Sometimes I take it for granted that patients know what a hormone is. Most probably don’t. A hormone is a chemical messenger created by a gland in the body, which is then released into the blood stream where it interacts with the cells in other places in the body. There are literally
-
Recent Comments- Comment on Medical Mondays: Is birth control considered hormone therapy? by Bhrt Doctors May 16, 2012
- Comment on Recognizing and Treating the Symptoms of Perimenopause by Period Tracker for male users « Stiod – Stupid Ideas of the day May 12, 2012
- Comment on Balancing the risks and benefits of dietary supplements by Post of Links!! « @SupplementsandScience May 7, 2012
- Comment on What you need to know about dietary supplements by The Vitamin Argument…Take Them Or Leave Them? | HealthAtNurseworkZ.com May 7, 2012
- Comment on BodyLogicMD in the News: Dr. Lee Discusses Adrenal Fatigue BodyLogicMD in the News: Dr. Lee Discusses Adrenal Fatigue by Adrenal expert | Abidallo May 1, 2012
- Comment on How Toxins Could Be Damaging Your Health by The Importance of Detoxification (time for a little spring cleaning) - Fredda Branyon April 19, 2012
- Comment on What you need to know about dietary supplements by The Vitamin Argument…Take Them Or Leave Them? I My Blog April 16, 2012
October 13, 2011
Time
Traditional medical practices are struggling. Insurance reimbursement is so low and paper work and bureaucracy is so high that many primary care physicians allocate only 10 to 15 minutes per visit. A quick, usually pharmaceutically based treatment plan is instituted and the patient is sent on her way. At my Sacramento bioidentical
October 10, 2011
Bioidentical?
I get a lot of questions from patients and seminar attendees about the definition of “bioidentical”. It’s almost as if those of us using hormones that are identical in chemical structure to what is made in the human body are somehow off the deep end. In fact, it makes no sense at
September 27, 2011
Wall Street Journal and Hormones
A great article about the benefits of hormone therapy in menopausal women is attached. This Author has really done her research and points out the many health benefits of bioidentical hormones as well as showing what a poor job mainstream medicine has done in treating this group of patients. Article link: New
August 12, 2011
It’s a Wrap: This Week in Hormones…
There’s been a lot of talk about hormones in the media lately and the bioidentical hormone experts compiled a list of some recent articles that you might find interesting. August 2011 - More and more men are coming to realize that the changes that they experience as they get older are in fact due
June 7, 2011
Estrogen and Progestin Can Increase Cancer Risk
The Huffington Post recently released a list of possible, probable and known carcinogens that many of us come into contact with on a daily basis. And it’s no surprise that synthetic hormones, such as estrogen and progestin made the cut.
June 3, 2011
It's a wrap: This week in hormones…
There's been a lot of talk about hormones in the media lately and the bioidentical hormone experts compiled a list of some recent articles that you might find interesting.
May 18, 2011
Stroke victims could benefit from hormone therapy
A new Swedish study accepted for publication by the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolis — a publication of The Endocrine Society — reported on 407 patients that had experienced a stroke in their lifetime. These patients have been followed for a period of two years after the stroke. Levels of a hormone called IGF-1 have been shown to be elevated in the patients who had the best recovery after stroke.
I recently switched from using synthetic (non-bioidentical) hormones to BHRT. My question is how long will I have to use hormone therapy? I've heard that most doctors encourage women to use standard HRT drugs for as short of a period as possible, but being that I'm now using natural bioidentical hormones, does the same rule apply?
December 15, 2010
Weighing the risks and benefits of hormone therapy
Finally, authors who are willing to look at the “good news” results from the WHI and to look at the hormone that is actually causing the increase in breast cancer – it’s the progestin, not the estrogen. As the authors state this is old news, in the WHI it was clearly shown that women who took estrogen only did have a decreased risk of breast cancer. Even though as the authors state that overall the reduction did not reach clinical significance, the message that is important is that estrogen alone did not INCREASE the risk of breast cancer. The only group that showed an increased risk of breast cancer was the group where estrogens were combined with progestin (an artificial form of progesterone).
December 14, 2010
Hormone Therapy May Reduce Likelihood of Breast Cancer in Some Women
Once again physicians are looking at the WHI results and trying to justify the use of Premarin. One has to wonder, given all we know about how toxic this drug is, why do they continue to do so? I wonder if there is a financial incentive from the drug company that manufactures Premarin. I would be curious about who is funding their research. The WHI study used Premarin, a form of estrogen hormone replacement therapy (EHRT) derived from the urine of pregant mares. It is well known to increase the risk of breast cancer, blood clots, and do little to prevent age-related, degenerative diseases, such as dementia or osteoporosis.
November 22, 2010
Medical Mondays: Will I need to take Hormone Therapy Forever?
I am very happy on my BHRT! It has been life changing for me. My husband on the other is a little concerned that I've been using hormones for too long of a time. And it got me thinking… How long will I have to be on hormones? Will I need to take bioidenticals forever? When is it a good time to stop using hormone therapy and are there any long-term risks associated with using bioidentical hormones indefinitely?
November 5, 2010
Taking Hormone Therapy? Don't Panic
I know that my patients and their friends are an internet and media savvy group. As such, I am sure they are aware of the recently released JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) article that dealt with the incidence of breast cancer in patients undergoing long-term follow-up in the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) studies. This study was released several years ago after analyzing the results of giving hormone replacement therapy (HRT) in the form of synthetic Progestins (progesterone-like molecules) and Estrogens (Premarin) derived from horse urine which are most definitely NOT the same as human estrogen. Ultimately the study was discontinued because of the statistically increased incidence of cardiovascular disease and uterine cancer. The most recent data analysis looks at the incidence of breast cancer and it's complications in women from the original study who were followed for an additional 4 years. The results showed that there was a significantly increased incidence of breast cancer as well as the metastatic consequences of those cancers in the women who were given the synthetic hormones.