When A Period Is Very Late (Post-Menopause)
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Knowledge Is Power Safety, Post-Menopause Too
Note: this article will be most relevant for a subset of our subscribership, but it’s a very large subset, so we’re going to go ahead and address the reader as “you”.
If, for example, you are a man and this doesn’t apply to you, we hope it will interest you anyway (we imagine there are women in your life).
PS: the appendicitis check near the end, works for anyone with an appendix
We’ve talked before about things that come with (and continue after) menopause:
- What You Should Have Been Told About The Menopause Beforehand
- What Menopause Does To The Heart
- Alzheimer’s Sex Differences May Not Be What They Appear
But what’s going on if certain menstrual symptoms reappear post-menopause (e.g. after more than a year with no menstruation)?
Bleeding
You should not, of course, be experiencing vaginal bleeding post-menopause. You may have seen “PSA” style posts floating around social media warning that this is a sign of cancer. And, it can be!
But it’s probably not.
Endometrial cancer (the kind that causes such bleeding) affects 2–3% of women, and of those reporting post-menopausal bleeding, the cause is endometrial cancer only 9% of those times.
So in other words, it’s not to be ignored, but for 9 people out of 10 it won’t be cancer:
Read more: Harvard Health | Postmenopausal bleeding: Don’t worry—but do call your doctor
Other more likely causes are uterine fibroids or polyps. These are unpleasant but benign, and can be corrected with surgery if necessary.
The most common cause, however is endometrial and/or vaginal atrophy resulting in tears and bleeding.
Tip: Menopausal HRT will often correct this.
Read more: The significance of “atrophic endometrium” in women with postmenopausal bleeding
(“atrophic endometrium” and “endometrial atrophy” are the same thing)
In summary: no need to panic, but do get it checked out at your earliest convenience. This is not one where we should go “oh that’s weird” and ignore.
Cramps
If you are on menopausal HRT, there is a good chance that these are just period cramps. They may feel different than they did before, because you didn’t ovulate and thus you’re not shedding a uterine lining now, but your body is going to do its best to follow the instructions given by the hormones anyway (hormones are just chemical messengers, after all).
If it is just this, then they will probably settle down to a monthly cycle and become quite predictable.
Tip: if it’s the above, then normal advice for period cramps will go here. We recommend ginger! It’s been found to be as effective as Novafen (a combination drug of acetaminophen (Tylenol), caffeine, and ibuprofen), in the task of relieving menstrual pain:
See: Effect of Ginger and Novafen on menstrual pain: A cross-over trial
It could also be endometriosis. Normally this affects those of childbearing age, but once again, exogenous hormones (as in menopausal HRT) can fool the body into doing it.
If you are not on menopausal HRT (or sometimes even if you are), uterine fibroids (as discussed previously) are once again a fair candidate, and endometriosis is also still possible, though less likely.
Special last note
Important self-check: if you are experiencing a sharp pain in that general area and are worrying if it is appendicitis (also a possibility), then pressing on the appropriately named McBurney’s point is a first-line test for appendicitis. If, after pressing, it hurts a lot more upon removal of pressure (rather than upon application of pressure), this is considered a likely sign of appendicitis. Get thee to a hospital, quickly.
And if it doesn’t? Still get it checked out at your earliest convenience, of course (better safe than sorry), but you might make an appointment instead of calling an ambulance.
Take care!
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Hair-Loss Remedies, By Science
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10almonds Gets Hairy
Hair loss is a thing that at some point affects most men and a large minority of women. It can be a source of considerable dysphoria for both, as it’s often seen as a loss of virility/femininity respectively, and is societally stigmatized in various ways.
Today we’re going to focus on the most common kind: androgenic alopecia, which is called “male pattern baldness” in men and “female pattern baldness” in women, despite being the same thing.
We won’t spend a lot of time on the science of why this happens (we’re going to focus on the remedies instead), but suffice it to say that genes and hormones both play a role, with dihydrogen testosterone (DHT) being the primary villain in this case.
We’ve talked before about the science of 5α-reductase inhibitors to block the conversion of regular testosterone* to DHT, its more potent form:
One Man’s Saw Palmetto Is Another Woman’s Serenoa Repens…
*We all make this to a greater or lesser degree, unless we have had our ovaries/testes removed.
Finasteride
Finasteride is a 5α-reductase inhibitor that performs similarly to saw palmetto, but comes in tiny pills instead of needing to take a much higher dose of supplement (5mg of finasteride is comparable in efficacy to a little over 300mg of saw palmetto).
Does it work? Yes!
Any drawbacks? A few:
- It’ll take 3–6 months to start seeing effects. This is because of the hormonal life-cycle of human hairs.
- Common side-effects include ED.
- It is popularly labelled/prescribed as “only for men”
On that latter point: the warnings about this are severe, detailing how women must not take it, must not even touch it if it has been cut up or crushed.
However… That’s because it can carry a big risk to our unborn fetuses. So, if we are confident we definitely don’t have one of those, it’s not actually applicable to us.
That said, finasteride’s results in women aren’t nearly so clear-cut as in men (though also, there has been less research, largely because of the above). Here’s an interesting breakdown in more words than we have room for here:
Finasteride for Women: Everything You Need to Know
Spironolactone
This one’s generally prescribed to women, not men, largely because it’s the drug sometimes popularly known as a “chemical castration” drug, which isn’t typically great marketing for men (although it can be applied topically, which will have less of an effect on the rest of the body). For women, this risk is simply not an issue.
We’ll be brief on this one, but we’ll just drop this, so that you know it’s an option that works:
❝Spironolactone is an effective and safe treatment of androgenic alopecia which can enhance the efficacy when combined with other conventional treatments such as minoxidil.
Topical spironolactone is safer than oral administration and is suitable for both male and female patients, and is expected to become a common drug for those who do not have a good response to minoxidil❞
Minoxidil
This one is available (to men and women) without prescription. It’s applied topically, and works by shortcutting the hair’s hormonal growth cycle, to reduce the resting phase and kick it into a growth phase.
Does it work? Yes!
Any drawbacks? A few:
- Whereas you’ll remember finasteride takes 3–6 months to see any effect, this one will have an effect very quickly
- Specifically, the immediate effect is: your rate of hair loss will appear to dramatically speed up
- This happens because when hairs are kicked into their growth phase if they were in a resting phase, the first part of that growth phase is to shed each old hair to make room for the new one
- You’ll then need the same 3–6 months as with finasteride, to see the regrowth effects
- If you stop using it, you will immediately shed whatever hair you gained by this method
Why do people choose this over finasteride? For one of three reasons, mainly:
- They are women, and not offered finasteride
- They are men, and do not want the side effects of finasteride
- They just saw an ad and tried it
As to how it works:
Some final notes:
There are some other contraindications and warnings with each of these drugs by the way, so do speak with your doctor/pharmacist. For example:
- Finasteride can tax the liver a little
- Spironolactone can reduce bone turnover
- Minoxidil is a hypotensive; this shouldn’t be an issue for most people, but for some people it could be a problem
There are other hair loss remedies and practices, but the above three are the heavy-hitters, so that’s what we spent our time/space on today. We’ll perhaps cover the less powerful (but less risky) options one of these days.
Meanwhile, take care!
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Lemon Balm For Stressful Times And More
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Balm For The Mind: In More Ways Than One!
Lemon balm(Melissa officinalis) is quite unrelated to lemons, and is actually a closer relative to mint. It does have a lemony fragrance, though!
You’ll find it in a lot of relaxing/sleepy preparations, so…
What does the science say?
Relaxation
Lemon balm has indeed been found to be a potent anti-stress herb. Laboratories that need to test anything to do with stress generally create that stress in one of two main ways:
- If it’s not humans: a forced swimming test that’s a lot like waterboarding
- If it is humans: cognitive tests completed under time-pressure while multitasking
Consequently, studies that have set out to examine lemon balm’s anti-stress potential in humans, have often ended up also highlighting its potential as a cognitive enhancer, like this one in which…
❝Both active lemon balm treatments were generally associated with improvements in mood and/or cognitive performance❞
~ Dr. Anastasia Ossoukhova et al.
Read in full: Anti-Stress Effects of Lemon Balm-Containing Foods
And this one, which found…
❝The results showed that the 600-mg dose of Melissa ameliorated the negative mood effects of the DISS, with significantly increased self-ratings of calmness and reduced self-ratings of alertness.
In addition, a significant increase in the speed of mathematical processing, with no reduction in accuracy, was observed after ingestion of the 300-mg dose.❞
The appropriately named “DISS” is the Defined Intensity Stress Simulation we talked about.
Sleep
There’s a lot less research for lemon balm’s properties in this regard than for stress/anxiety, and it’s probably because sleep studies are much more expensive than stress studies.
It’s not for a lack of popular academic interest—for example, typing “Melissa officinalis” into PubMed (the vast library of studies we often cite from) autosuggests “Melissa officinalis sleep”. But alas, autosuggestions do not Randomized Controlled Trials make.
There are some, but they’re often small, old, and combined with other things, like this one:
This is interesting, because generally speaking there is little to no evidence that valerian actually helps sleep, so if this mixture worked, we might reasonably assume it was because of the lemon balm—but there’s an outside chance it could be that it only works in the presence of valerian (unlikely, but in science we must consider all possibilities).
Beyond that, we just have meta-reviews to work from, like this one that noted:
❝M. officinalis contains several phytochemicals such as phenolic acids, flavonoids, terpenoids, and many others at the basis of its pharmacological activities. Indeed, the plant can have antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antispasmodic, antimicrobial, neuroprotective, nephroprotective, antinociceptive effects.
Given its consolidated use, M. officinalis has also been experimented with clinical settings, demonstrating interesting properties against different human diseases, such as anxiety, sleeping difficulties, palpitation, hypertension, depression, dementia, infantile colic, bruxism, metabolic problems, Alzheimer’s disease, and sexual disorders. ❞
You see why we don’t try to cover everything here, by the way!
But if you want to read this one in full, you can, at:
An Updated Review on The Properties of Melissa officinalis L.: Not Exclusively Anti-anxiety
Is it safe?
Lemon balm is generally recognized as safe, and/but please check with your doctor/pharmacist in case of any contraindications due to medicines you may be on or conditions you may have.
Want to try some?
We don’t sell it, but here for your convenience is an example product on Amazon
Want to know your other options?
You might like our previous main features:
What Teas To Drink Before Bed (By Science!)
and
Safe Effective Sleep Aids For Seniors
Enjoy!
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Elderly loss of energy
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It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!
Have a question or a request? You can always hit “reply” to any of our emails, or use the feedback widget at the bottom!
In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!
As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, we’ll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, we’ll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!
So, no question/request too big or small
❝Please please give some information on elderly loss of energy and how it can be corrected. Please!❞
A lot of that is the metabolic slump described above! While we certainly wouldn’t describe 60 as elderly, and the health impacts from those changes at 45–55 get a gentler curve from 60 onwards… that curve is only going in one direction if we don’t take exceptionally good care of ourselves.
And of course, there’s also a degree of genetic lottery, and external factors we can’t entirely control (e.g. injuries etc).
One factor that gets overlooked a lot, though, is really easy to fix: B-vitamins.
In particular, vitamins B1, B5, B6, and B12. Of those, especially vitamins B1 and B12.
(Vitamins B5 and B6 are critical to health too, but relatively few people are deficient in those, while many are deficient in B1 and/or B12, especially as we get older)
Without going so detailed as to make this a main feature: these vitamins are essential for energy conversion from food, and they will make a big big difference.
You might especially want to consider taking sulbutiamine, which is a synthetic version of thiamin (vitamin B1), and instead of being water-soluble, it’s fat-soluble, and it easily crosses the blood-brain barrier, which is a big deal.
As ever, always check with your doctor because your needs/risks may be different. Also, there can be a lot of reasons for fatigue and you wouldn’t want to overlook something important.
You might also want to check out yesterday’s sponsor, as they offer personalized at-home health testing to check exactly this sort of thing.
❝What are natural ways to lose weight after 60? Taking into account bad knees or ankles, walking may be out as an exercise, running certainly is.❞
Losing weight is generally something that comes more from the kitchen than the gym, as most forms of exercise (except HIIT; see below) cause the metabolism to slow afterwards to compensate.
However, exercise is still very important, and swimming is a fine option if that’s available to you.
A word to the wise: people will often say “gentle activities, like tai chi or yoga”, and… These things are not the same.
Tai chi and yoga both focus on stability and suppleness, which are great, but:
- Yoga is based around mostly static self-support, often on the floor
- Tai chi will have you very often putting most of your weight on one slowly-increasingly bent knee at a time, and if you have bad knees, we’ll bet you winced while reading that.
So, maybe skip tai chi, or at least keep it to standing meditations and the like, not dynamic routines. Qigong, the same breathing exercises used in tai chi, is also an excellent way to improve your metabolism, by the way.
Ok, back onto HIIT:
You might like our previous article: How To Do HIIT* (Without Wrecking Your Body)
*High-Intensity Interval Training (the article also explains what this is and why you want to do it)
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Red Lentils vs Oats – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing red lentils to oats, we picked the oats.
Why?
In terms of macros, oats have more protein, carbs, fiber, and even a little fat—mostly healthy mono- and polyunsaturated fats, thus making them the more nutritionally dense. That said, red lentils have the lower glycemic index, (low GI compared to oats’ medium GI) which offsets that, so we’ll call this category a tie.
In the category of vitamins, red lentils have more of vitamins B6, B9, and choline, while oats have more of vitamins B1, B2, and B5. Another tie!
When it comes to minerals, however, we have a tiebreaker category: red lentils have more selenium, while oats have more calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, and zinc. An easy win for oats this time!
So, thanks to the minerals, oats are the clear winner in total. But by all means, enjoy either or both; diversity is good!
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
The Best Kind Of Fiber For Overall Health? ← it’s β-glucan, the kind find in oats!
Enjoy!
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Asparagus vs Eggplant – Which is Healthier?
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
Our Verdict
When comparing asparagus to eggplant, we picked the asparagus.
Why?
In terms of macros, they’re very similar. Technically asparagus has twice the protein, but it’s at 2.2g/100g compared to eggplant’s 0.98g/100g, so it’s not too meaningful. They’re both mostly water, low in carbs, with a little fiber, and negligible fat (though eggplant technically has more fat, but again, these numbers are miniscule). For practical purposes, the two vegetables are even in this category, or if you really want decisive answers, a tiny margin of a win for asparagus.
In the category of vitamins, asparagus is much higher in vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B9, E, & K, as well as choline. Eggplant is not higher in any vitamins. A clear win for asparagus.
When it comes to minerals, asparagus is much higher in calcium, copper, iron, phosphorus, selenium, and zinc, while eggplant is a little higher in manganese. Another easy win for asparagus.
Lastly, asparagus wins on polyphenols too, with its high quercetin content. Eggplant does contain some polyphenols, but in such tiny amounts that even added up they’re less than 7% of what asparagus has to offer in quercetin alone.
Obviously, enjoy both, though! Diversity is healthy.
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
Fight Inflammation & Protect Your Brain, With Quercetin
Take care!
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The Lost Art of Silence – by Sarah Anderson
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From “A Room Of One’s Own” to “Silent Mondays”, from spiritual retreats to noise-cancelling headphones, this book covers the many benefits of silence—and a couple of downsides too.
In an age where most things are available at the touch of a button, a little peaceful solitude can come at quite a premium, but what it offers can effect all manner of physical changes, from reduced stress responses to increased neurogenesis (growing new brain cells).
The tone throughout is a combination of personal and pop-science, and it’s very motivating to find a little more space-between-the-things in life.
The book is best enjoyed in a quiet room.
Bottom line: if you get the feeling sometimes that you could rest and recover fully and properly if you could just find the downtime, this book will help you find exactly that.
Click here to check out the Lost Art of Silence, and find peace and strength in it!
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