Maca root for peri and menopause - useful read ..

I have used Maca ( rainforest) 5.1 for years.. 

it was the very first supplement i took in early peri and continued ..

heres a very interesting read 

its an interview with Hugo Malaspina MD about Maca and Menopause how good it is..

On May 20, 1997, Dr. Hugo Malaspina, who practiced for years as a neurologist before beginning a practice based on complementary medicine involving the use of herbs, agreed to be interviewed by Viana Muller, Ph.D., Founder, Whole World Botanicals on his use of the herb maca(tm) (Lepidiium meyenii/peruvianum) in his practice.

VM: How did you first hear about maca?

Dr M: The first contact I had with maca was seven years ago. There was a circle of elderly gentlemen, a bit playful, who wanted to maintain their sexual activity. Well, one of them had heard about the properties of maca, and so at their social get-togethers, they began to consume maca together. Within this circle was an 88 year-old gentleman, who had a sexual relationship once a week, and he was able to perform. And they all had their sexual relationships going well, which was notable since they were all above 70 years in age.

VM: You have told me that you use maca in your practice for perimenopausal and postmenopausal women. What are the benefits of this?

Dr M: I can tell you the following: the women who use maca are not going to have peri-menopausal symptoms. I have seen this in many patients, but, of course, that is not enough. What is needed is a double-blind study with a control group. But I am absolutely certain that maca can substitute perfectly for nature herself-or, rather, not substitute but continue nature, because the mechanism of action is simple. Because it is not acting from outside-from introducing something into the body from outside-that is, introducing hormones into the body. In some cases, this may be necessary, but in general-no. It is only necessary to see to it that the ovaries do not completely atrophy. So that the ovaries continue to produce more than the minimum amount of estrogen necessary, in order that we don't run into problems later. And if the ovaries have been removed from the body, so that the adrenal glands can be in the condition to continue to produce the minimum quantity of estrogen necessary to avoid problems.

VM: Oh, it works on women who've had hysterectomies? That's important, because I've read that more than one million women in the U.S. have had complete hysterectomies-and they no longer have their ovaries. It's really an abuse of the doctors to so regularly remove a woman's ovaries.

Dr M: Yes, that's true. And then it becomes necessary to use hormone replacement therapy, which carried its own risks,and its own economic benefits (for the pharmaceutical companies)! That's why it's difficult to find a scientific group to finance a study of the use of maca in place of hormone replacement therapy. Because the study would kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.

There are different medicinal plants that work in different ways on the ovaries-that stimulate them. Maca is one of them, but we should use the word "regulate" the ovarian function instead of "stimulate." Maca regulates the organs of internal secretion, such as the pituitary, the adrenal glands, the pancreas, etc.

VM: What scientific information is available on maca?

Dr M: In addition to the information we have from Dr. Chacon, there has also been scientific research from some North American and English scientist who were studying all of the pathologies of people living at high altitudes-that is, about 4,000 meters. These are precisely the people who cultivate maca because this is where maca is grown. Well, they observed that the women there had no post-menopausal problems. Something that they thought was quite exceptional.

VM: What types of problems

Dr M: The typical problems of hot flashes, depression, osteoporosis, cardiac circulatory problems, etc.-all of the problems are much more evident now than in previous generations, because after menopause women use to live maybe 15 or 20 years more. Now they regularly live another 25 or 30 years more.

VM: Do you know how much maca these women were eating? If you translate what they were eating into dry powdered maca, for example, how many teaspoons were they eating?

Dr M: Well, one small dried plant root equals about one teaspoon of dried powdered root. Let's say, about one teaspoon 3 times a day. For perimenopausal women-that is, women who are anovulatory. For these women, to use hormones derived from an outside source causes their ovaries to effectively atrophy. Because later they stop producing hormones. The fact that there is a sufficient level of hormones in the blood sends a message to the pituitary and the hypothalamus indicating that there is a sufficient quantity of hormones in the body, and for that reason they can stop producing them. And then when menopause arrives, there is almost a complete atrophy of the ovaries, which means that there is practically an absence of estrogen in the body-which then causes all of these other symptoms. Because the body requires a minimum amount of estrogen and progesterone in the body in order to maintain a functional equilibrium in the body. So, everything has stopped. Then the woman needs a continuous hormone replacement therapy since her own body no longer puts out its own hormones. For this reason, we are giving maca to women who are perimenopausal or who are just starting menopause. Maca from what we have observed of its effects, by the results we have obtained, has a type of stimulating effect on the ovaries- the minimum quantity that is necessary.

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