Category: Bioidentical Hormone Replacement

The hormonal changes that women’s bodies go through during the middle and later stages of their lives can be significant. Fortunately, the understanding around what is happening inside the body due to menopause has come a long way, and doctors can now address the changes and decreases in hormones with an effective solution. Bioidentical Hormone Replacement Therapy, or BHRT, is used by many—but is it safe?   Hormone Replacement History As far back as 11th century China, Taoist physicians were concentrating the urine from young men and women and making it into pills for emperors and empresses to live longer. It was documented that these high society men and women looked younger than others. Fast forward to the 20th century in America when the pharmaceutical industry developed and popularized Premarin® (pregnant mare urine) to alleviate the unwanted symptoms of perimenopause and postmenopause in human females. In 1966 the famous Nurses’ Health Study was published, which followed nearly 60,000 women through menopause. The New England Journal of Medicine concluded, “we observed a marked decrease in the risk of major coronary heart disease among women who took estrogen with progestin.” Postmenopausal Estrogen and Progestin Use and the Risk of Cardiovascular Disease |...

Bioidentical hormone therapy (BHRT) is the use of hormone preparations that are derived from natural substances. These natural substances, such as wild yam (Dioscorea) and soy, have constituents in them that are very similar to the estrogen and progesterone that our ovaries, fat, and adrenal glands make. Bioidentical hormone preparations are made in a laboratory where chemical modifications to these natural substances modify these compounds into estrogen and progesterone. You cannot eat wild yam or soy and obtain hormones from the plant because the body is not equipped to do this. How Bioidentical Hormones Work in the Body Bioidentical hormone therapy also includes the route of administration of the hormones. Not only do bioidentical hormones look just like what our body makes, but how you take them is a part of BHRT. Since our ovaries are not in our digestive tract, the route the hormones take is different. Naturally, when your ovaries make estrogen and progesterone, the parent hormone circulates around your body and performs its action. Upon completion, the hormone then goes to the liver for elimination. This process has three steps: The parent hormone goes to the liver and gets filtered through Phase I of the liver (P450)...