While menopause is considered a normal part of aging, it can feel anything but.

What’s normal about everything changing — from your mood and ability to sleep to your sex drive, not to mention the hot flashes, night sweats and weight gain?

There are a few ways a woman can choose to handle the effects of diminishing hormones through the transition, including medication or supplements that may ease symptoms.

But we can’t change the fact that it’s an inevitable part of life — or exactly when we’ll experience it.

The menopausal transition most often begins between the ages of 45 and 55 and usually lasts about seven years.

But because of increasing exposure to heavy metals, our ovaries — the source of those precious hormones — are aging faster and setting us up not only for a difficult transition but health problems down the road…

Speeding up the ovaries’ biological clock

Researchers from the University of Michigan studied 549 middle-aged women whose urine samples contained heavy metals — including arsenic, cadmium, mercury or lead.

Those particular heavy metals are extremely common and found in drinking water, air pollution and food. They’re considered endocrine-disrupting chemicals — and that spells big trouble for hormones…

Previous studies have linked heavy metals with women’s reproductive aging and diminished ovarian reserve — a condition where a woman’s egg stores diminish more rapidly than normal. Researchers say it’s also linked to more pronounced vasomotor symptoms, weak bones — and a higher risk of heart disease.

So the U of M team decided to compare the women’s heavy metals levels to their Anti-Müllerian hormone levels, or AMH.

AMH levels correspond to a woman’s egg count. That makes an AMH test the equivalent of the proverbial, and literal, biological clock all women are familiar with.

The results showed that women with higher levels of heavy metal in their urine were significantly more likely to have lower AMH levels — indicating diminished ovarian reserve — up to 10 years before their final menstrual period.

The researchers concluded that, “Metals, including arsenic and cadmium, possess endocrine disrupting characteristics and may be potentially toxic to the ovaries.”

Reducing the threat of heavy metals

If you’ve entered menopause, doing something about your potential exposure to heavy metals won’t turn your biological clock back.

But you should consider how heavy metals can increase your risk for heart trouble during a time when that threat is already elevated — even more so if you entered menopause at an earlier age.

In 2021, the American Heart Association released what they call a “scientific statement” stressing the importance of integrating early intervention strategies for good cardiovascular health — especially during midlife and during menopause.

Those strategies include diet and exercise and living a healthy lifestyle. And should include reducing the threat of heavy metal exposure, in my opinion. Because, women’s ovaries aside, some heavy metals have already been deemed worse on your heart than smoking or cholesterol.

That’s why I believe everyone should know about a proven treatment to quickly eliminate heavy metals from the bloodstream…

Chelation is the process of using what’s known as a chelating agent to chemically bind onto heavy metals in the bloodstream so that they can be excreted as waste, through urine.  

The use of EDTA (ethylene diamine tetra-acetic acid) as a lead chelating agent was first introduced to treat lead poisoning in employees of battery factories and then in sailors exposed to lead paint on ships during WWII. But EDTA can also bind to mercury, cadmium, arsenic, aluminum and nickel.

And while other compounds can be used as natural heavy metal chelators, the most well-known is EDTA.

In cases of acute heavy metal poisoning, EDTA chelation can be done through IV, but it’s also available in supplement form. You can read more about its other benefits here. And I’ve included a link to a book on Chelation, below.

But don’t forget to reduce exposure from the daily sources you can find listed here.