If you are in your 30s and getting heat flushes, this is what you should know . Photo | Photosearch
Wellness

If you are in your 30s and getting heat flushes, this is what you should know

January 29, 2022
newszetu

This is the story of Bernadette, a 35-year-old accountant who was desperate to have kids. She’d started to have hot flushes earlier this year, and was convinced that this was the beginning of menopause. With her live-in boyfriend still not sold on fatherhood, she came to me seeking ways to delay the distressing change that her body was going through.

Bernadette had already been for a battery of tests before coming to see me and her hormones appeared normal. So why would she regularly burst into a sweat at work, so much so that her hair would become visibly damp? She’d be so drained that she’d have a tough time getting to the end of the day.

With the extra 20 kilos that Bernadette was carrying around her belly, I suspected this was a liver issue (elevated liver enzymes on a later lab test confirmed fatty liver disease). You see, according to Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), when the liver is being overworked, it begins to generate too much heat – and because the liver is such a large organ, it causes the whole body to overheat. So, the excess sweating that Bernadette experienced was simply the reaction of her overheated body to try and cool itself down.

As you might expect, the first thing I asked Bernadette to do was to change her diet. Very often fatty liver is caused by an excess consumption of carbohydrate (sugar, bread, pasta, ugali, breakfast cereals, potatoes, rice), so cutting this down while eating more protein (eggs, poultry, seafood) was key. Dairy produce (milk, yoghurt, cheese, ice-cream) further compounds matters (and was likely to be making her persistent reflux worse).
The next thing I did was to give Bernadette supplements that supported the liver, such as milk thistle, boldo, artichoke, peppermint and lecithin. These nutrients were essential not just to repair the liver, but for efficient fat burning and detoxification too. I also recommended that Bernadette take fish oils, since the omega-3 fats they contain are anti-inflammatory and help to heal the liver’s cell membranes.

So the next time you think that your hormones are misbehaving, spare a thought for your liver.

www.nutritionbysona.com

SIDE BAR

Ask Sona: 

Is there something easy I can do to avoid this problem?

Start your day with a cup of warm water with lemon.

Aside from its other benefits such as boosting immune function and alkalinising the body, lemon water is a natural diuretic, which means it helps your body flush out liquid and toxins along with it. The citric acid in particular helps to maximizing enzymes which stimulate the liver. Lemon water also helps to stimulate the gastrointestinal tract, thereby promoting digestion and elimination.

Credit: Source link