Mid-life can set off upheaval for girls in all kinds of the way.
Kids develop up, depart the nest – after which, as a rule, reappear once you least anticipate it.
Previous relationships can falter… and new ones can blossom. You could be on the peak of your profession whereas additionally caring for ageing mother and father.
Towards this backdrop, alongside comes the menopause – when ranges of the intercourse hormone oestrogen decline, signalling the tip of our fertile years. It brings a few shift within the physique and, together with it, a brand new set of bodily challenges.
So what do ladies have to know, and the way can we defend our wellbeing to create a more healthy, happier older maturity?
That is the primary a part of our final information to ladies’s well being in mid-life and past. In a primary for a nationwide newspaper, we’ve assembled a panel of extraordinary feminine docs – among the most outstanding names in UK medication – to supply an outline of the niggles, illnesses and extra severe, long-term dangers ladies face from their 40s onward
That is the primary a part of our final information to ladies’s well being in mid-life and past. In a primary for a nationwide newspaper, we’ve assembled a panel of extraordinary feminine docs – among the most outstanding names in UK medication – to supply an outline of the niggles, illnesses and extra severe, long-term dangers ladies face from their 40s onward.
They are going to be making use of their collaborative experience to the problems that matter to you most – from coronary heart well being, gynaecology and hormones to most cancers, psychological well being and pores and skin issues.
This multi-disciplinary method is often utilized in medication to verify sufferers get the easiest prognosis and care. And now you, our readers, have entry to your individual workforce – providing the most effective evidence-based well being data on what can go fallacious and how you can repair it.
They embody the MoS’s personal good GP columnists, Dr Ellie Cannon and Dr Philippa Kaye, the Authorities’s first Ladies’s Well being Ambassador, marketing consultant gynacologist Professor Dame Lesley Regan. Sexual well being professional Dr Paula Briggs, chair of the British Menopause Society and College School London’s award-winning professor of reproductive science, Joyce Harper, are additionally offering invaluable assist by answering readers’ questions on probably the most mentioned and controversial matters in ladies’s well being at this time – hormone substitute remedy (HRT).
They are going to be making use of their collaborative experience to the problems that matter to you most – from coronary heart well being, gynaecology and hormones to most cancers, psychological well being and pores and skin issues
Additionally, two of the nation’s main consultants in coronary heart well being, Professor Sian Harding and Professor Vijay Kunadian, discover how medical sexism means ladies are at better hazard of dying from coronary heart issues – and provides some shocking recommendation on how you can keep away from turning into a statistic.
In the meantime, Britain’s prime physiotherapist Professor Karen Barker tackles bone well being and hormone professional Professor Annice Mukherjee takes on kind 2 diabetes.
The reality, lengthy ignored by medication, is that ladies’s well being dangers are completely different from males’s.
There’s a hyperlink between the decline of oestrogen in our our bodies – which begins in our mid-30s – and bone well being, coronary heart issues, mind well being, the situation of our pores and skin and the way nicely our joints work.
Within the brief time period, many ladies going by way of the menopause can expertise sizzling flushes, evening sweats and insomnia. Lack of sleep can then set off different issues, together with low temper, mind fog and issue with focus.
It impacts household life, social life and relationships, and may impair how nicely ladies operate at work. However in the long term, we face an elevated danger of circumstances resembling kind 2 diabetes, most cancers, weight problems, excessive ldl cholesterol, hypertension and osteoporosis.
Because of campaigners, these points at the moment are being addressed way more overtly, together with by the Authorities.
Final 12 months’s 127-page Ladies’s Well being Technique for England highlighted wholesome ageing, psychological well being and the menopause as main areas of concern by the 100,000 ladies who have been consulted. However there’s a lengthy method to go earlier than ladies’s well being points are tackled appropriately.
So let our eminent panel let you know all the things you should know – and, importantly, what you are able to do about it.
1 Look out for hidden coronary heart troubles
Meet our workforce of prime ladies’s well being consultants
Dr Ellie Cannon
Dr Ellie Cannon
The Mail on Sunday’s GP columnist Dr Cannon wants little introduction. In addition to working within the NHS she has authored two books is an envoy for the gynaecological most cancers charity, The Eve Enchantment, and works with the Authorities to advertise public well being points.
Dr Philippa Kaye
As an NHS GP specialising in ladies’s and youngsters’s well being, Dr Kaye is a well-known face on TV, and can also be the writer of 9 books on a variety of topics together with menopause, breast well being, and her expertise as a affected person recovering from bowel most cancers.
Dr Philippa Kaye
Professor Dame Lesley Regan
The Authorities’s first ladies’s well being ambassador for England and a globally famend professor of obstetrics and gynaecology, based mostly at Imperial School London, with a profession spanning greater than 40 years.
Professor Dame Lesley Regan
Professor Karen Barker OBE
College of Oxford physiotherapy professional Prof Barker has authored 130 educational papers on joint and bone well being and presently runs a number one centre for orthopaedic accidents, whereas main two medical trials investigating the position of physiotherapy in harm restoration.
Professor Karen Barker OBE
Professor Sian Harding
Prime cardiology professional at Imperial School London, Prof Harding has printed over 200 scientific papers on coronary heart well being. Her guide, The Beautiful Machine: The New Science of the Coronary heart, was printed final 12 months.
Professor Sian Harding
Professor Vijay Kunadian
Newcastle-based coronary heart physician Prof Kunadian is the UK’s first feminine Professor of Interventional Cardiology – and is among the world’s few consultants with regards to gender variations in coronary heart well being.
Professor Vijay Kunadian
Professor Annice Mukherjee
Manchester-based hormone physician with greater than three a long time of expertise, Prof Mukherjee is an authority diabetes, metabolic and reproductive well being – and is writer of the best-seller The Full Information to the Menopause.
Professor Annice Mukherjee
Dr Paula Briggs
Dr Paula Briggs
Guide in sexual and reproductive well being and Chair of The British Menopause Society, Dr Briggs is writer of seven books on reproductive well being together with a textbook for trainee docs and a no-nonsense information to contraception.
Professor Joyce Harper
Reproductive well being professional at College School London, Prof Harper has authored greater than 200 scientific publications, three fertility books and hosts the weekly ladies’s well being podcast, Why Didn’t Anybody Inform Me This?
Professor Joyce Harper
It’s a indisputable fact that many overlook: coronary heart illness is the most important killer of girls, inflicting twice as many deaths as breast most cancers.
Danger will increase dramatically in mid-life, and 35,000 ladies are admitted to hospital following a coronary heart assault yearly within the UK. That’s 4 each hour.
The rationale? The menopause causes ladies to retailer fats otherwise – across the inside organs within the stomach. Oestrogen, ranges of which decline throughout menopause, additionally protects the inside lining of blood vessels – so this diminishes.
All of this results in irritation within the physique, and raises blood strain, ldl cholesterol and the danger of kind 2 diabetes – which all contribute to coronary heart illness.
Ladies usually tend to die as their coronary heart assault signs, which might be completely different from males’s, are misdiagnosed. Ladies themselves additionally delay looking for therapy.
Ache or tingling within the chest, arm or again, breathlessness, nausea and feeling usually unwell or fatigued ought to at all times be checked out.
Weight loss plan and life-style modifications could make an enormous distinction to your danger. You’ll discover extra in-depth recommendation over the next pages.
2 Watch your blood sugar ranges
Hormonal modifications throughout mid-life can have an effect on blood sugar ranges and may make you extra vulnerable to kind 2 diabetes. The menopause causes ladies to retailer extra fats round their inside organs, notably the liver and pancreas, which may trigger insulin resistance. This implies your physique doesn’t reply as nicely to the hormone, which the physique’s cells want to soak up extra sugars circulating in your blood.
Should you’re already chubby or overweight earlier than going by way of the menopause, this may enhance your danger additional.
For individuals who assume they could be in danger, get your blood sugar ranges checked by your GP. This includes a easy blood check, normally one known as HbA1c. You should buy residence exams from some pharmacies too.
It’s necessary to know your danger as a result of research present ladies usually tend to be affected by severe problems of diabetes than males. The situation is linked to coronary heart and kidney issues, nerve harm and eye issues, and is the commonest purpose for amputations.
But it surely’s doable to reverse the situation by losing a few pounds and having a wholesome, balanced weight loss program.
3 Carry on prime of your bone well being
ONE in three ladies will develop the bone-thinning situation osteoporosis, which causes bones to interrupt and fracture and may have an effect on mobility, social lives and wellbeing in later years.
Weakening bones is a standard a part of ageing as a result of the processes which set off new bone cells decelerate from the age of about 35 onward.
For ladies, menopause poses a specific danger as a result of oestrogen performs a job in retaining bones robust – as much as 20 per cent of bone density is misplaced within the couple of years after menopause.
However this doesn’t must be inevitable, as our consultants reveal later in these pages.
4 Get to know your breasts
Most breast cancers are present in ladies aged 50 and over.
Attending any screening appointments when you find yourself invited and checking your breasts often is important to assist decide up issues promptly. However nearly half of all ladies don’t examine their breasts often for uncommon modifications, in keeping with Breast Most cancers Now, and one in ten have by no means carried out so.
Most breast cancers at the moment are curable if caught early. Indicators that one thing could be fallacious embody lumps, swelling, a rash, dimpling or discharge from the nipple. There are screening programmes on the NHS for breast, cervical and bowel most cancers which save 9,000 lives a 12 months. You also needs to have a mammogram each three years when aged between 50 and 71.
A cervical screening ought to be carried out each three years between the ages of 25 to 49, and each 5 years from 50 to 64. Bowel most cancers screening presently begins at 60 in England, 55 in Wales and 50 in Scotland, and is finished each two years till 74.
The opposite feminine cancers to be careful for in mid-life are vaginal, ovarian, uterine and vulval, which we are going to discover intimately subsequent week.
5 Do not put up with incontinence
SOME research recommend that as much as 40 per cent of girls expertise issues with leaking urine involuntarily. For round a 3rd of victims, it has a big impact on their every day lives. But it surely doesn’t must.
Most ladies blame childbirth for weakening the muscular tissues and tissues which management the bladder, however the reality is that falling oestrogen in mid-life may have a major impact.
Being chubby, which locations strain on the community of muscular tissues within the groin, may enhance the danger.
There are workout routines and drugs which can assist, regardless of the underlying trigger. See your GP if it’s an issue.
6 Concentrate on hypertension
Greater than half of girls over 55 have hypertension.
The situation causes no signs however places a pressure on the blood vessels, coronary heart and different organs, and may enhance the danger of coronary heart illness, stroke, kidney illness and dementia.
The one method to discover out if yours is excessive is to have it checked, both by your GP or on a house monitor.
An excellent studying is between 90/60 and 120/80. Something from 121/81 to 139/89 is taken into account elevated and will imply you might be vulnerable to hypertension. Over 140/90 is formally excessive.
7 Greater than a nasty hair day
About 40 per cent of girls will begin to lose hair across the time of the menopause. This may be distressing, inflicting melancholy and affecting relationships and social lives. It occurs as a result of oestrogen performs an necessary position in hair progress.
Hair loss remedy minoxidil is usually prescribed in additional extreme instances, and HRT may assist. Once more, it’s at all times good to deliver it up with a physician if it’s inflicting upset.
8 Thoughts your mid-life psychological well being
Analysis reveals ladies in mid-life are at best danger of tension and melancholy.
Though latest spikes in anxiousness have been reported in youthful adults, research which take a look at hundreds of individuals over a number of generations have discovered it’s ladies of their 40s and 50s who expertise essentially the most psychological misery.
These ladies face a mix of household, work and social pressures as they take care of older kids, ageing mother and father and relationship breakdowns whereas working on the peak of their careers.
On prime of that, ageing, ill-health and the menopause – which provides insomnia, fatigue and a flagging libido – all have an additional impression on psychological well being, consultants say.
Bettering sleep high quality and exercising can assist, whereas HRT to deal with menopause signs or antidepressants might also have profit for some.
9 Cures for a dwindling libido
LOSS of intercourse drive in mid-life is usually linked to the drop within the intercourse hormones oestrogen and testosterone, but it surely will also be a pure response to the opposite modifications ladies expertise at this stage of their lives.
Issues resembling weight acquire, insomnia, fatigue and low vitality can all put the very concept of intercourse on a back-burner.
Some ladies discover HRT, which addresses their different signs by bettering sleep and boosting vitality, can in flip restore their intercourse lives. There are additionally different cures, together with vaginal oestrogen and counselling.
10 Intercourse should not be a ache
Eight in each ten ladies expertise genito-urinary syndrome, also referred to as vaginal atrophy, after the drop in oestrogen causes the pores and skin to supply much less lubrication. This could result in infections and impression intercourse and relationships.
There are additionally a spread of different points that may have an effect on the vulva and vagina, which change into extra frequent in mid-life.
Worryingly, some ladies wrongly consider it’s merely one thing they must put up with. Over the next pages, our consultants reveal that’s merely not the case, and there’s so much that docs can do to assist.
