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Why
is it that women suffer less chronic illnesses before
they go through menopause
than men and why do they live
longer on average?
There is a great deal of speculation going on why women
live between 5 and 8 years longer on average than man. But
nobody seems to know for sure.
The same is true for the fact that thousands more men die
from heart attacks when compared with women and suffer 30%
more strokes than women.
Hormones,
food, life style, genetic differences and many other things
are blamed for the difference..but
none of these possible reasons seem very convincing.
There is another fascinating aspect to this riddle: after
meno pause the incidence of chronic diseases increases dramatically
in women. Why would that be the case? Many questions and
no real answers.
Let us have a short look at what researchers have to say:
Cardiovascular disease is the leading killer of American
women. Before menopause, estrogen appears to help women
maintain a healthy balance between LDL (bad) and HDL (good)
cholesterol, making them six times less likely to experience
a heart attack than men age 50 and younger, according to Jovanovic. Once estrogen is no longer present, LDL levels
rise, and atherosclerosis (narrowing of the arteries) occurs.
After menopause, a woman's risk for heart disease is about
the same as a man's.
http://www.fda.gov/fdac/features/1999/699_meno.html
There are good scientific reasons to back up a beneficial
effect. First, there is the general observation that women
have many fewer heart attacks than men until after menopause,
and, then, it takes ten or more years for women to catch
up with men in heart attack incidence. What scientific
research has found is that estrogen has beneficial effects
on the lining of blood vessels and also that it improves
the cholesterol readings. 5 , 6 These
effects would tend to decrease the risk of heart CHD.
http://www.thedoctorwillseeyounow.com/articles/womens_health/mpause_6/
Recent
research suggests that reduced estrogen levels caused
by stress can put some young women at an increased risk
of getting heart disease.
Heart
disease is the No.1 killer of women, causing more than
250,000 deaths a year in the United States .
Ninety percent of those deaths occur after menopause.
Research
done on female monkeys at Wake Forest University-Baptist
Medical Center suggests stress can reduce estrogen levels
much earlier in life and cause damage to arteries that
can lead to heart attacks and strokes.
"A deficiency of estrogen before menopause places
these females on a high-risk path, regardless of whether
they get estrogen treatment after menopause," said
Jay Kaplan, a professor of comparative medicine at Wake
Forest, speaking at the North American Menopause Society
meeting in Orlando, Florida in September 2000 .
http://www.holistic-online.com/Remedies/hrt/hrt_news-stress-estrogen-and-heart.htm
As
we can see most of the 'blame' is given
to changes in hormone levels as the cause and reason for
the increase in heart diseases and other chronic illnesses.
Interesting is the mention of stress in the process. This
is where we can build a bridge to my own view of what the
true reason for the phenomenon may be.
Stress
is increasing free radical production. That is quite well
known. We have heard of people going white over night because
of a very stressful event they had to live through. White
hair is a 'bleaching' process,
a free radical process.
People
experiencing too much stress can die of a heart attack..instantly.
We
have heard repeatedly that ionic metals produce avalanches
of free radicals. Now let us just think about that for
a moment: ionic iron is the worst perpetrator when it comes
to the over production of free radicals. We discussed that
in our previous newsletters. If people store too much ionic
iron in tissues, the 'disease' created
by that event is called hemochromatosis.
Hemochromatosis
or iron overload disease is recognised as the most deadly 'genetic' disorder known to mankind. Huge
amounts of free radicals produced by the ionic iron destroy
organs, cause diseases and finally the death of the organism.
Lower levels of free radicals lead to all chronic disease
as we have seen in previous newsletters..and especially also
accelerated ageing. Most of you will have heard or read about
that. This is why people take handfuls of 'anti oxidants',
trying to prevent free radicals from doing their 'deadly'
work.
All
that is well know..but now let us have
a look at the problem in the context of men versus women,
pre menopausal life versus post menopausal life!
You
see, the only 'treatment' the medical profession knows
for hemochromatosis is 'phlebotomy' or blood letting. When
people are diagnosed with the disease they have to go every
week to their hospital or medical doctor for a number of
months to have blood taken out of their body. That lowers
the 'iron store levels' in the body as well as the amount
of iron, of course. Lowers it to a degree where the amount
of free radicals produced is not killing the 'patient' quickly
any more.
After
that initial 'burst' of blood lettings
the patient has to have a phlebotomy every month or so
in order to keep the levels of ionic iron down.
What
does that remind us of? Menstruation...monthly blood
letting! Women have a monthly phlebotomy (menstruation) which
gets rid of the 'bad blood' (as old tales have it) ..gets
rid of ionic iron which otherwise would over produce free
radicals. Can you see??
Since
the ionic iron stores are lowered, the free radical over
production is reduced and women will age slower and develop
less chronic diseases. Man do not have that 'advantage'.
Once
women have gone through menopause they are catching up
with man..as the figures show and indicate.
CH77 has shown to be very helpful in cases of hemochromatosis
or iron overload disease.
The IHMT is making us aware of a potentially low chelation
ability which contributes so much to the free radical problem
and hence to chronic disease development and premature ageing.
Hans 27.10.2005
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The science and philosophy of
harmonization. Helping to bring back the balance between nature
and man.
