Hose down hot flashes
If you’re body’s hot hot hot — and not in looks but in the menopausal way — there are tricks to help you turn down the heat without hormone therapy, which has links to breast cancer and heart disease for some women.
In the October issue of Health, ob-gyn Tracy Gaudet, director of Duke Integrative Medicine, suggests making these lifestyle changes:
* Take up yoga. Weekly classes can cut the number of hot flashes by 30 percent, finds a study from the University of California at San Francisco.
* Take slow, controlled, deep breaths at the start of a hot flash. This can reduce the intensity by about 50 percent, shows studies from Wayne State University.
* Try acupuncture. Those who did so for seven weeks showed a 28 percent decrease in the severity of nighttime hot flashes, found a small Stanford University study.
* Believe in black cohosh. Though a National Institutes of Health trial showed it to be no better than a placebo, experts say that just believing that it works can turn down the thermostat.
* Stay cool. Dress in layers, drink cool drinks, ice your wrists.
* Write down the things that trigger hot flashes (such as red wine and spicy food) and avoid them.
If you suspect apnea …
Those who struggle to stay awake throughout the day (and get strong nudges from their partners at night to stop an annoying snore) may have obstructive sleep apnea and not know it.
With OSA, you stop breathing during sleep as many as 20 to 30 times a minute, says a story in the Nov. 1 issue of Woman’s Day.
Left untreated, OSA could increase your risk of high blood pressure, stroke or heart attack.
To help determine if you could have OSA, take the quiz at womansday.com/sleepapnea.
Information also is available at the Web site of the non-profit American Sleep Apnea Association, sleepapnea.org.
Vaccine cuts shingles risk
People over age 60 with decreased immunity are at risk for shingles, a painful, blistering rash, if they previously have had chickenpox, notes a report in the October issue of the Mayo Clinic Health Letter.
The good news is that you can be vaccinated against shingles. In a study of a vaccine called Zostavax, it was found to reduce the overall risk of getting shingles by 50 percent in those 60 and older. Those vaccinated who still got shingles found that the duration of pain was reduced significantly.
If you’re a healthy, older adult with a normal immune system, you are eligible for the vaccine even if you don’t think you have had chickenpox. You also are eligible if you have had shingles.
