Many women realize that drugs are not the only answer for a woman during menopause. Diet, lifestyle changes, and Alternative Medicine have been proven for centuries throughout the world to benefit a woman's overall health, even enhancing the effectiveness of conventional medical treatment during menopause and into the later years.

Conventional and alternative medicine have same goal- to relieve a woman's discomfort during the transitional years of menopause and help her to achieve optimal health during menopause and into her later years of life. The differences between conventional and alternative medicine begin with their approaches.

Conventional medicine often considers menopause as a hormone-deficiency disorder and attempts to correct the imbalances that develop within a woman's hormonal system during and after menopause.

The alternative medical approach focuses on strengthening the female body by encouraging it to balance, regulate, and normalize itself during the transition to menopause. Alternative treatments during menopause usually favor non-drug therapies.

They shift the emphasis from HRT to natural ways of encouraging the body to balance and heal itself. They focus on dietary, nutritional, and lifestyle changes supplemented by therapies such as acupuncture, herbs, and homeopathic remedies that have been shown to be effective.

Specific dietary and nutritional changes with nutritional and herbal supplements have been shown to alleviate the discomforts of menopause: hot flashes, night sweats, heart palpitations, and vaginal dryness, as well as to reduce the risk of osteoporosis and heart disease. Natural therapies avoid side effects and the risks of prescription hormone replacement.