Seven Resources on Supporting Women’s Health

Photo Cred: Halfpoint/Shutterstock

By Avery St. Onge

For the month of May, Integrative Practitioner is focusing on women’s health. With topics spanning from natural birth control options, to supporting fertility and healthy hormones, to integrative interventions for menopause, this topic has never been more relevant in the healthcare industry. 

To kickstart your women’s health education, we’ve rounded up a collection of resources spanning just about every phase of womanhood. Plus, we’ve included a mix of written and multimedia content to keep things interesting. 

Read more to learn about integrative strategies to improve the health of your female patients.

Q&A: Herbal Medicines for Women’s Health

Plant medicines are a woman’s ally to achieve optimal health, said Leslie Korn, PhD, MPH, LMHC, a traumatologist specializing in mental health nutrition and integrative approaches to treating the mind and body, and author of the new book Natural Woman. They bring balance and nourishment to daily life and can reduce or eliminate symptoms of physical and emotional distress.

We sat down with Korn to discuss plant and herbal medicines for women’s health and how nature can help women thrive at every age.

Click here for the full interview.

Exploring Nonhormonal and Integrative Options for Birth Control

Birth control pills are an easy-to-use medication taken at the same time daily, according to Planned Parenthood, and when used perfectly, it’s 99 percent effective at preventing pregnancy. So, it’s no surprise that the pill is usually conventional medicine’s first-line method of birth control.

However, according to Kaely McDevitt, RD, founder of KaelyRD, a virtual private practice specializing in hormone balance and digestive health based out of Huntington Beach, California, there are a host of side effects that can come along with the pill that often go unaddressed in doctor-patient conversations.

Click here to read more.

Podcast: Examining the Relationship Between Subfertility and Biological Aging

Monique Class, MS, APRN-BC, and Kalea Wattles, ND, IFMCP, join Integrative Practitioner associate editor, Avery St. Onge, to discuss why fertility issues can be risk factors for chronic disease and accelerated biological aging.

Click here to listen to the podcast episode. Click here to access Class and Wattle’s presentation at the 2023 Integrative Healthcare Symposium on-demand.

Beyond Hysterectomies: Integrative Medicine Provides Natural Approaches to Fibroids

Although uterine fibroids, benign tumors found in a woman’s reproductive organs, are one of the most common gynecological conditions, they’re also misunderstood and misdiagnosed.

Many women with fibroids don’t have symptoms, but those who do often experience extreme abdominal and pelvic pain, lower back pain, pain during sex, heavy bleeding, and frequent urination. Those who don’t want to undergo a surgical procedure, or take prescription medications, can often find relief from fibroids through integrative modalities including aromatherapy, acupuncture, and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), that treat fibroids in a non-invasive manner.

Click here to read more.

An Integrative Approach to Breast Cancer: Time to Shift from Early Detection to Prevention

In this session, Tara Scott, MD, discusses her hypothesis that there are other single nucleotide pleomorphisms (SNPs) that put a patient at increased risk of breast cancer, namely MTHFR 677, MTHFR 1298, and COMT.

MTHFR and COMT genes are involved in methylation processes in the body. This process is a large component of Phase 2 detoxification, especially for estrogen. Scott’s theory is that patients with SNPs in MTHFR and COMT have an impaired ability to get rid of estrogens and thus have an accumulation or back up of Estrone or the toxic metabolite 4-OH Estrone which can increase the risk of breast cancer. As a result, there is an imbalance in the hormones that cause hyperplasia (estrogens) and regulation an apoptosis (progesterone) in the breast. This talk explores the relationship of estrogen detoxification to breast cancer risk and also review the link with exogenous therapy.

This presentation was recorded at the 2022 Integrative Healthcare Symposium Annual Conference. Click here to access the session on-demand.

An Integrative Approach to Hormone Therapy for Menopause

In a recent statement from The North American Menopause Society (NAMS), the organization announced its updated position on treating symptoms of menopause with hormone therapy, concluding that the treatment’s benefits outweigh the risks for those under age 60 within 10 years of menopause onset. According to the NAMS, hormone therapy has proven to be the most effective treatment for relieving symptoms of menopause, including vasomotor symptoms or hot flashes, and night sweats.

For many integrative practitioners already providing hormone therapy to patients experiencing symptoms of menopause, NAMS’ new stance was welcome news. However, according to Tara Scott, MD, although the medical community is becoming more accepting of hormone therapy, many providers remain reluctant to bring it up with patients.

Click here to read more.

Simple Strategies for Happy Hormones

Infertility rates and hormone imbalances continue to climb in the United States. More and more clients are seeking experts who can provide impactful diet and lifestyle recommendations to support hormone health and fertility.

In this presentation Kaely McDevitt, MS, RD, LD, walks through the most common reasons for hormonal troubles, how to assess hormone health and how to use simple nutrition and lifestyle strategies to promote optimal health. We live in a time where our clients have access to nearly limitless amounts of information about what they should and should not be doing to promote health – often causing additional stress and analysis paralysis. This presentation aims to reinforce the importance of foundational health strategies to improve client outcomes and decrease the overwhelm of clients trying to do it all.

This presentation was part of the 2022 Integrative Practitioner Digital Summit on Clinical Nutrition. Click here to access the presentation on-demand.