It's not natural to eat processed food.

It's not natural to eat anything synthetic that doesn't exist in nature.

It's not natural to forego the important foods that can help balance your hormones.

It's not natural to go without physical exercise.

It's not natural to live in a polluted environment.

Almost all this "unnaturalness" is imposed from without--from the polluted environment, the stress of maintaining two-income households, eating processed food for convenience, or getting less exercise due to labor-saving devices. But these factors have a negative impact on a woman's hormonal balance and overall health, and may ultimately be linked to her seemingly "sudden" menopausal symptoms and "sudden" ill health.

The underlying impulse to stay "natural" is a good one, but women who are saying this may not be thinking the issue through. How far would you be willing to take the "It's not natural" idea? Does this mean saying no to lotion for dry skin? No to lubrication for sexual comfort? No to vitamins? Staying "natural" need not mean rejecting the use of beneficial and safe products to counteract the toxicity of our environment and food supply and help balance hormonal function.

Many of the women who resist the idea of taking anything at menopause don't realize that at the same time they may be unquestioningly taking a variety of prescription drugs, such as the acid blockers Zantac and Tagamet, which are potentially harmful and hardly natural.

If saying "I'm not going to do anything for menopause, it's not natural" is just providing yourself with an excuse to stop taking care of yourself, well, unfortunately, there's nothing we can do to stop you. But acceptance of a normal and important passage of your life is not the same thing as giving in to aging--that is, allowing yourself to slowly balloon out, forget about sexuality, and then eventually sit down for good.

There are women who believe that God meant us to have low hormonal levels after a certain age, so that's how it should be. But think about this: Many Japanese women on their traditional diet have phytoestrogen levels in their urine that are 1,000 times higher than those of U.S. women. This high excretion level means that their diet is so rich in beneficial plant food that all during their lives they have been "supplementing" their hormones naturally. When these women reach menopausal age, they don't have the symptoms so common to Western women. And if this were not reason enough to follow such a diet, these women rarely get breast cancer.(6)

The plants are much smarter than the man-made synthetics. They help you to up-regulate and down-regulate your hormone levels naturally. Unlike Premarin, which contains estrogens that are foreign to your body, and which may slow down the process of excretion, the plant substances are excreted very quickly. This is important because the longer an estrogen foriegn to humans stays in the body, the more opportunity it has to cause you problems in the form of side effects.

Our need for hormones continues through our lifetimes. So yes, menstruation will cease, yes, your ovaries will no longer be producing estrogen and progesterone the way they used to--but hormones will still play a very important part in maintaining your bodily functions. And keeping their levels appropriate and balanced with diet and supplementation will support you healthfully and vitally through old age.