Living Better During Menopause Advice from Isabelle Huot and Dr

“Living Better During Menopause”: Advice from Isabelle Huot and Dr. Lyne Desautels

Isabelle Huot, doctor of nutrition and key figure in well-being, has teamed up with DD Lyne Desautels, GP specializing in bioidentical hormone therapy, to write an insightful and timely book, Better to live the menopause. These two experts explain this inevitable phenomenon in women’s lives, describe the unpleasant symptoms that characterize it and provide keys to better overcome it. Both hormone therapy and targeted foods to improve daily life are covered.

The obligatory transition to menopause leads to a hormonal imbalance and with this imbalance a whole host of annoying symptoms: hot flashes, night sweats, insomnia, weight gain, irritability, sexual difficulties, skin aging, cognitive decline. Great painting, isn’t it?

Fortunately, there are solutions to minimize these symptoms: hormone therapy and a healthy diet.

In the book, Isabelle Huot and Dr. Lyne Desautels describes the phases of menopause, the role of hormones and what differentiates synthetic hormones from bioidentical hormones. They walk around the question and offer concrete tools to help women find harmony in this whole hormonal storm.

Isabelle Huot has wanted to deal with this topic for a long time.

“In the clinic, I saw menopausal women who were freaking out, who had all the physical, psychological, and cognitive symptoms that come with the hormone drop. I want to offer these women solutions,” she explains in an interview.

“I experienced it very intensely myself, because I had one ovary removed when I was 22 and a second in my mid-30s. I always had hormonal problems and their consequences [qui viennent avec]. I turned to dr. Lyne Desautels and said to her: Help me to help women with concrete means that address this phase of life where all symptoms seem to be omnipresent.”

Change diet

Isabelle Huot has advice for women to get better.

“With the knowledge we have today, we can relieve women with food and use hormone therapy to ensure that it is a comfortable time. After the menopause, a third of our lives pass, or even a little more, because life expectancy is increasing.

On the nutrition side, the expert recommends including phytoestrogens — estrogens naturally occurring in foods — in your daily diet.

“The first step is to add soy and its derivatives, for example edamame beans, tofu, tempeh, toasted soy nuts. That equates to maybe half a cup of edamame beans a day.”

She also suggests adding flaxseed daily.

“In flaxseed we have an advantage that chia seeds don’t have: phytoestrogens.”

Since menopause is also expected to bring about an increase in belly fat, Isabelle Huot recommends adopting a plant-based rather than meat-based diet, adopting a Mediterranean diet and cutting down on processed foods.

“You really need to think about your heart health, monitor your cholesterol levels, incorporate soluble fiber, eat more plants, and reduce your red meat consumption,” she adds.

web program

Parallel to the book, Isabelle Huot has set up an eight-week web program with Chantal Lacroix: SOS Menopause.

This program offers women support and access to the advice of nine experts, including Dr. Desautels, a psychologist, a sexologist and a kinesiologist.

“You will support women in a process of change. We will work symptom by symptom. Women will be able to talk to each other.”

EXTRACT

Better to live the menopause.  Isabelle Huot and Dr.  Lyne Desautels.  Editions de l'Homme, 256 pages

Photo courtesy of Les Éditions de l’Homme

Better to live the menopause. Isabelle Huot and Dr. Lyne Desautels. Editions de l’Homme, 256 pages

“I’ve always had hormonal issues. My first period came late, around the age of 16, and I only had one or two periods a year. When I turned 20, a giant dermoid cyst was discovered on my right ovary. It had reached the size of a grapefruit! I then underwent my first oophorectomy. A few years later my left ovary was also affected and I had a second operation at the age of 38. Although my gynecologist at the time thought I had ovarian cancer, the biopsy showed the mass to be benign. What a relief ! My specialist also took care of getting a small piece of my ovary in the hope that this would be enough to produce a little hormone and thus avoid menopause before the age of 40.