Does healing your gut help with Menopause Symptoms?

merakiintegratedwe
Jul 28, 2022
2 min read

Does healing your gut help with Menopause Symptoms?

There has been a huge amount of focus on gut health in research lately. One of the most amazing things Scientists have found is the link between gut health and inflammation. We have known for a while that inflammation is one of the greatest reasons that chronic conditions are on the rise.

Here are some current statistics about inflammation:

1 in 3 people in Canada live with type 11 Diabetes

1 in 4 adults in Canada live with Hypertension

1 in 5 adults live with Metabolic Syndrome

Why did I include these stats? Because they are staggering, because we now know that inflammation plays a huge role in these conditions, we know that these conditions are preventable, and with these high numbers living with these conditions I am certain there are a lot of women who are entering, going through, or at the tail end of menopause.

So What?

Did you know that menopause puts women at an increased risks for inflammation? Menopause is inflammatory.

We know that irritable bowel syndrome(IBS) is 4 times more common in women as they reach mid-life in the western part of the world (the Blue Zones have a huge advantage over us…you can look at the research about that). A huge factor is estrogen. Estrogen has many many functions in our bodies but one of its roles is to support our digestion. We have estrogen receptors in our gut that, when its levels are optimal, help to keep our bowels tight so they keep inflammation down and do not leak. This is a very simplified explanation but you get the picture. When we are loosing estrogen, aka menopause, along comes IBS symptoms or dysbiosis in many women.

What causes our gut microbiome to become unhealthy?

There are many factors and they happen over a lifetime. Some of the factors are; antibiotic exposure, diet, extremes of hot and cold in the environment, too much or too little physical activity, poor sleep, exposure to diseases, viruses, and hormonal changes during menopause.

Essentially we have a decline in our estrogen, which impacts our gut health and when our gut health is impacted this creates inflammation and increases hot flashes. Our body will try to cool the inflammation down and it does this by giving us hot flashes!! Hot flashes are a sign that the body is trying to cool you down; same idea as getting a fever.

How do you know if your gut health needs support?

Ask yourself, do you:

-Suffer from Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Diverticulitis or do you go between constipation and diarrhea?

-have brain fog or difficulty concentrating?

-feel sad or depressed?

-having acne or skin irritations?

-hot flashes, night sweats?

-sore joints?

-gut discomfort, bloating?

-starting, going through or on the other end of menopause?

Then chances are your bowels could use some lovin!

If you want to know more, reach out! If you want to get on board and heal your gut, reach out! I’ve got your back and I can help <3