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Dear Friends,

A daunting task – to take over the Berita Menopos; especially when I have Dr. Ong Hean Choon’s shoes to fit! He has done a wonderful job all these years and in many ways almost single handedly. However we are hopeful, my team and I, to maintain that good work and in many ways, experiment a little – to see if we can make the Berita Menopos even better for you.

Your June issue might reach you a little late. However when you receive it, you would probably notice a few differences. We have given an uplift to the front cover. The theme of the “flower” is kept from the previous issue as we feel our menopausal women (and men) are always blooming. The contents have undergone a small change with more health tips and health related articles; and lesser medical journal output. There is a guest article on “Osteoporosis – the Silent Epidemic” by Dr. JK Lee, President of the Malaysion Osteoporosis Society.

Men are not forgotten and we have a male aging page; which in future will have more information on men’s health. Menopause humor, is of course ever present, to keep us all in light spirits.

News from the EXCO consists of the new President’s message including a page dedicated to upcoming events. There is excitement in the air with the proposed trip to Cairo, purely Prof Nik Nasri’s baby as he has organized something like this with great success before. This is another MMS “firsts” and your valuable support would make it “funtastic” It just might be THE tonic to start 2006 in the right frame of health and mind. The EXCO promises there would not be any lectures on menopause and HRT during the trip!!

Don’t forget to mark your calendar and keep yourself free for the other upcoming events. Dr. Liew Fah Onn is already busy with the World Menopause Day 2005 and knowing him, we will all be in for a treat! More details of that in the next issue.

The EXCO is also in the process of updating its membership details and if you could please fill the relevant page inside and post it to us, we would be grateful. Please get your friends who have been complaining that they are not getting their mail to also fill it in so that we can contact them.

The prize winning essay on “Coping with Menopause” (World Menopause Day 2005) is in this issue for your reading pleasure. The other essays will be available in the next few issues. Please try out Puan Lim’s recipe and give her feed back on her fish head curry.

I am grateful to my editorial team - Dato Dr. N Subramaniam, Puan Lim Ai Loon and Mrs. Jagjeet. Together we have tried to project the contents of the next year’s issues. However we would appreciate if you could fill up the questionnaire inside on what YOU would like in your Berita. It would be difficult to get the right combination to suite everyone, but we hope, what we have brought out in this issue, is in the right direction.

Contributions are very welcome! Please feel free to write on personal experiences with menopause and HRT, poems, good healthy recipes etc, etc and other messages. The more the contribution the better!! All contributions can be addressed to the secretariat address available in this issue. Please add “Berita Menopos” in the bottom left hand corner of the envelope.

Till the next issue, keep in best of health and mind! Ciao!

Dr. Premitha Damodaran
Editor, Berita Menopos