Happy #InternationalWomensDay
Let’s talk for a moment about why women’s health is so important.
Women, and especially black women, experience unique health challenges and are more likely to be diagnosed with certain diseases than men. Chronic diseases and conditions, such as heart disease, cancer, and diabetes, are the leading causes of death for women. And 38% of women suffer from one or more chronic diseases, compared to 30% of men.
On top of that, it is not unusual for medical studies and drug trials to exclude women. Black women and people of a color are also rarely included – and we all know that the trauma of misuse of black bodies for exploitative studies runs deep.
One example is the American Heart Association’s 2007 guidelines for preventing cardiovascular disease in women. In 2010, Duke University researchers looked more closely at the research used to establish the guidelines and they found that less than 1/3 of all of the study participants in the trials were women. A few of the trials (about 13%) didn’t even include any women.
That means that much of the data used to develop guidelines for women were not specific to women. That’s a #healthgap
I am so grateful every day for the opportunity to help bridge this gap and help women achieve optimal health and wellness through holistic means.
That is why I’m also on a mission to help as many women as I can reclaim their hormonal health.
Sistren, I have a dream… that women can live pain-free and symptom-free from hormonal related illness. That we have all the tools to understand our bodies, Aunt Flow, and master our hormonal balance at every stage of life. And once we master it, we pass on this legacy to our daughters, and they will pass it on again. If you heal a woman, you can heal an entire family, and then an entire nation. So let’s start by healing the woman in the mirror and passing it on. -XO