WHAT do fibroids and menopause have in common? They both depend on hormones for their existence — too much of one hormone causes fibroids and too little causes menopause.

Authors Johanna Skilling and medical doctor Nelson Stringer in their book The First Year: Fibroids say that increased oestrogen feeds fibroid tumour and can lead to more severe bleeding, pain, fatigue, and other symptoms.

The presence of fibroids can seriously affect one’s personal and social life, while creating many embarrassing experiences. Fibroids can also be a very costly experience that forces many women to suffer in silence.

On the flip side, I asked a friend who is going through menopause if she would like her sons to have a schoolteacher that is going through menopause. Her response: “No.”

She admitted, tearfully, with her usual dramatic expressions: “It’s a living hell — with a new internal earthquake once or twice daily as my body rocks with the varying degrees of hot and cold waves and terrible mood swings.

“Maureen, I get real electric shocks from the sole of my feet to my hips, and the doctors say it’s all a part of the menopause symptoms. I feel like I am a living dead’. It’s worse than duppy or obeah, especially at nights. If I had known better I would never have done that hysterectomy,” she said.

The female hormone oestrogen is naturally made in a woman’s body. The level of oestrogen is determined by many factors, some are:

1. Sugar, saturated fats, caffeine, alcohol, and junk foods. They are lacking in vitamin B and interfere with the body’s ability to utilise iron and regulate and metabolise the hormone.

2. Animal meat, (this includes fish and chicken), is produced through man-made hormone stimulation. Many women complain that eating these increase the pain episodes associated with fibroids.

3. Dairy products, such as milk, yogurt and cheese, contain bovine growth hormone, used to stimulate milk production in post-partum cows. Bovine growth hormone also increases production of a substance called insulin growth factor-1, which will also increase oestrogen concentration.

4. Canned foods can be a source of xenoestrogens (chemical oestrogens) while bisphenol A and paraben are other chemicals found in plastics which will increase circulating levels of oestrogen.

5. Many household chemicals and chemical hair relaxers can cause the growth of fibroids as well as early puberty in young girls, says a new study in the American Journal of Epidemiology, because they contain phthalates.

6. Contraceptives which not only cause fibroids to grow, but may cause abortion, headache, dizziness, breast tenderness, nausea, unpleasant body odour, decreased libido, and mood swings.

It is normal for a woman’s ovaries to gradually wind down production of the female homones oestrogen and progesterone while the production of male hormones (androgens) stay at the same level.

When a woman is suffering from fibroids she is often encouraged to escape its ordeal with the help of a surgeon’s knife through a hysterectomy. This forces the oestrogen threshold to fall and she reaches menopause immediately. A woman with some fat cells can convert some of these male hormones into oestrogen, which can reduce the impact of this new, sudden change.

It is sad, but there are aspects of menopause that medical science cannot cure. Drugs such as oestrogen replacement pills and tranquilisers remain among the top prescription drugs in the United States, with side effects as serious as breast cancer.

It is time for a change or a return to the simple, effective methods used many years ago to relieve the body of hormone-related diseases.

Traditional use of herbs, a good diet and exercise can balance hormones, starve and shrink fibroids, manage your emotions, and make sleep easier.

Psychotherapy is great during the season of insanity associated with lack of balance due to hormones. This support is best received from friends and loved ones. It’s good rehearsal for both partners — as when men offer it to their spouses, it is lovingly returned to them when they meet their own midlife crisis, andropause.

Maureen Minto is the chief naturopathic consultant at the Healthy Living Herbal Clinic and president of the Caribbean Natural Remedies Association. Contact her at 940-1197 or e-mail