The advice and informational content does not necessarily represent the views of mother's market and kitchen mother's recommends consulting your health professional for your personal medical condition. Latimer King and welcome to the mother's market radio show, a show dedicated to the Truth, Beauty and Goodness of the human condition. On today's show, time flies when you're having fun, and it seems things go by a bit quicker, just as we get older, well, ladies, today we can learn how to slow down the aging process a bit the natural way, plus later will tell you what's going on around town and what's new at mother's market, but first step, joining us today is nutritional consultant and certified natural health professional, Valerie Hall, Valerie appears in front of thousands of people each year and speaks out on a variety of topics, as well as giving many seminars at mother's market welcome back, Valerie, how are you?

Great, wonderful to be back with you, Kim.

It's great to see you. And before we get to today's topic, please fill our audience on your background in nutrition... Well, I love the things that I've been able to learn over the years and sharing those with others, I've been studying nutrition for about 20 years now, I've had my own radio show for seven years and started doing educational and more full-time back in 2004, so I love it in every way.

Excellent, well, we love having you here, and today we're going to talk about how to achieve better hormone balance for women and some specific help for common health concerns, and why does it seem that so many people are suffering with hormonal problems?

Well, there are some big issues with what they call Zeno estrogens, which means foreign estrogens and estrogenic-like substances that we come in contact with from so many different areas, things like hormones in our meat and dairy can disrupt our own hormone balance, they call them hormone disruptors or endocrine disruptors there, be found in pesticides, body lotions, skin care kind of stuff. If it's not natural, you're getting a lot of hormone disruptors in there, so go with natural skin care, very helpful, even shampoos and conditioners can have hormone disruptors, anti-perpetrate cosmetics, nail polish, air freshness, which I call air toxics, if they're not good... You know, the best way to get and your air fresh and in your home is to get one of those wonderful essential oil diffusers that you can pick up at mother's market, and then get some essential oils, and you can change the fragrance all the time if you like calming for lavender or peppermint, or maybe cinnamon or Pine in the holiday times, things like that, way healthier for us than anything that you are gonna spray or plug in or something like that.

Dry cleaning and dryer sheets also have hormone disruptors in them for us, Plastics, some of the rules about plastics, never make your plastic really hot or cold, so you don't wanna microwave things in plastic, even those TV dinners that come in a plastic tray, put them in glass and I would prefer that they're cooked in the oven actually, but even if you're gonna make rate, make sure you put them in class and don't just microwave them in plastic, and don't put your water bottles in the trunk of your car where they're gonna get hot more of the toxic plastic residue will get into the water that way, and then also, don't put your water bottles in the freezer either because more of the toxins will get into the water that way, so you wanna be a little careful with your plastics.

I actually have some reusable water bottles that are glass that I use and I can refill them with my little river osmosis system at the kitchen sink, and then I can keep them in the car, and it doesn't matter if they get hot because they're glass and not plastic, so that's a really nice little strategy there, and a lot of household cleaning products have hormone disruptors, things like furniture polish and pesticides, of course, we don't wanna do those, but we've got a lot of different things in there, ammonia and bleach-based products can really disrupt our hormones, so in Styrofoam, fortunately, some cities are actually making styrofoam illegal, so hopefully in the future or younger children in our family will say, What typhoon, that's something that used to be around. And it's not anymore, I think, Evans, but all of these can set us up for hormone dibble, especially something called estrogen dominance, anybody can have estrogen dominance, it can even affect men and it can affect children, but women who get estrogen dominance because of all these foreign estrogen like substances that are out there end up having a whole host of symptoms, very painful menstrual cycles, a lot of irritability, really difficulties with mood in the week before their cycle, things like that can all be symptoms and even abnormal cell growth, all of those can be symptoms of estrogen dominance.

So we wanna keep these hormones balanced, and I think that's really a big key for women's health in general, and feeling good.Fascinating, I had no idea all of this was into Plague and I've never really even heard of estrogen dominance, so... Interesting. Are there food that can also give us some protection from these toxic foreign estrogens... Absolutely, there are things like broccoli sprouts, there are several different nutrients, dim, which they call dim in duty carbonyl, and a lot of these come from cruisers vegetables, and they help us to clear some of these toxins, of course, we wanna make sure that we are using products around the house that aren't contributing to that. So some of the little substitutes I... Like I talked about, using the diffuser instead of the air freshness, you can use instead of pesticides around the house, use diatomic OS-earth. It's a very fine powder, and it's not poisonous, but it clogs up the breathing apparatus of insects, so it kinda smothers them, and that's how it... But it's great if you have silver fish or anything around the kitchen, you can put it on the baseboards or inside the cabinets, you can rub it on your pets on your cats and dogs as a fleet killer, and then when they lick it, it will also help to address any internal parasites that they have, so it's really very good for them as well, and then there are a lot of other things you can use, so baking soda makes a great like a scrubber instead of the regular cleanser, and vinegar is an excellent cleaning solution for countertops, for glass, things like that, so you've got a lot of non-toxic options, you can use those essential oils I talked about, put them on a little rag and throw them in the dryer instead of a dryer sheet, and you get a little smell and it also breaks up the static kind of thing that's... So we're not getting the toxins from the dryer sheets, and if you have to have something dry cleaned when you get it home, take it out of that bag and hang it outside for a while if you can, so that it airs out, and that will at least diminish the impact of that, and then use glass instead of plastic, as I talked about before, so those are some of the nice little strategies, food-wise, I always recommend that we eat real whole natural food whenever possible.

When I look at a package, if there's anything on that ingredient list that I can't pronounce, I don't wanna eat, it is a great rule of thumb right there, a short simple lists of ingredients with words you understand, and it's always a dollar well spent to buy organic whether you're looking at produce, whether you're looking at dairy, whether you're looking at coffee or tea, anything that you can get organic is going to have more nutrients and less toxins for us, so we can avoid a lot of those pesticides that are disrupting our hormones when we go with organics.

So natural body care, there's tons of wonderful natural body care, natural makeup, natural deodorants, and natural cleaning products, all available at mother's market, they have a fabulous body care section and stuff that really works, wonderful products that get rid of wrinkles. I particularly love the an Mary Borland line of skin care. They have there, it's fabulous. One of my favorite deodorants I've found is an lover-based one called Alvar, and it works. I never... Well, that's good, that's what... We invited you Battelle.

Thank you, I do. That would pay off stelae.

And then also, they've got some great shampoos and conditioners, I've used one called BRU boo made from beer. That's lovely.

And another one I like is called the seaweed Bath company, they have lovely shampoos, conditioners body washes, by the way, looking for natural soaps. I had an interesting adventure doing that not too long ago, I kept looking for a natural soap that wouldn't drive my skin, 'cause my skin's fairly dry anyway, and I'm in my mid-50s, so you know, I wanted a moisturizing soap, and it was really hard to find one, and I found out that the bar soaps that are natural are not very mistress in, there's not a single one of the bar comes that is most rising, but a lot of the liquid soaps, the body washes that are natural, are actually quite good for you and much more moisturizing. So there's a new one out called The African Black African soap, and they've got a lot of very moisturizing one, so I've turned to that instead... That works really well.

That's a great kid, but I went through 20 bar soaps before I discriminatory with it it... Do drill, we'll let you be anything always like to get my big everything you know, before I talk about... Before I write a consumer seminar, I try out the products for it, and I waited until I went through menopause before I wrote a women's health seminar on that because I wanted to try all the things and a lot of the things I had read about for years weren't really working that great, and other things were working really well, so I was able to find tune things, and I always like to try things out anyway in my own best, anything. And that's great. And do you put all of that information on your website? But I have a lot, I need to put the papers on the website, that's one of the things I wanna do is get all my papers available for download on that website, so thank you for reminding me of your teeth to do it at all into the bottom Oh no, I gotta push it back up to the top of the to-do list.

Well, I'll keep you that. I'll keep you accountable. How about that?

Well, this is interesting information and yeah, we're talking about women's health and we're gonna take a quick break, but we will be right back with more information with Valerie Hall.

And welcome back to the mother's market radio show. And we wanna remind you that if you've missed any portion of today's show, you can find us on iTunes by searching mother's market or download the show from our website, mother's market dot com, click the link for radio and listen to the past shows, plus download our Healthy Recipes and money savings coupons, all available at mother's market dot com. And now back to our interview with nutritional consultant, Valerie Hall, and we're talking about hormones, and since hormone balance is such a challenge for so many women, Valerie, tell us about the supplements that we can support that have natural balance.

What are the areas where we can really support ourselves is in the liver, the liver is really responsible for, we conjugate a lot of our hormones right through the liver, so the state of our liver really governs a lot of things. I was at a seminar many years ago, and the guy said that the liver is the organ that governs how quickly we age, no, so good to take care of our liver, some herbs that are great for that, milk thistle is a really well-known herb for the liver Dandelion. I did an herb class once, and the guy was just... He said, I never pulled dandelions from my yard, he ate the greens and boiled the roots and did a one of things with the Dandelion... Great for the liver. So yes, they are used to little plants, not just pessimist, and... So those are really helpful. There are a lot of other great herbs that can really help us with hormone balance, and let's start with help for some of the younger women who might be having... Still having a natural cycle, and sometimes even young girls have feelings of mood Ines, stress and irritability before their cycle, it can include low back pain, bloating and breast tenderness, and it's just not any fun at all when all that stuff kicks in. One of my favorite herbal combinations for these issues is called female Harmony because it contains a lot of herbs that really help us to balance herbs to calm and soothe like ash Wakanda as Ganda is a fantastic herb to feed the adrenal glands and the thyroid. So it really helps to get to the root of that endocrine system at hormonal system by feeding those very vital organs, Asiana is also very calming and excellent for helping us feel less stress, oat straw is another calming urban so as chamomile, other herbs included in this formula include hormone balancers, Don, qui, Samaria and Diana. And those three are great to help balance the hormones, sometimes they help us a little bit in creating more progesterone, and so estrogen dominance that we discussed earlier means that your estrogen is way up relative to your other hormones, like for women, progesterone, for example. And so those two should be more in balance, and sometimes taking these herbs that promote more progesterone production help to balance out the estrogen dominance, and then we also wanna keep that live or nice and healthy to clear any toxic estrogens that might be happening.

Fiber and water are also great cleaners for us and great ways to help clear any potentially toxic estrogens as well, and then some of the other herbs in this formula called female harmony include things that regulate the menstrual flow, like seaweed, that really helps with the loading and the tenderness, nettles and Brock route. I love this line, it's by Crystal star herbs, and that line has been around since 1979, a company just doesn't last that long unless their formulas work, and they have some amazing Women's formulas, and this one called female harmony, for anyone who's got those imbalances that lead to a lot of that irritability and the bloating and stress before the menstrual cycle begins, this is an excellent one for any age woman who's doing that, whether she's a teenager who just started her menstrual cycle or sometimes even up all the way to menopause, women are suffering with these types of issues, so that can be used for a lot of different women to really give them a lot more comfort... Oh, that's great.

But just kind of a question, when you were talking about keeping the liver clean, would you ever recommend a cleanse for women, you know genes are interesting, and my concern about some people do a cleanse where they just drink water for a few days, I don't think that's healthy for the body of God, to be giving yourself some vegetable juices, some nutritional support while you cleanse, the cleansed products on the market are getting better and better, and there are some very nice... So for a simple plans, Michael's naturopathic programs has some that are just some pills that you take with every meal, and they have a one or a two-week program that you can find at mothers, and those are great for something a little more intensive. Natural factors has a seven-day cleanse, which has some canisters of drink mixes that you make along with some pills that you do for a seven-day detox.

So I wanna make sure that people are getting enough nutrition while they do a cleanse, because otherwise I think it can... People can start to lose muscle mass too quickly, I talked to a lady not too long ago, and she had done a week-long fast every other year or so for her entire life, and always felt good doing it, but now she was in her late 60s and that one week fast made her lose a lot of muscle mass and she had never experienced that before, so our bodies change over the years, and we really have to make sure that we're hanging on to that muscle mass as we get older, because a lot of things collagen, and for women after menopause, we lose 30% of our skins collagen in the first five years after menopause, not... So for that kind of issue, I like things like silica products or college in one and three, those can be excellent to help keep our connective to shoestring, keep our skin strong and keep the College and Matrix and our skin strong. Really important as well.

Yeah, that's... That we don't even really think about, but... Those are the numbers. Yes, that's a really high number. Right now, let me ask you about women who have a painful menstrual cycle, you know, a lot of women really suffer from that, and that can also be a symptom of that estrogen dominance that we've been discussing, and there are some really good formulas on the marketplace, and Crystal star has another one I like called Women's best friend, what an appropriately named product, and it's especially designed for women who have a really painful menstrual, heavy bleeding, maybe a cycle that goes on too long or starts and stops too many times throughout the month. It has herbs to help relax cramping, there's one called Cranbury, another really well-named Herb pane root and blessed this, all those all help to relax the cramping, and then they have different herbs to regulate the menstrual, Ramana, false unicorn and red raspberry can help with women who have a heavy menstrual flow, which becomes very common in the five years or so prior to menopause, a lot of women see changes in their cycle before menopause, occasionally it gets lighter, but much more often, it gets more heavy, so this could be a very helpful formula there as well, and then this formula has herbs to address swelling and comfort, Jamaican Dogwood is one of the best analgesic herbs around, and it really helps us to feel a lot more comfortable. Ginger is in this formula, and there's a specific kind of enzyme called protease, which is a protein digestive enzyme, and it targets swollen tissue and also cells that are a little abnormal in their growth, so it's a really nice combination formula called Best Friend. Lots of good liver support in this formula and hormone balancing herbs as well, so for women who are having a painful menstrual cycle, this is revolutionary, my daughter, my older daughter had issues with this for many years, and I had had her on a lot of other very helpful things like fish oil and magnesium, which can be very helpful, but when I got her on this particular formula, she is feeling so better now, and sometimes if women have a lot of issues going on, they can take this on going every day, or they can just if it's just during that cycle that they have a real hard time, then they can just take it during their cycle, so it can be really kind of adjusted from person to person, depending on what they are looking for in thin terms of relief and how difficult their issues are... And that's the other question I wanted to ask you. Do you take it just during that cycle or all the way through... Right, exactly. If someone has an underlying issue that is causing a lot of that heavy bleeding, then I would definitely recommend that they do it ongoing, and whereas if someone just is having some painful menstrual cycle problems than perhaps just during that cycle would be enough.

Okay, and finally, you didn't talk about menopause, that's what we've been talking about, but what can we do make our transition into mid-life more comfortable?

Well, there are a lot of great things that we can do. First of all, a lot of caffeine can be over-stimulating and can really drive a lot of hot flashes, coffee and chocolate can be overly stimulating.

Done it.

Oh, I know, I'm sorry, Catalan partner.

Exactly. And Chuck, that's one of those things. Well, you read so many conflicting things on it, it's good for you, it's not good to... Of course, the darker the chocolate, the better we do know that much, and it can have some antioxidants, but when it comes to hot flashes, it sometimes is a trigger.

When I started going through menopause, I noticed a big trigger for me was stress, if I were running late for something, boom, push, it was like someone turned the oven up to 500 degrees, it was just awful.

Some of the other herbs that I have found really helpful. MOKA is a fantastic herb that helps to feed all of our different organs that govern the hormonal system, so maka is food for the adrenal glands, food for the thyroid, food for the pituitary, and food for the hypothalamus, and so that's what they call the endocrine axis, and when we support all of those, then they can balance themselves out a lot better, and a lot of these women's formulas by Crystal star herbs contain Marian also get marca as an individual herb.

So Mark is a really cool one.

Walking is also very helpful for women as they head into menopause, even 20 minutes a day is gonna be helpful and might help to decrease those hot flashes, decrease the caffeine and sugar because they really drain the adrenal glands.Adrenal support is so important as we head into midlife for both men and women, the little adrenal glands should be about the size of a walnut, and they sit on top of our kidneys in our back, and there are the hormone power plants. And so when we start to slow down in mid-life, so for women, when our ovary slow down on manufacturing estrogen and progesterone, and for men when their testes slow down on manufacturing testosterone, the adrenal glands is supposed to pick up and make more of those things they have the capacity to do that. And too often in this country, by the time we hit 45 or 50 years old, our little adrenal glands are stressed out to the max, and they're not up to the task, the things that stress our adrenal glands include stress itself, caffeine, sugar and alcohol, so all of us get exposed to plenty of that stuff and we end up having adrenal fatigue or full-on adrenal exhaustion, and then our transition through mid-life is way worse if our adrenal glands aren't up to helping us. It's way worse. So some of the adrenal herbs, which are found in this formula, and you can find them in other great adrenal formulas as well, include things like rodeo and ashokan, and Siberian Luther and holy basil. Boy, there's a bunch of great herbs that really help to support those adrenal glands, is one called Suma from Latin America, so there's lots of cool things that we can do to really help this.

So adrenal support is great, and Crystal star herbs has one called easy change formula for women, which has a variety of herbal supports and it's also safe for long-term use.

I like one, 'cause women can use this ongoing, it has some support for the skeletal system and the cardiovascular system as well, which are things that become more important for us after menopause, we are more at risk for those type of problems, and it has an herb called Black coho, black co-hash has been studied for decades, and it is often used to regulate temperature so it can help cool us down when we're having those hot flashes and night sweats.Skull cap is another one that's really good, it's very calming and great for hot flash relief, the Siberian Luther and liquorice root in this formula give us wonderful adrenal support, so there's those really all important adrenal glands.

I love this... One of the things I like about this company, it was formulated by Linda page, she's a naturopathic doctor, she had her own health crisis back in the 1970s, and the medical establishment was failing her, and so she went to some natural medicine practitioners and herbs saved her life. So she became a master herbalist, a naturopathic doctor. She's written a great book called Healthy healing, which was really our first reference book in the natural health industry, and she has this fantastic line called Crystal star, the way she formulates its so interesting, all of her herbs are either wild crafted or certified organic, and she really does a beautiful job with getting to the root cause of the problem and giving a lot of symptomatic relief, so hormone balances in here, you've got your down qua, your wild yam and savoia, and that's all in this easy change formula. Damian and Nett really help with energy. Rosemary is a brain booster for brain fog...

Oh, we don't want that either.

What was that one day?

Exactly. Rose, Mary.

So we can also use Rose Merian our food.

And so I really like a multi-layered approach of her herbal formulas, they address a lot of different symptoms very effectively, and I'm a huge fan, I use a number of her products myself and they work very well.

Excellent, well, this has been very interesting as always, Valerie, thank you so much for your time and we really appreciate your knowledge and we look forward to having you on again, but in the meantime, you can get more information on Valerie and your website is Valerie Hall nutrition dot-com and learn more about your natural approach to making us all healthier.

Excellent, thank you so much, Jim, thank you, have a great day.

Thanks for listening to the mother's market radio show. And for shopping at mother's market, the advice and informational content does not necessarily represent the views of mother's market and kitchen, mother's recommends consulting your health professional for your personal medical condition,