Most women today have had some experience with hormone replacement therapy.  What most women don’t know is there is more than one way to balance hormones, and only one way to truly optimize them. 

On September 27, 2011, the Wall Street Journal reported that the 25 million American women who will turn 50 years old over the next decade are facing a decision whether or not to use hormone replacement therapy (HRT).  These women are experiencing symptoms of menopause because their hormones are declining, are out of balance, and sub-optimal.  The answer is to replace the declining hormones with natural, plant-based hormones to relieve symptoms, restore them to optimal levels, and in the manner the hormones naturally cycle (with the phases of the moon).  Women get confused as to which type of hormone replacement therapy to use.  HRT is not taught in medical school.  Going to anyone who is not formally trained in HRT as a specialist is like going to ones GP to treat their cancer instead of an oncologist.  HRT is a specialty of medicine and hormones should only be balanced by a physician who is board certified.

Menopause is the time when a women’s menstrual periods cease, as it is the natural part of the aging process.   During this time, the ovaries stop making hormones, which are called estrogens, indicating the end of her reproductive period. A woman can go into menopause at any age if the ovaries are surgically removed (hysterectomy), put on oral birth control (chemical state of menopause), or a woman can go into a state of menopause if she uses eats a high sugar diet.  The ovaries can stop functioning for various reasons (including stress) putting her into menopause.  There is a common misconception that hormones are for “old women” but that is not necessarily true.  Most women don’t get the adequate hormones they need at puberty.  There many factors that will suppress estrogen production, not just old age.  The reality is that women don’t get old and then lose their hormones.  It is the hormones that decline that trigger the aging process.  There are several common symptoms of menopause which include:

·      Hot flashes

·      Night sweats

·      Inability to sleep

·      Memory loss

·      Depression

·      Mood swings

·      Fatigue

·      Low energy

·      No sex drive

·      Hair loss

·      Inability to lose weight

·      Constipation

·      Irritability

·      Anti-social behavior

Women are more confused than ever about which treatment is best for them.  Women are finding out that their primary care physician has little or no education in HRT.  Like nutrition, medical schools do not teach HRT.  Doctors aren’t so quick to tell their patients they don’t know a thing about hormones but try to balance them anyway, making a mess of women.  It is critical that women are educated about the types of hormone replacement therapy that are available, because not all HRT is the same.  There are low, static, synthetic hormones, which are foreign to the human body, and bio-identical hormones, which are identical to the hormones made by your body. Examples of synthetic hormones are Premarin, Provera, and Prempro.  Premarin is horse estrogen derived from pregnant mare urine.  Provera is medroxyprogesterone, or progestin, not progesterone.  Prempro is a combination of the two.  

It seems almost inevitable that every time the media mentions the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) study, they fail to clarify the type of HRT that was used in the study.  Synthetic hormones were used in the WHI and were found to raise the risk of heart disease, stroke and breast cancer.
 In addition to the type of HRT, the manner in which the hormones are administered is highly relevant, as well as the dose of the HRT.  Each patient is different in regards to dosing so each patient has their own levels of hormones that need to be balanced and optimized.  Biomimetic, bio-identical hormones allow for such individualized treatment. Bio-mimetic hormones are delivered in a manner in which the body produces the hormones, in a cycle that mimics a woman.  Research done by T. S. Wiley shows that it may not in fact just be the molecule that matters. The way the hormone molecule is received at the receptor site, and the way receptors are provoked may be at least as important, if not more.

Wolf Utian, founder and former president of the North American Menopause Society (NAMS), misleads women with his statement: “If you minimize a woman’s exposure to progesterone, you minimize her slight risk of breast cancer.”  Dr. Utian is referring to progestin, not progesterone.  Progesterone helps prevent breast cancer.  It is unfortunate that mainstream doctors still refer to progestins as progesterone – they are completely different molecules.

The article also states: “There’s still no simple answer.”  Yes, there is.  Replace the hormones that are missing in your body with hormones that are identical to those that your body makes – bio-identical hormones, in the manner in which the hormones are produced, bio-mimetically. 

Women should not fear hormones.  Hormones are crucial to the proper functioning of the human body.  

Women should fear synthetic, low, static doses of hormones. Synthetic hormones should not be an option.  It makes no sense to prescribe a drug to treat a symptom of an underlying hormone deficiency when the deficiency itself is so easily remedied by physiologic replacement doses of the natural hormone in the way a woman’s body produces the hormones.

It is most important women know that they need to get their hormones balanced by a physician who has been formally trained and with several years experience.  Some physicians are attempting to balance hormones with no education in HRT, let alone experience.  HRT is a specialty of medicine where very few physicians are formally trained.  It makes all the difference balancing ones hormones by a specialist.  If a woman's physician cannot claim to be a specialist in HRT, she will have more success with a physician who is.

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