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 Women's
General Health
Having good general health and balanced hormones
is dependent on how well you look after yourself.
You are what you eat and unfortunately, if you have
dieted over time or been eating convenience or packaged
foods then it is likely you will be deficient in certain
nutrients. We do live in a stressful society and the
tendency is to ‘eat on the run' and yet your
body has to have the right fuel in order to function
efficiently.
What you eat can have a profound effect on your
health. There are many women’s health problems,
but most are triggered by the same mechanisms,
including
stress, hormone imbalance, nutritional deficiencies
and toxins. By taking steps towards optimum health, the vast majority of women ’s
health problems can be alleviated or, in many cases,
eliminated altogether. Your diet and your nutritional
status are crucial to this process.
Nutrition is so important because everything that
you eat can be turned into the fuel that your body
uses to produce hormones, enzymes, blood etc. It has
taken years for the link to be made between cardiovascular
disease and nutrition to be common knowledge and now
the evidence is overwhelming. More research is now
linking nutrition to cancer and in the future, further
research will show that your diet can play its part
in many aspects of your health.
It is useful to use supplements when you want to
achieve positive health benefits in as short a space
of time as possible. Certain nutrients, depending
on your problem, will help to speed up this process
because they can help you to detoxify or strengthen
your immune system for example.
With any female problem, especially those that
are connected with hormone imbalances, such as fibroids,
endometriosis or polycystic ovary syndrome, it is
important that your liver is functioning at an optimum
level. The liver is the waste disposal unit of the
body, not only for toxins, waste products, drugs
and alcohol, but also for hormones.
If the liver is not functioning efficiently, old
hormones can accumulate. These old hormones are
leftover after each menstrual cycle, but unless
they are deactivated
by the liver, they can return to the bloodstream
and cause all sorts of problems. The liver deals
with oestrogen so it can be eliminated safely from
the body.
The liver also performs other important functions
that have a bearing on your health. Among its many
tasks are the storage and filtration of blood, the
secretion of bile and numerous metabolic functions,including
the conversion of sugars into glycogen, which is
the form in which carbohydrates are stored in your
body.
It plays a vital part in metabolising fat (breaking it down properly) and
it helps to use up fat to produce energy. The liver
also
help to optimise thyroid function.
 Optimising
liver function
As well as avoiding substances that can compromise
your liver, such as alcohol, you can also take substances
to help liver function. The B vitamins are especially
important because they are essential for the liver
be able to convert oestradiol
into the harmless oestriol.
A good multivitamin and mineral is essential for
making sure that you have all the nutrients in good
supply e.g. zinc, calcium and B vitamins that your
liver needs in order to operate efficiently. The
antioxidant
vitamins such as vitamin C, vitamin E and beta-carotene
are also important and vitamin C should be taken
in
addition to the multivitamin and mineral as there
will not be enough in the multi.
Essential
fatty acids
These are crucial for women ’s health and
often women will have been following a low fat or
no fat
diet so will not have been getting enough of these
essential fats. Signs of an
essential fatty acid deficiency are dry skin, lifeless
hair, cracked nails, fatigue, depression,
dry eyes,
lack of motivation, aching joint, difficulty in losing
weight,
forgetfulness and breast pain. Essential fatty acids
are found in foods such as nuts, seeds (e.g. linseeds)
and oily fish. These essential fats are a vital
component
of every human cell and the body needs them to balance hormones,
insulate nerve cells, keep the skin and arteries
supple
and to keep the body warm.
The body makes beneficial prostaglandins (which
are hormone-like substances) from these essential
fatty acids. These prostaglandins help to prevent
inflammation,
regulate the immune system and reduce abnormal blood
clotting. They play a major role in helping with
period
problems so they are extremely important when thinking about women ’s health.
Prevention
We are living in a time of an epidemic of degenerative
illnesses such as cancer, coronary heart disease,
strokes, diabetes and arthritis. People
in the Western world rarely die of old age.
Degenerative illnesses that happen over time are
not just ‘one
of those things’ but are the effect of how
we have looked after ourselves over the years.
In our society, as we get older, arthritis
is very common; in
other cultures it is not. Does this make it acceptable
or
‘normal ’because it is so common?
During normal biochemical reactions oxygen can
become unstable which can in turn generate free radicals.
Free radicals are also triggered by our environment
e.g. pollution, smoke and UV rays. It is these free
radicals that have been linked to premature aging,
cancer,
coronary heart disease. Fortunately, nature provides
us with protection against free radicals in the
form
of antioxidants. So making sure we get enough of these free radicals,
in our diet and in supplement form, can help to
prevent
some of these Western health problems.
Supplements are necessary nowadays in our society
because due to the depletion of the soil and other
factors,
even the best diet in the world will not contain
all the nutrients you
need to maintain optimum health.
 Plan
of Action
Nutrition
Ensure you are getting the right nutrition.
Follow the dietary recommendations outlined in
Nutrition for Women's Health
Vitamins,
Minerals and Herbs
The supplement programme below should be taken for
at least three months in order to achieve best results:
- A good multivitamin and mineral
- An antioxidant mix including A, E and selenium
- Zinc citrate 15mg
- Vitamin C 1000mg
- Garlic capsules (containing up to 5,000mcg of
allicin)
- Linseed Oil 1000mg
At the end of three months you should reassess
your health and adjust your supplement programme
accordingly.
Click here
to discover the specific supplements recommended
by Dr Glenville that contain all the
vitamins, minerals and herbs - mentioned above and
in the right doses - that you need to take.
Test
This test will help you to assess your present health
and indicate any specific deficiencies you may have
that need to be balanced.
Books
More
Information
For an even fuller discussion of this subject by
Dr Marilyn Glenville, please follow this link Women's
General Health >
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