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Alternatives to Hormones
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Summary:
CityBeat Magazine 4/26/2001 |
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To hormone or not to hormone? That’s the question asked by many women approaching menopause. Trusting their physician to prescribe exactly what they need, few women ever hear of herbal alternatives, progesterone creams or all natural hormone replacement therapy. Symptoms associated with PMS, early or difficult menopause, endometriosis, uterine fibroids, Polycystic Ovary Disease, fibrocystic breasts or some infertility are all managed using natural alternatives that carry no side effects.
Women’s choice in this matter is controlled by physicians who have forgotten their endocrinology classes and by the multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical industry. Let’s look at a few facts surrounding Estrogen Replacement Therapy (ERT).
There are three main types of estrogens: estrone (E1), estradiol (E2) and estriol (E3). Many physicians can’t name all three. Most ERT’s contain only E1, while some contain both E1 and E2. E1 and E2 are cancer causing, while E3 is thought to prevent cancer. ERT, containing only E1, is the only known cause of endometrial cancer.
Proper hormone balance prevents bone loss and ERT only slows it, rarely halting and never rebuilding it. Between the ages of 30 and 50, a woman loses 1 to 1.5 percent of her bone mass each year. By age 50, she may have lost 20 to 30 percent, and it takes a 30 percent loss to even notice on x-ray. During menopause, this bone loss increases to 2 to 3 percent per year. After menopause, bone loss continues at about 1 percent per year. By the age of 70, even with ERT, 35 to 45 percent of bone mass might have been lost. But your doctor will tell you that you’re normal for a woman your age. Small consolation.
Studies show that ERT raises good HDLs and prevents heart disease, but only in populations of women who take no other aggressive, natural, preventative steps such as healthy diet, exercise and proper calcium supplementation. Only some forms of calcium can rebuild bones, and in spite of great marketing efforts, milk products, Tums and calcium carbonate are the least effective.
Some ERTs contain progestin, a synthetic progesterone, known to counter the cancer causing effects of E1 and E2, but because it’s synthetic, carries an extensive list of its own side effects, including fluid retention, nausea, insomnia, and depression. Estrogen dominance, particularly of E1 and E2, worsens estrogen dependent conditions such as spotting, uterine fibroids, endometriosis, ovarian cysts and fibrocystic breasts. At-risk women are not given ERT because a certain percentage of breast cancers are estrogen sensitive, but only to E1 and E2. Remarkably, in breast cancer patients given E3, 37 percent have shown a remission or no further progression of metastatic breast cancer. E3 does not cause endometrial cancer and prevents hot flashes, insomnia, depression and vaginal atrophy. It has the added benefit of raising good HDLs and prevention of heart disease as with E1 and E2. Because hormonal induced spotting from ERT is hard to distinguish from pathological bleeding such as that from cancer, many women are subjected to diagnostic D&Cs and sometimes unnecessary hysterectomies that could have been prevented with the use of natural therapies.
Diagnostic lab tests are helpful, but not blood tests in your physician’s office. This test only gives you a picture at the moment that the blood was drawn. Hormones are cyclical and may be very different even a few days later. A holistic physician will order a Female Hormone Panel, using 11 saliva samples taken over the course of a month to get an accurate picture of E2, E3, progesterone and testosterone. With proper information, a personalized treatment program can now be designed.
Additionally, periodic Osteoporosis Risk Evaluations (a urine test), beginning at about age 35 should be considered to monitor elevated levels of bone loss and to design preventative treatment before excessive bone loss occurs.
The puzzle has many answers, all of them natural. E3 and natural progesterone helps protect against cancer, uterine fibroids, ovarian cysts, fibrocystic breasts, endometriosis and may be the answer to some cases of infertility. It eliminates menopausal symptoms, uses fat for energy, is a natural diuretic and anti-depressant, restores libido and stimulates the rebuilding of lost bone mass.
What your physician probably hasn’t told you is that in younger, pre-menopausal women, there are very effective herbal therapies. If saliva tests suggest a deficiency of progesterone, use natural progesterone cream or take it orally. For more difficult symptoms or women with complete hysterectomies and no risk factors, there are pharmacies specializing in the formulation of natural Hormone Replacement Therapies containing 80% E3, 10% E2, 10% E1 and natural progesterone. For PMS symptoms, use herbs or natural progesterone. For vaginal dryness, Estriol (E3) vaginal cream. For those with risk factors, Estriol (E3) and natural progesterone.
This agonizing decision that all women are forced to make is usually made without knowledge of the alternatives. The biochemistry is known, and the studies support the biochemistry. Arm yourself with the right information; your health may depend on it.
To My Website Readers: The above article is good information to know and contains great advice. The next article was written later and includes some new information about what might be causing the hormone imbalances experienced by many women and men. New understanding of this issue advances all the time, but the area of hormone detoxification is the most exciting. Thanks. Dr. Dahlman.
Do You Have Too Much Estrogen?
Is it possible that you have too much estrogen circulating through or deposited in your body? I’m not talking only about women. Men can suffer from this also. For the moment, let’s concentrate on women.
The latest research suggests that lifetime exposure to 3 separate sources of estrogen or estrogen-like compounds can be the cause of many common female health complaints, including cancer. Almost every woman at some time in her life may complain about Pre-Menstrual Syndrome (including long or short cycle, heavy or light flow, pain, cramps and mood change), headaches, endometriosis, uterine fibroids, ovarian cysts, fibrocystic breasts, early or difficult menopause. Traditional medicine in its infinite wisdom of attempting to suppress symptoms has always resorted to the Birth Control pill or some form of Hormone Replacement Therapy to manipulate the hormone imbalance associated with these conditions. These therapies, though common, have varying degrees of success and carry unacceptable side effects.
Alternative medicine has always had more natural ways of regulating menstrual cycle and treating other female complaints. These therapies include herbs, homeopathy, acupuncture, progesterone creams and nutritional therapies, also with varying degrees of success.
The new research suggests that a build up of estrogens can occur in the human body and be deposited in tissue that reacts negatively to that excess. The most common and normal sources of estrogen production in a woman’s body come from her ovaries, adrenals and fat cells. Abnormal sources are the synthetic prescriptions of birth control pills and any form of Hormone Replacement Therapy. When you add to that the lifetime environmental exposures to estrogen-like compounds from steroids fed to poultry and livestock, pesticides, drugs, fuels and plastics, it’s easy to see that the body may have quite a task removing (detoxifying) these substances.
Imagine the cumulative exposure that a woman can receive from her own body, a number of years on the Birth Control Pill, hormone manipulation at menopause and the lifetime exposure that we all experience from the environmental estrogen-like compounds. The liver is designed to convert these hormones into compounds that can be excreted out of the body once they are no longer being used. With all of these sources of estrogen, the liver may be overloaded.
The liver needs certain nutrients in order to complete the conversion of these hormones out of the body, whether man-made or synthetic. If a woman is not eating correctly, not eating enough, has a health condition or is not as healthy as she thinks she is, the liver may have difficulty converting the hormones into compounds that can be excreted from the body.
To make matters worse, and little known to even most doctors, the first step in this detoxifying process can convert these estrogens to a more toxic substance first, before continued steps create a benign compound that is easily excreted. Detoxification of estrogens occurs primarily through 2 pathways in the liver. The first conversion step in these pathways creates either 2-Hydroxyestrone or 16-alpha-Hydroxyestrone. These chemical names aren’t necessary for your understanding, just realize that one is helpful, the other toxic.
It is the build up of the 16-alpha-Hydroxyestrone that causes most of the female health problems mentioned earlier. These hormonal by-products affect DNA, cause cells to divide and grow abnormally or block the use of normal estrogens and progesterone at the cellular level. Studies show that women with breast cancer have 50 times more estrogen in their breast tissue than do women without cancer.
If a woman is able to convert along the 2-Hydroxyestrone pathway, she will be healthier. The challenge for doctors is to nutritionally help promote this healthier pathway. One of the front line defenses is proper Gastro-Intestinal function. In patients with unhealthy bowel function or Irritable Bowel Syndrome, there is a chemical process that occurs within the G.I. Tract that can inhibit the excretion of unwanted estrogens from the body and promote their re-absorption. Just what we don’t need.
Direct nutritional modulation of estrogen detoxification pathways can be achieved with a healthier diet containing fiber (from flaxseed, grains, beans and seeds), cruciferous vegetables (broccoli, brussel sprouts, cauliflower, cabbage, radishes, asparagus, artichokes, celery, carrots), antioxidants (Vitamins A, C, E, alpha-lipoic acid, green tea) and B Vitamins.
For patients with some of the health concerns that I’ve mentioned, there is also a nutritional supplement, available from doctors specializing in alternative medicine, that contain compounds that promote the detoxification process and is now the new treatment for the above mentioned female health complaints.
Let’s not forget the men, they too have a lifetime exposure to environmental estrogens. New research is now suggesting that Begnin Prostatic Hypertrophy and prostate cancer are associated with the build-up of these environmental estrogens.
A healthy lifestyle is essential to the prevention of chronic conditions, but female hormone problems seem to affect every woman no matter how much attention she pays to her diet and health. It seems to be simply the way it is, if you’re a woman. It’s no longer necessary to accept it as inevitable as long as you keep up with the latest research and are willing to take control of your health, instead of relying on antiquated, common medical practice. Your health might depend on it.
Published: 4/26/2001
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