Post any questions you might have here about hormones by clicking “comments” and a hormone expert will answer them as soon as possible.
Post any questions you might have here about hormones by clicking “comments” and a hormone expert will answer them as soon as possible.
We write a lot about hormones ourselves. But, we also do a lot of studying and reading other experts’ material. Here are a couple of comments from experts in the field of bioidentical hormones.
“Synthetic hormones are simply no replacement for natural hormones. After many years of getting poor or no results with conventional HRT in my practice, natural hormones proved more effective and safer than any other treatment I’ve seen or used.” Erika T. Schwartz, M.D. author of The Hormone Solution.
“What people need to understand is that when their natural hormones are at optimal levels in their youthful prime is when they are the healthiest. It’s only when hormones decline and synthetic hormones are introduced to the body that we see these problems. In my practice of prescribing natural hormones to women for five years, I have never seen the problems and side effects as we have seen with the synthetic hormones. Why not replace the body with natural biologically identical hormones. Anything else, as we have seen with the recent discontinuation of the WHI Trials, is dangerous to a woman’s health.” Neal Rouzier, M.D., author of Natural Hormone Replacement for Men and Women: How to Achieve Healthy Aging.
Synthetic hormones produce toxic metabolites in the body, whereas natural hormones do not. Studies have shown that altered, unnatural hormones will cause side effects. Premarin, derived from pregnant mare’s urine, has over 30 different equine estrogens that are foreign to a female, human body.
Provera, another synthetic drug, has been molecularly altered and has been known to cause uncomfortable side effects from its very inception. The Journal of the American Medical Association found that progestin (the same content found in Prempro), the synthetic progesterone, raised the risk of breast cancer well beyond the risk found in the use of estrogen alone. This has not been the case with Natural Progesterone. This result was made clear in the Women’s Health Initiative Study which reported that synthetic prempro increased the risk of heart disease, stroke and breast cancer in women.
A study in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism reported that out of the women who were placed on three different regimens: estrogen, estrogen and progestin, or placebo, the women on estrogen and progestin had a greater breast epithelial cell proliferation and density than women on estrogen alone or nothing at all. The Journal of the National Cancer Institute has also concluded that there is an associated 10 percent higher risk of breast cancer for every five years of supplementation with a synthetic progestin. The common denominator, of course, is the synthetic progestin.
Natural hormones are identical in structure to the hormones naturally found in the body. For this reason, they are called bioidentical. They are compounded in a special type of pharmacy known as a compounding pharmacy. These are regular licensed pharmaceutical companies. They acquire the pure pharmaceutical grade hormone and compound it into the form ordered by the treating physician. This makes your program very customized and personalized.
Aren’t health food store products “natural”? Products in health food stores provide people with a variety of natural options, usually from an herb or plant source. Folk medicine, naturopathy, and herbalists have evolved such that there is more substantiation and better acceptance of these alternative, herbal products.
However, the products from compounding pharmacies are different in several ways. First, the dose provided by a pharmacy requires a prescription. Health food store products (and over the counter products sold at pharmacies) are most often of a dose that is insufficient to produce a measurable difference in the body based on actual laboratory tests. They do sometimes help to relieve symptoms.
Second, the products from the compounding pharmacy utilize ingredients of pure pharmaceutical grade that are micronized. Micronized means that the product is a fine grain that will be well absorbed. This results in less waste as it processes through your digestive system.
Younger people can also suffer from untreated or mistreated hormone deficiencies. For example, at Natural Bio Health, we treat many ladies, some as young as 12 years of age, with natural progesterone. We also treat ladies in their peri-menopause years. Why? Because they have heavy bleeding during their periods.
The heavy bleeding can be accompanied by cramping, migraine headaches, skin breakouts, low energy and even weight gain. Conventional medicine generally treats with pain medications, birth control pills and eventually, hysterectomies or other surgical treatments. More than 60,000 hysterectomies are performed in the United States each year. Many can be avoided with the proper hormonal treatment.
The heavy bleeding, cramping, migraine headaches, skin breakouts, low energy, and weight gain can, in most instances, be successfully treated with a medically supervised regimen of natural progesterone.
By: Mike Clark, Director, Natural Bio Health Wellness & Longevity Clinic
Most of us know that we are supposed to eat a healthy diet, exercise regularly and take supplements. However, most of us do not know that even a healthy lifestyle cannot prevent our body’s deterioration from unhealthy levels of hormones.
Few of us realize that our hormones decline with age – irrespective of our lifestyle –and that many of our diseases and daily aches and pains are in fact caused by hormonal deficiencies.
Most of us do not realize that hormonal deficiencies are often the cause of many illnesses
and misery that are either:
(1) unrecognized and untreated by conventional (pharmacological) medicine;
(2) treated incorrectly with dangerous drugs that address symptoms not causes; or
(3) diagnosed as depression, bi-polar disorder, add.
As we age, our hormones decline. This is a fact that can be shown with lab testing. With that decline comes reduced energy, increased body fat, lower sex drive, increased risk of heart disease, cancer, PMS for many ladies, disabilities, aches and pains, etc. Conventional medicine considers this progression a normal part of aging. Wellness medicine, sometimes referred to as Anti-aging medicine or preventive medicine, offers bioidentical hormones to prevent and treat these conditions.