tag Archives: women’s health

The Functional Guide To Cycle-Based Care: Syncing Life to Hormonal Shifts For Peak Female Wellness

August 31, 2024

Eleven studies met criteria for being considered high quality, with nine studies indicating that rates of completed or attempted suicide were highest during menstruation and two studies indicating these rates were highest premenstrually. – Handy, Ariel B et al. “Psychiatric Symptoms Across the Menstrual Cycle in Adult Women: A Comprehensive Review.” 

This startling revelation appears in an article published in the April 2022 edition of the Harvard Review of Psychiatry.

Notably, the study continues to connect specific phases of the menstrual cycle to psychosis, mania, depression, binge eating, and alcohol abuse – comorbidities rarely seen outside of severe psychiatric disorders.

Challenging the conventional view of the menstrual cycle as a mere monthly inconvenience, this research reveals hormonal fluctuations as complex physiological processes with a profound (and potentially deadly) impact on female physical and mental health – an impact that extends far beyond the commonly understood symptoms of premenstrual syndrome, or PMS.

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Sleep Disorders, Breathing, and Age Acceleration

June 27, 2019

Exercise, nutrition, and smoking are the primary modifiable risk factors for a host of health conditions; sleep and increasingly common sleep disorders are often overlooked. The most common type of sleep-disordered breathing– obstructive sleep apnea – affects nearly 30 million adults within the United States and results in oxidative stress as well as inflammation. While previous studies have linked sleep disorders to a multitude of health complications such as heart disease, high blood pressure, and depression, recent research suggests sleep-disordered breathing may cause age acceleration. 

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Breast Cancer Awareness and Preventive Medicine

October 6, 2014

When most people think of October, they think pumpkins, leaves changing colors, Halloween, a cooler crisp in the air – and breast cancer. It’s become pretty standard in today’s society that most people associate the month of October with Breast Cancer Awareness.

Since the Susan G. Komen Foundation started handing out those pink ribbons at a 1991 Breast Cancer Survivors race in New York, (carecyclesolution.net) the color pink can be seen prevalently throughout the month of October with hopes of bringing awareness of this awful disease affecting over 232,000 women and over 2,000 men, just in 2014 (cancer.org). During the month of October, professional athletes proudly wear pink cleats and wristbands, thousands of walks and races are held nationwide for survivors and their care takers, and most importantly- survivors are saluted and people are realizing the importance of taking the proper steps for prevention.

While there is no profound way to prevent breast cancer, according to the American Cancer Society, there are several ways to decrease the risk of breast cancer – and disease in general. Eating healthy, getting enough sleep and physical activity, visiting the doctor regularly, staying away from smoking and limiting alcohol consumption; these all seem like things we should be doing anyway right? It’s more than that, it’s Preventive Medicine. Preventive Medicine is just that, it’s preventing chronic health issues and age related diseases that debilitate people every day; it’s a lifestyle.

So what can we do? If you’re a doctor, try dabbling in personal and preventive medicine and teach your patients about lifestyle management. If you’re a patient, establish a working partnership with your physician, get that mammogram, take your recommended vitamins and supplements to protect your body, have a salad instead of that slice of pizza, or take the stairs instead of the elevator.

Breast cancer awareness (and disease awareness) in general, is on the rise and has grown over the last several years, but we can never do enough. The more people know how to be healthy, will be.