Menopause no-no’s – three things that you might not realise are affecting your menopause

Read the full video transcript below

Today's topic

Hello, and welcome to my weekly video blog. And today on A. Vogel Talks Menopause, I'm going to be talking about three no-nos in the menopause.

Now, these could be things such as what you're eating, what you're not eating, things that you may be drinking, things that you might be doing that you don't realise could be affecting your menopause and some of the symptoms that you're experiencing.
 
Now, I've got a really long list, but I'm just going to do a few at a time, so today, the first subject is artificial sweeteners. 

No. 1 - Artificial sweetners

Now, I know you're going through the menopause where it can be an issue, and one of the things that people tend to do is they tend to substitute sugar in drinks and use artificial sweeteners instead.

Unfortunately, this, honestly, is one of the worst things that you can do. And there are two main reasons why artificial sweeteners can be really bad for you in the menopause.

1. Insulin control

And the first one is all to do with insulin control. Now, I'm sure you've all heard of insulin and diabetes. This is just something slightly different. Now, when you eat something sweet, messages go from the tongue to a big organ in the body called the pancreas, and that signals the pancreas that sugar is coming, and sugar is going to end up in the bloodstream.
 
Now, our blood sugar needs to be controlled at a certain level. If it goes too high, it can cause all sorts of problems. It would be a bit like having an electricity surge in the house, where it could start to really affect all your electrical equipment. If your blood sugars get too low, again that can cause problems, you can get really dizzy, and you can feel very weak and not very well at all. So insulin is used to help to keep our blood sugars at a good safe level for our bodies.
 
So when a message comes to the pancreas to say that sugar's on its way, insulin is released into the bloodstream to make sure that the level of sugar is fine. If there's too much sugar in the bloodstream, insulin will take it out of the bloodstream, and very often, store it somewhere else in the body.
 
Now, if you take artificial sweeteners, your tongue can't tell the difference between that and real sugar. So the messages still go to the pancreas to say that sugar is on its way. So insulin jumps into the bloodstream and finds there's no sugar. Now, if this happens day after day, week after week, month after month, the pancreas can decide to get very lazy. It can go, "Why am I sending insulin into the bloodstream? There's never anything there."

And that can end up causing problems when you do eat something with sugar in it. If the pancreas doesn't respond, your blood sugar levels can get really, really high. And that, if it happens often enough, can become a precursor to diabetes. 
 
And unfortunately in the menopause, the pancreas can be affected as part of the endocrine system when your oestrogen starts to fall. So your blood sugar control can get weaker, just because your oestrogen is starting to fall.

If you then are swamping your system with artificial sweeteners all the time, that can weaken things further, and that is the point where you could really be putting yourself at risk to end up with pre-diabetes or diabetes itself. And it's quite common. Diabetes is quite common in the menopause. It can start off at this particular point, even if you've been fine beforehand.

2. Friendly bacteria in our digestive system

Now, second problem with artificial sweeteners is there is thought around that it may also affect the friendly bacteria in our digestive system. It can affect the balance, and it can possibly destroy some of the friendly bacteria.

Our friendly bacteria or the health of our friendly bacteria is absolutely vital in the menopause, because your friendly bacteria can help to manufacture phytoestrogens from your food, so it can help to keep your levels of oestrogen much more stable in the body whilst you're going through the menopause.
 
But your friendly bacteria also support your immune system, they help to keep pathogens at bay, and they help with your elimination. And your immune system, your susceptibility to infections, and your digestion can often be affected during the menopause as well.

So as you can see, artificial sweeteners are really one of the things that you should avoid. And what can happen too, in terms of other menopause symptoms, is that if your blood sugar control gets upset, that will have a knock-on effect on your nervous system, and that will trigger symptoms such as flushes, sweats, palpitations, nervousness, anxiety, and headaches.
 
So, if you are suffering from some of these menopause symptoms and you're also regularly taking artificial sweeteners, then that's an added bonus of trying to stop taking them for a little while and see if that helps.

It's not easy but you can do it!

Now, I know it's not easy giving up anything sweet. It can take, you know, maybe up to two weeks before your taste buds get used to drinking things like tea and coffee without sugar. But you can do it.

I did it a few years ago, and it was awful. I only had a very small teaspoon of sugar, in drinks such as tea or coffee, and it was miserable. The first couple of weeks were really hard. And I just thought, this is not nice at all. But I persevered. And now, the great thing is that if anybody inadvertently serves me a drink with a teaspoon of sugar in it, or anything with a lot of sugar in it, it tastes really horrible, and I can't actually drink it.

So, you know, it takes a little bit of time but at the end of the day, if you're really kind of hooked on these artificial sweeteners, it's worth just trying to stop taking them for these things, let alone anything else.

No. 2 - Going to bed too late

Now, number two no-no is going to bed too late at night. I know, we're all really busy people, and, you know, if you're working and then you've got family, a lot of the evenings are taken up actually doing things rather than just relaxing or reading or watching a little bit of television. And then there comes a point when you're practically so tired you can hardly stand, and you need to go to bed.
 
Remember that inside your body, it is very, very busy trying to balance itself. Our body likes to be in balance all the time. And these changing hormones can create a great deal of upset and stress in the body.

What can you do?

So there's a lot of business going on. And one of the best ways to keep our body supported is a good night's sleep. Now, I know there are going to be those of you there who are getting the night sweats and maybe the joint aches that are not helping you to sleep. There are things you can take for that, things like sage for the hot flushes and things like Devil's Claw for the joint pain, and these can help to ease sleep

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But if you're one of these people that just ends up going to bed far too late, and then you're maybe not sleeping particularly well, or you're so wound up that you can't fall asleep, or that you wake up early, it's really important to try and get this adjusted so that your body can have a decent night's sleep, and all the repair and regeneration that goes on during the night, can happen, rather than being done half-heartedly because you've only had a few hours' sleep.
 
I love my sleep, and I'm one of those people that I really find that if I don't get a good night's sleep I'm miserable the next day. And I try to be in my bed for about half past ten at night. Half eleven …eleven, half eleven, is a really late night for me, and I can only do that maybe once a week, otherwise I just feel so tired and so miserable the next day.
 
So if you're one of these late night people, and you find that you're not getting a good night's sleep, then do a lot of the usual things before you go to bed. Don't be working on your computer, or on the phone, or watching too much TV just before you go to bed.

Have a little wind down time, and you might find that you will actually fall asleep a lot better and get a better night's sleep for that. I know there's probably those of you out there who are real night owls, but in the menopause, you are going to need that little bit of extra sleep just to help you through everything. 

No. 3 - Badly fitting bras

Now, number three is "What's your bra like?" Now, you're probably going to be sitting there thinking, "What on earth have bras got to do with the menopause?" Well, this is mainly for you ladies who are going through the menopause, going through the perimenopause, and are maybe having issues such as breast tenderness, or nipple ache, or irritability.

When you start the perimenopause and in the menopause as well, and after the menopause, your breast size, shape and tissue can change dramatically. And especially if you wear underwired bras, that can cause some of the premenstrual symptoms. 
 
Your bra here, if it's too tight, if you've got the wrong-sized bra, that could interfere with lymph drainage in this area, which can then result in breast tenderness if you're not wearing the right bra size. There can be a lot of irritation.

Our nipples can get really sensitive in the perimenopause, with fluctuating oestrogen, and if your bra is the wrong size, that can literally start rubbing on the nipples and making things even worse.
 
The other thing that can happen is that if you don't have enough support, or you have these really thin straps and you're reasonably big-busted, the weight of the breasts can actually pull on your shoulders, and that can start to cause neck ache and shoulder ache, and the tension in the back of the neck can then trigger things like tension headaches. So who'd have thought that wearing the wrong-sized bra could give you a headache?

What can you do?

So what you need to do, most of the big department stores will offer a free bra-fitting service, and it's worth going along to get it done. I would recommend getting it done once a year.

Now, I did this a few years ago, and I was absolutely horrified because I was so out. It was unbelievable. I was absolutely mortified, and I think the lady thought I must have been nuts. I had been walking around for years with a bra size that was far too big in one way, and far too small in other ways.

So I make sure now that I get myself measured really regularly. And the great thing is that if you have a proper fitted bra, it helps to keep us uplifted, and that will give you more shape as well. And you can look an awful lot better just by getting the proper bra.

Homework for this week

So I want all you ladies out there…So the homework for this week is, if you haven't been measured recently for a new bra, then I want you all to go out there and get that done. And I bet there's gonna be a lot of you who are really astonished at how you've been running around with the wrong bra on for a long, long time.
 
So I hope this has been of interest. It's something a little bit different, but hopefully it's given you some food for thought, and I will see you next week on A. Vogel Talks Menopause.