Have you noticed certain foods seem to be linked to hot flashes? Of course, you have. Round up the usual suspects—red wine, liquor, spicy foods. Do you also wonder if there are foods that might tame those devilish hot flashes instead? There are, but it’s not common knowledge. While you avoid the above hot flash instigators, no one tells you what you can eat and which foods might help extinguish the flames.
My path to finding this information was long. Sadly, I went through perimenopause when estrogen had a bad rap, so it was never prescribed despite hellish hot flashes, night sweats, and insomnia. For years I tried numerous remedies with minimal to no relief. After suffering with flushes well into menopause, I tried acupuncture. During my treatment, I shared that I had loved Chinese Meridian Therapy classes in massage school. Fortuitously, I also asked whether there was any diet I should be on and my practitioner introduced me to Chinese nutrition by recommending a book, Helping Ourselves by Daverick Leggett. That book was the springboard to delving more into Traditional Chinese Medicine, learning how to control my hot flashes, and later, writing The Hot Flash Diet (now in the find-an-agent phase). No hormones, no pills, no gimmicks, just making careful food choices.
Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) regards food as medicine whereas Western medicine tends to regard good nutrition as preventative of disease. Western nutritional science examines the protein, fat, carbohydrate, fiber, vitamin, mineral, and caloric content of a food to determine if it’s a healthy choice. In contrast, in Chinese nutrition, each food has a unique flavor profile and a specific thermal energy (“hot,” “warm,” “neutral,” “cool,” or “cold”) which defines how it might be used therapeutically. These thermal characteristics are the basis for the Hot Flash Diet™.
The thermal properties of foods and Chinese herbs have been defined over millennia of Oriental Medicine practice and choosing the right foods will calm or control the frequency, duration, and intensity of hot flashes. This diet is not intuitive—you might expect a chili pepper to be “hot,” but who would think that a cold-water fish like trout would also be a “hot” food? For the book I created lists: “hot” foods to avoid, “warm” foods to eat less of, and “cooling” foods you can eat more of. The diet uses stepwise instructions, and for many, following the first few steps may be all it takes to quell those flashes. If you choose to eat a prohibited food, you would add “cooler” ingredients to a meal to balance that desired “hot” or “warm” food. The book’s meal plans and recipes illustrate these principles. To grow interest and help those who are currently having hot flashes and night sweats, upcoming posts will reveal “more “hot” foods to avoid, suggest “cooler” foods to eat, share recipes, and discuss coincidental issues pertinent to the menopause transition.
Traditional Chinese Medicine nutritional recommendations are complicated and not easy to explain to the lay public during an office visit or with a handout. Not surprisingly, Chinese nutrition has not made it onto the Western medicine radar screen, so there have been no evaluations of TCM food therapies outside of East Asia. The closest approximation has been a recent study evaluating the effect of a low-fat vegan diet with two daily servings of soybeans which did indeed show significant improvement of hot flashes.[1] The Hot Flash Diet™ is neither low-fat vegan nor requires eating soybean products. Instead, it guides you regarding meat, fish, and dairy choices and recommends eating “cooler,” often plant-based foods. In short, the Hot Flash Diet™ is based on whole foods, encourages reducing caffeine and alcohol, and by Western standards, is also healthier for you. Stay tuned.
[1] Neal D. Barnard et al., “A Dietary Intervention for Vasomotor Symptoms of Menopause: A Randomized, Controlled Trial,” Menopause, n.d., 10.1097/GME.0000000000002080, https://doi.org/10.1097/GME.0000000000002080.
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