Right to a rite of passage
Wellness Festival lecturer honors menopause
By DANA DUGAN
Express Staff Writer
Darcy Williamson, who taught a seminar called The Natural
Approach to Menopause Saturday at the Wellness Festival, has a theory:
"Menopause is a natural rite of passage and should not be treated as
a disease."
There is a threefold aspect to her approach— body, mind
and spirit.
It’s vital, Williamson maintains, to view "the
Change" as the third stage of life rather than a disorder. Treating
it as a time of freedom, focus and life—not as a loss—will help women
cope.
In a world of upside-down priorities, the loss of
"the curse" and the reproductive years has come to signify a
negative.
Many women say they feel undervalued at this point, and
invisible, while their counterparts, men, grow dignified with age,
appearing more substantial in stature. An aging woman’s lot comes
fraught with lack of respect and a neglectful medical community.
Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) is the accepted standard
of treatment for women who have natural side effects to the changes their
bodies are going through.
However, the Massachusetts Women’s Health Study has
shown HRTs ineffective to treat depression or decreased sexual desire, or
to prevent Alzheimer’s disease, heart disease, aging of the skin,
bladder and urinary problems or osteoporosis.
Forty percent of those on HRTs still experience symptoms,
five percent experienced no relief at all and twenty percent never filled
their prescriptions.
"Our nation is producing a nation of guinea
pigs," Williamson said.
Elsewhere in the world, she added, that is not the norm.
For instance, American women are three times as likely to have a
hysterectomy as women in Great Britain. In Ireland, only two percent of
menopausal women have sufficient symptoms to need hormone replacement.
As a so-called remedy for the unpleasant side effects of
menopause, hysterectomies increase the risk of breast and uterine cancer.
It’s only over the last couple of generations that these
risky changes have occurred.
"We can change this tide," Williamson cautions.
"We have more tools than our mothers did, who started this
side-effect issue. Our food is laced with hormones. Their mothers ate
hormone-free food, nursed babies, had babies. Why didn’t our
grandmothers have all these side effects?"
Williamson went on to warn that it will "trickle down
to our daughters even more unless we do something now." Hormone
replacement therapy drugs were invented in the 1960s. Williamson called
them a "dangerous and controlling marketing ploy."
"We need to do our research. Don’t listen to
physicians and drug companies who have profit margins as their
motivation."
It’s no accident, Williamson contended, that women’s
insurance skyrockets after age 50 in anticipation of surgeries and drugs.
She said 80 percent of menopausal women are "convinced by their
doctors" to take hormone replacement therapy or to have
hysterectomies to rid their bodies of their supposedly useless uteruses.
Williamson offered an alternative plan, supported, she
said, by numerous medical studies that show healthy older women who are
physically active, have healthy diets, drink moderately and are not taking
hormone drugs to be free of serious menopausal symptoms. Conversely, she
said, junk food diets, high stress levels, pollution and toxins, both
ingested and breathed, have produced women in need of intervention.
Her advice is to drink only spring water and herbal teas
daily. Alternate drinks such as milk, which is laced with hormones
beneficial to cow’s production but harmful to humans, she considers a
junk drink. Soft drinks are also unacceptable--due to a high phosphorus
content, they leach bones of calcium.
Williamson said that according to the American Journal of
Epidemiology, more than three cups of coffee a day increases the risk of
osteoporosis.
Though fruit juice is usually considered safe, she rejects
it because of it increases risk of hypoglycemia and diabetes, both
supposed symptoms of menopause.
Instead, Williamson recommends making tinctures of various
herbs readily found outside our back doors, eating calcium-rich greens and
doing moderate daily exercise. Those will not only extend a women’s life
but decrease the symptoms of menopause.
Unfortunately, she points out, women who are already
taking HRT will have a negative rebound effect in terms of bone density
loss if they stop taking them.
Williamson, who can identify 628 herbs and plants, said
individuals must decide what they need.
"Pick three or four herbs and learn to recognize and
use those. Get over the fear of learning something new, and keep
researching."
Her Web site, darcyfromtheforest.com, lists herbs,
tinctures, reference items, books, and classes available on the subject.
Part of the "mind" aspect to her approach
includes learning new ways to naturally take care of ourselves, exercising
our brains and making sacrifices.
"Women from the ‘60s and ‘70s don’t like to
make sacrifices," she acknowledged.
We’ve always had insurance and doctors to fix what ails
us.
"We need to be accountable now."
She notes that we must make sacrifices in our diet, and
negate stress, as it reduces the output of the pineal gland, which
produces beneficial melatonin, and the adrenals, which produce estrogen as
we age.
As for the spirit, Williamson said, "It’s
unfortunate that society has tried to squelch it, in not recognizing the
rite of passage."
In the Peruvian jungle in a small village called San
Miguel, Williamson witnessed a "gala of all women frolicking—free-spirited
old women in their 80s and 90s kicking up the dust. It was something to
see. That’s what we need over here."
"Age is a beautiful thing in most cultures, women
with meat on her bones, and wrinkles are revered."
