I hear from lots of people every day who are concerned about how their diet is affecting their health.

They need answers based on facts, in other words, from the peer-reviewed medical literature, and that is what I'm here for.

Welcome to the Nutrition Facts Podcast.

I'm your host, Dr. Michael Greger.

Today we discover that anatomy may not be destiny. It turns out in some

countries 85% of menopausal women suffer hot flashes but in other countries

that numbers only 15%. Here's our first story.

Swan, which stands for study of women's health across the nation, is by far the largest evaluation of

menopausal symptoms in history. studying 16,000 American women between the ages of 40 and 55.

They found that women over a body mass index of 27 or higher were significantly more likely to suffer from hot flashes or

night sweats, stiffness or soreness, and urinary leakage. A BMI over 25 is considered

overweight to 30 obese in the average US BMI?

29.8.

Since fatty tissue is a source for estrogen,

one might expect the reverse,

but the link between excess body fat and worse menopausal symptoms indeed seems causal,

since women randomized to a weed loss intervention experienced significant improvement in hot flashes and effect that may extend to bariatric surgery. In the swan study, smoking and inactivity were also associated with more frequent symptoms.

It's always a good idea to quit smoking and exercise, but there are no interventional trials on smoking cessation and menopausal symptoms to prove cause and effect and randomized controlled trials of exercise failed to show any symptom relief. Of course you could just take hormone therapy,

but at the cost of significantly higher risk of suffering heart attack, stroke, blood clot,

breast cancer, or gallbladder disease.

What can we do naturally to avoid the extra clots in cancer?

Hot flashes, also referred to as hot flushes,

...