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Hormones in Menopause
Many women that attend my monthly seminars are confused about whether or not to use hormones. Chances are, if they are at my seminar, they aren’t feeling too great and are looking for options and answers. There are, of course, risks and benefits, but there are also risks and benefits to doing nothing at all. Everything needs to be considered when making this very personal decision. No one, not your GYN, your internist, or anyone else should be dictating how someone who is actively engaged in being healthy decides to manage their own health.
At BodylogicMD of Little Rock, I offer alternatives to standard hormone replacement therapy. This therapy provides significant flexibility and through a process of feedback from the patient, regular lab work, and monitoring bothersome symptoms we can arrive at a treatment that is unique to the individual and does not use synthetic hormones. Synthetic hormones are hormones that are slightly different than the ones that your body uses and may offer some of the benefits but also may offer a greater number of side negative effects because they may be metabolized differently than hormones that are the same as what your body would produce.
The Women’s Health Initiative study was stopped in 2002 due to a noted increased risk of heart problems and strokes. This occurred in the branch of the study that was using estrogen (derived from horses) and progestin (synthetic progesterone). This increase of health risks occurred primarily in women in their 60′s and 70′s, all of whom had been on no hormones for an average of 10 to 12 years prior to the study. Actually there had been other studies that also showed similar problems associated with progestins even before the WHI. Progestins also appear to increase the risk of breast cancer. So far no studies have indicated this is the case with natural progesterone.
A couple of new studies are ongoing which look at a combination of natural estrogen given through the skin rather than by mouth and natural progesterone rather than synthetic. Hopefully these studies will soon provide us with additional evidence that when used properly and monitored that natural or bioidentical HRT is a good alternative that provides relief from menopausal symptoms and lowers risk for osteoporosis, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. Personally, for me, the benefits already far outweigh the risks.
Have a fabulous week!
What are Bioidentical Hormones?
I often get the question from women struggling with menopausal symptoms: What are bioidentical hormones? This is simply a term used for hormones that are the same molecular structure as the hormones that your body would produce. They are created in a lab from a substance that is derived from either soy or yam.
Synthetic hormones all have a slightly different chemical/molecular structure and this difference is what allows a drug company to get a patent on it. This allows them to make money on the hormone because a naturally occurring substance like estradiol cannot be patented. However, nearly every bioidentical hormone has at least one available pharmaceutical product. The pharmaceutical companies can patent a unique delivery method for any substance that they wish to produce including bioidentical hormones. This also means that there is some FDA approved form of nearly every bioidentical hormone.
Now, why might a bioidentical hormone be better? Taking a hormone that has the same structure as the ones that the body produces allows your body to obtain all of the benefits that nature intended. This is not generally the case with synthetic hormones which typically confer some but not all of the benefits and may also have some detrimental effects because of their slightly different structure. This is important because there are sex hormone receptors all over the body including the brain and bones in addition to the sex glands and other organ systems. Those receptors must be in all those places for a reason. Why would you want to get only partial benefit?
Have a great week!
Hello world!
Welcome to my blog for BodyLogicMD of Little Rock about natural (or bio-identical) hormone replacement. I’m here to give information, updates, and hopefully to answer some burning questions about menopause, andropause, and related topics. So check back weekly to see what’s new!