I had a wonderful Granny. She was outgoing, personable, the laugh of the party, and always drove a red sports car of some sort. Let’s say Granny wasn’t your average southern grandmother as she might even have a dirty joke or two to tell. She did have one thing in common with other ladies her age: deteriorating bone and joint health, especially after menopause.
Even as a child and teenager, I was keenly aware of her declining energy levels and ability to get in and out of the car. Now that I am a personal trainer and study women’s health issues, I realize she was post-menopausal and losing her bone strength. What I wouldn’t give to have the chance to educate her about her changing body before and during the process. Maybe a little knowledge about how to deal with aging would have kept her with us longer, and maybe made the last couple of years a little more lively. You see, she died of Pancreatic Cancer because of out of control diabetes. After menopause, Granny gained weight in her abdomen, developed diabetes, and her bones and joints deteriorated to the point a red sports was no longer a luxury but a sad reminder that she couldn’t navigate climbing in and out anymore. Unfortunately, Granny died from what was probably very preventable if she had only known how to properly adjust to her changing body.
The following article talks about menopause and what it does to a woman’s body. Take note that the article says that as women we will spend 1/3 of our lives past the age of menopause. It is what we do before and during menopause that will dictate how these years are spent. If I had found my new way of life a few years sooner, maybe I could have helped my granny have better years and more years with us. Who knows…but I think we all need to remember that diet and exercise isn’t always about what is looking back at us in the mirror. It’s about being here for our kids and grandkids and living out the good years with our significant others being healthy and active.
From www.healthywomen.org subject menopause
Although there is a wide range of possible menopause-related conditions, most women experiencing natural menopause only have mild disturbances during the perimenopausal years. However, you should be aware that there are at least two major health conditions that can develop in the years: coronary artery disease and osteoporosis.
Your body’s estrogen helps protect against plaque buildup in your arteries. It does this by helping to raise HDL cholesterol (good cholesterol), which helps remove LDL-cholesterol (the type that contributes to the accumulation of fat deposits called plaque along artery walls). As you age, your risk for developing coronary artery disease (CAD) — a condition in which the veins and arteries that take blood to the heart become narrowed or blocked by plaque — increases steadily. Heart attack and stroke are caused by atherosclerotic disease, in most cases.
Your body’s own estrogen helps prevent bone loss and works together with calcium and other hormones and minerals to help build bones. Your body constantly builds and remodels bone through a process called resorption and deposition. Up until around age 30, the body makes more new bone than it breaks down. But once estrogen levels start to decline, this process also slows down.
By menopause, your body breaks down more bone than it rebuilds. In the years immediately after menopause, some women may lose as much as 20 percent of their bone mass in the first five to seven years following menopause. Although bone loss eventually levels out, in the years ahead, keeping bone structures strong and healthy to prevent osteoporosis becomes more of a challenge. Osteoporosis occurs when bones become too weak and brittle to support normal activities.
Not all women develop heart disease or osteoporosis. Many more things affect your heart and your bones than estrogen alone. For example, exercise improves your cardiovascular system — your heart, lungs and blood vessels — at any age. It can help decrease high blood pressure, a concern for half of women over age 60. It can also help reduce weight gain, a major risk factor for heart disease, diabetes and many other health conditions common to older women.
You are never too old to begin or continue exercising. A simple walking routine for 30 minutes four to five days a week can provide health benefits. There are other exercise options. Talk to your health care professional about which ones fit your lifestyle and medical needs.
If your bones are strong and healthy as you enter menopause, you’ll have better bone structure to sustain you as you age. Bone loss varies from woman to woman. You can also improve bone strength as you age by exercising regularly and making sure you get enough calcium in your diet or from supplements. Exercise also helps improve balance, muscle tone and flexibility, which can diminish with aging. Weakness in these areas can lead to more frequent falls, broken bones and longer healing periods.
Women today can expect to live as much as one-third of their lives beyond menopause. The years following menopause can be healthy years, depending on how you take care of yourself.