Spicing Up Your Hormones Without Hormone Replacement

Spicing Up Your Hormones Without Replacing Them

One of the insurmountable problems with hormone replacement therapy is that when you replace a hormone you risk feeding the underlying glandular deficiency.  In the exuberance associated with the idea of overcoming age-associated declines in sexual, cognitive, skeletal, cardiovascular, etc. function, with both synthetic and bioidentical hormones, the hormone replacement advocates have often neglected to educate their patients to several unintended, adverse effects of hormone replacement therapy (HRT): 1) the endocrine system has a negative feedback loop which guarantees that with time the body’s ability to produce adequate quantities of the very hormones being targeted for replacement will decline, resulting in the development of biological dependency on an external source of hormones — not exactly a picture of empowerment. 2) increasing levels of the target hormones will also result in increased production and possible accumulation of hormone metabolites with potentially toxic, as well as carcinogenic effects, e.g. estradiol turns to 16-hyroxylestrone, a potential carcinogen. While these risks may be outweighed by the benefits, and many of these risks can be reduced through dietary and supplemental regimes and plenty of vigilant clinical surveillance, the point is that HRT is not without its problems and limitations. Which brings us to an entirely different approach (one, no doubt, used for thousands of years), using foods and spices as our medicine….

Cumin Is As Potent As Estrogen In Preserving Bone Health (more…)

Prevent and Reverse Osteoarthritis

osteoarthritis knee bioidentical hormones jeffrey dach  dr dachBioidentical Hormones

Prevent and Reverse Osteoarthritis 

by Jeffrey Dach MD

Hormonal Decline Leads to Degenerative Disease

One of the basic concepts of “Anti-Aging Medicine” is that hormonal decline leads to the onset of degenerative diseases.  On the top on the list is degenerative osteoarthritis, a common form of progressive joint destruction from years of wear and tear.  Recent medical research shows that menopausal estrogen deficiency is a causative factor in developing degeneration of the joints. (more…)

HRT-Breast Cancer Study Blasted

A landmark investigation which found that hormone treatment for the menopause boosts the risk of breast cancer is riddled with flaws, a new study published on Monday alleges.

 

The so-called Million Women Study (MWS) unleashed headlines when it was first published in 2003. (more…)

The Right Hormones Can Make You Happy

Dear Pharmacist,

I took your column regarding hormone replacement to my doctor. He’s never ordered progesterone, just estrogen because of the hysterectomy. For eight years, I’ve suffered with occasional hot flashes, mood swings, insomnia, and I can’t lose weight. Anyway, three days later, his nurse called to say he did some research, and wanted to add bio-identical progesterone to my compounded prescription cream. Two weeks later, I feel remarkably better. –S.H., Boca Raton, Florida (more…)

Vitamin D and curcumin could help rid the brain of Alzheimer’s plaques

Vitamin D and curcumin could help rid the brain of Alzheimer's plaquesScientists at the University of California Riverside and Los Angeles report that a combination of vitamin D3 and a synthetic form of curcumin could help remove amyloid beta from the brains of Alzheimer’s disease patients. The research was published in the July, 2009 issue of the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease. (more…)

Top Ten Women’s Health Articles

This week we compiled our top ten Women’s Health news from the last two years! These articles include valuable information on hormone balance, bone health, cancer risk reduction, heart health, and more. You’ll also see the facts on how bone drugs, estrogen replacement, and anti-depressants damage health. Be in the know. Understand how to attain and maintain optimum health for life!

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Waking Up From the Synthetic Hormone Nightmare

Shirley is 52, and suffering from menopausal symptoms of hot flashes, night sweats, insomnia and mood disturbance. The next chance she had, Shirley asked her doctor for bioidentical hormones. Instead, her doctor offered her a prescription for Lexapro, an SSRI antidepressant. Shirley declined the prescription and ran out the door crying all the way home. A few days later, Shirley was sitting in my office asking, “Why won’t my doctor give me what I want, bioidentical hormones?” (more…)

Pharmaceutical Hormones for Women

In case you missed it mid-February, the popular contraceptive YAZ®/Yasmin® was briefly in the news. Stories surfaced that indicated that numerous severe and life-threatening side effects caused by YAZ® (a formula built from two synthetic hormones — ethinyl estradiol and drospirenone) were downplayed to the extreme in Bayer’s high-end-production-value ads for the product. Even the FDA mandated “cleaned-up” versions of the ads managed to make the side effects sound incidental.

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Bioidentical Hormone Replacement Therapy

We all age. This is inevitable. One of the contributing factors to this process is a decline in hormone production. For some women, these hormone changes during menopause can result in symptoms such as hot flashes, night sweats, irregular menstruation, loss of libido, vaginal dryness, and mood swings. These can be mild to severe.

Even though widely touted, hormone replacement therapy (HRT) might not be the best choice when hormonal imbalances are first detected. Slight imbalances can be fixxed with lifestyle changes, such as restricting the intake of things that cause hormone depletion (lead, for example, from unfiltered water, older paints, and contaminated foods) and exercising more to help excrete toxins that can affect hormone production. There are also herbal supplements, such as ashwagandha, that can increase production of dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) which can lead to increased overall hormone production.

In moderate to severe cases, however, hormone replacement therapy may be the best solution. (more…)