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Hormone Q & A – What are Bioidentical Hormones?

Leslie Carol Botha — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 19:42:59 +0000

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Fitness Goop

By: Dr Ayla Wilson | June 10, 2011

Bioidentical hormones are hormones with an identical chemical structure to the hormones your body produces naturally. Derived from plant sterols from soy or diosgenin (wild yam), these hormones mimic exactly the actions of the body’s own hormones. A prescription from your ND (with prescribing rights) or MD is required, and bioidentical hormones are dispensed from a compounding pharmacy, usually as either a topical cream or oral pill.

Bioidentical hormones differ from synthetic hormone replacement therapy in that synthetic hormones are extracted from horse urine rather than plant sources, and synthetic hormones do not act the same way in the body as the body’s own hormones. Risks associated with synthetic HRT (hormone replacement therapy) are breast cancer, stroke, heart attack, and blood clots.

How do I know if bioidentical hormones can help me?

Estrogen-dominant conditions are a common indication for hormone balancing and bioidentical hormone prescription. Estrogen dominant conditions include: PMS, endometriosis, hormonal acne, fibrocystic breasts, uterine fibroids, ovarian cysts, non-menopausal hot flashes and painful periods/cramps. Difficulties in perimenopause and menopause, where hormones are fluctuating and levels of estrogen and progesterone are declining can also be helped by bioidentical hormone therapy. This includes insomnia, hot flashes, heavy periods in perimenopause, low libido, low bone density, vaginal dryness, painful intercourse, vaginal atrophy, urinary incontinence, abdominal weight gain, and poor memory. Women trying to conceive should also be assessed for hormonal imbalance as a common cause of infertility is a progesterone deficiency causing a ‘luteal phase defect’, where the second half of the menstrual cycle is too short to sustain a pregnancy.

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Sex Hormone-Binding Globulin, Oligomenorrhea, Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, and Childhood Insulin at Age 14 Years Predict Metabolic Syndrome and Class III Obesity at Age 24 Years

Leslie Carol Botha — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 02:43:36 +0000

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The Journal of Pediatrics

Received 8 October 2010; received in revised form 15 December 2010; accepted 10 January 2011. published online 02 March 2011.

Objective

We hypothesized that oligomenorrhea (menstrual cyclicity ≥42 days), hyperandrogenism, low levels of sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG), childhood insulin, and metabolic syndrome (MetS) at age 14 years would predict MetS and class III obesity (body mass index ≥40 kg/m²) at age 24 years.

Study design

In this prospective study of schoolgirls, at age 14 years, the girls were categorized as regularly cycling (n = 375), oligomenorrheic (n = 18), or oligomenorrhea plus biochemical hyperandrogenism (polycystic ovary syndrome [PCOS]; n = 12), together designated PCOS.

Results

Significant explanatory variables for MetS at age 24 years included childhood insulin, MetS, and PCOS category (all positive) and SHBG (negative) at age 14 years. Using categorical data, top decile of childhood insulin, MetS at age 14, bottom decile of SHBG, and PCOS category were significant positive predictors for MetS at age 24. SHBG (negative), black race (positive), and oligomenorrhea (positive) were significant explanatory variables for class III obesity at age 24. Using categorical data, black race, MetS at age 14, bottom decile of SHBG, PCOS category, and top decile of childhood insulin were positive explanatory variables for class III obesity at age 24 years.

Conclusions

Oligomenorrhea, PCOS (a subcohort of oligomenorrhea), hyperandrogenism, low SHBG, MetS, and childhood insulin at age 14 years may represent a critical, reversible pathway for the development of MetS and class III obesity in young adulthood.

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Hairy situation

Leslie Carol Botha — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 22:55:13 +0000

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Ottawa Citizen

By Sanaz Majid, The Ottawa Citizen March 3, 2011

Hair on men is a sign of their virility; hair on women, not so much. Many of my patients often look a tad embarrassed when asking me about finding hair in places they don’t think it belongs.

So that’s why I want to examine hirsutism, which is the fancy medical term used to describe excess hair on the body or hair found in various parts of the body that women often feel ashamed to have. For instance, many of my patients complain that they find hair growth on the breasts, above the upper lip, on the chin, on the fingers, stomach or feet. Could this be normal? After all, these are locations where men are supposed to grow hair, “not women,” right? Wrong! And ladies, if you’re wondering if you’re normal for having hair in these places, I’m here to tell you you’re not alone.

First of all, remember that television and magazines wax, shave, pluck, and airbrush every millimetre of exposed skin. Not many real women look like the hairless and perfectly-smooth-appearing women who seem to so effortlessly float on the beach on shows like the old classic, Baywatch. Television just makes it appear as though they are naturally hair-free. The truth is most women have some hair in places where they don’t want it. It’s so common that I see it almost every day in the office. Being hairy is genetic and it can be more common in certain cultures and backgrounds — and you can thank your wonderful parent’s for passing on their super hairy genes to you.

It’s normal to be hairy to some extent. Though most of us don’t naturally look like a Baywatch babe, it’s not normal to look like ‘Cousin It’s from The Addams Family, either. Even though there is not a well-defined set of rules on what is considered medically ‘normal,’ a good rule of thumb is if the hair growth is bothersome and interferes with your quality of life, then it’s time to get it checked out. In general, a little bit of peach fuzz here and there is common and normal in most women. A few stray hairs on the chin, upper lip, or breasts may be normal. But if you are finding yourself having to actually shave or wax because there are just too many to simply pluck, it may be time to get it checked out.

What Causes My Hairiness?

Certain medical conditions can cause excess hair growth, so it’s important to make sure you don’t suffer from one of them. The most common health condition associated with hirsutism in women is a disorder called Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS). PCOS affects up to 10 per cent of women and typically causes irregular periods, acne and excess weight gain in the mid-section. Women with PCOS have elevated testosterone levels — the typical ‘male’ hormone that causes hair growth and acne. They are also at greater risk of getting diabetes. So it’s important to get tested for this condition if you’re feeling hairy.

No-fault compensation program overdue, experts say

Leslie Carol Botha — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 01:10:25 +0000

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No-fault compensation program overdue, experts say

CMAJ

Canada
NEWS
February 15, 2011

Canada and Russia are the only G8 nations without national no-fault compensations programs for people injured from vaccines, and according to Canadian vaccine experts, it is high time Canada make its exit from that short but inglorious list.

Canada needs a federal no-fault vaccine-injury compensation program to protect the unfortunate few who suffer adverse reactions to vaccines, according to a new report, Designing a No-Fault Vaccine-Injury Compensation Programme for Canada: Lessons Learned from an International Analysis of Programmes, from the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs (http://webapp.mcis.utoronto.ca/resources/munkpapers/keelan_workingpaper_feb2011.pdf).

When such instances occur now (outside of Quebec, the only province with a no-fault program), injured parties must seek compensation — for lost wages, uninsured medical expenses and rehabilitation services — through legal action. The problem is, they always lose, because vaccine manufactures and health care providers can’t be held at fault if they follow best practices.

“If people have an unfortunate reaction to the vaccine, causing permanent or serious injury, they shouldn’t have to rely on civil litigation to get compensation,” says lead author Jennifer Keelan, assistant professor at the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health in Ontario. “These injuries will occur despite best practices, and you can’t predict the rare people who will have these adverse events.”

Not only would a no-fault program benefit individuals who suffer harm, it could help the public in general, says Keelan. The transmission of pathogens in communities drops significantly when vaccinations rates hit a certain threshold. This is known as herd immunity. People waffling about whether to get a vaccine would be more likely to get immunized, says Keelan, if they knew an adverse reaction wouldn’t cost them financially.

People’s bank accounts shouldn’t suffer, she says, if they make decisions that contribute to public health. “Ethically, it’s unacceptable. Many people don’t get vaccinated just for themselves; they do it for the good of the community” says Keelan. “Support for immunization is broad in Canada but it is very shallow. It doesn’t take very much to unnerve parents who will then choose not to expose their children to vaccines.”

What is the Difference Between Progesterone and Progestin?

Leslie Carol Botha — Sat, 15 Jan 2011 19:28:25 +0000

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Associated Content from Yahoo

Linda L Kinyon (AKA:Countrymom),
Jan 10, 2011

Progesterone, a natural human hormone made by the ovaries, has multiple roles in balancing the effects of estrogen upon the human body. Additionally, progesterone ensures the survival of the embryo and fetus in the uterus, maintains insulin in the body, supports sex drive, prevents breast tissue overgrowth and protects against cystic diseases to mention just a few of its many functions.

As a bonus, women can also benefit from progesterone, with its ability to work as a natural antidepressant. It can help create a calming effect on ones mind as well as improve sleep patterns. When it’s properly balanced, progesterone has many benefits for the human body.

Only found in two ways, progesterone is either made in the ovaries, or created with a bioidentical process. Created from yam oils by the pharmaceutical industries, labs extract the diosgenin from the yams or soy plants and convert the diosgenin molecules into progesterone. It’s then further broken down to represent other hormones such as estrone, estradiol, testosterone etc.

The human body recognizes the bioidentical formulation as normal and thus has no adverse reaction to the bioidentical formulation providing it’s administered appropriately and in the correct balance for the woman’s body.

So why then isn’t progesterone the leading form of hormone supplement? Progesterone can’t be patented. Pharmaceutical companies tend to avoid medications that are unable to be patented. A patent means more money for drug companies and since progesterone is a naturally occurring hormone it’s not able to be patented.

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13 Of The Common Symptoms of Hormone Imbalance in Women

Leslie Carol Botha — Sat, 15 Jan 2011 04:21:05 +0000

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Home Remedy Network

Posted By admin On January 14th 2011

Symptoms of hormone imbalance in women may begin as early as the late twenty’s to the forty’s. Symptoms of hormone imbalance in women are more likely to rise as a woman grows older, specially when neglected in the earlier years. Symptoms of hormone imbalance in women can be each one of these or more of the following:

1. Allergies
2. Depression, fatigue and anxiety
3. Endometriosis
4. Fibrocystic breasts
5. Hair loss and growth of hair on your face
6. Headaches, dizziness and confused thinking
7. Minimal sexual desire
8. Osteoporosis
9. PMS
10. Urinary infections and urinary incontinence
11. Uterine fibroids
12. Extra weight, water retention and bloating
13. Wrinkly skin

Symptoms of hormone imbalance in women are caused primarily by way of the incorrect relationship between progesterone and levels of estrogen in your body.

Both female hormones estrogen and progesterone exist in a delicate sense of balance within women. Variations because balance can have a dramatic impact on your health, causing symptoms of hormone imbalance in women. The levels of these hormones that the woman’s body produces monthly may differ, according to factors such as stress, nutrition, exercise and more importantly — ovulation or even the deficiency of ovulation.

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Side Effects of Natural Progesterone Cream

Leslie Carol Botha — Sat, 15 Jan 2011 05:10:55 +0000

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Serious side effects are quite rare with natural progesterone cream, making it one of the preferred means of hormone therapy. For a thorough understanding on natural progesterone cream’s side effects, uses, indications and risk factors, it is best to consult a doctor before using it.

Bright Hub

Article by Suzanne Florin

Edited & published by lrohner
January 13, 2011

About Hormone Levels

Progesterone is a naturally occuring female hormone that is produced by the adrenal glands and the corpus luteum of the ovary. This hormone: 1) prevents breast cancer and cancer of the reproductive system by opposing the effects of estrogen; 2) protects women from osteoporosis by stimulating bone building; 3) helps control abnormal menstrual bleeding; 4) enhances hormone balance, as it is a precursor to other steroid hormones, and; 5) helps prevent symptoms of PMS if used during anovulatory months.

A decrease in the progesterone levels is usually associated with the menstrual cycle, pregnancy and menopause. During ovulation, progesterone levels may be low if the ovaries produce an insufficient quantity of the progesterone hormone. Once a woman reaches perimenopausal stage, an imbalance in the estrogen and progesterone becomes more pronounced. This is caused by the slowing down in the production of progesterone that takes place in the ovaries. The lowest levels of progesterone is greatly experienced by postmenopausal women, once menstruation stops completely and the ovaries no longer produce the same quantity of progesterone.

There are several treatment options for low levels of progesterone hormones. Oral contraceptive, progesterone suppositories, injections, and progesterone cream are proven effective to supply the needed amount of progesterone. Dr. John Lee, an internationally acknowledged pioneer in the study and use of progesterone, believes that the use of transdermal progesterone cream is the safest among all hormone therapy treatments. It offers numerous health benefits, and natural progesterone cream side effects are rare and easily tolerated by the body.

Read the complete article and related information at Side Effects of Natural Progesterone Cream

Brain Research and Progesterone

Leslie Carol Botha — Sat, 15 Jan 2011 04:58:10 +0000

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Virginia Hopkins Health Watch

HORMONES and RESEARCH: Progesterone and the Brain

Now even brain scientists agree that hormone imbalances are all in your head!

Brinton RD, Thompson RF et al, “Progesterone receptors: form and function in brain,” Front Neuroendocrinol 2008 May;29(2):313-39. Epub 2008 Feb 23.

Comments: Progesterone is the new darling of those who study brain chemistry. Research is coming out almost weekly showing how important progesterone is to brain function. Dr. Lee and I started reporting on progesterone and the brain a decade ago. Dr. Lee famously said that if anyone in his family had a brain injury, he would slather them with progesterone cream. You can imagine the derisive letters and phone calls he received from his colleagues for that statement! A few years later a smart ER doctor who saw a lot of head injuries started wondering why brain injuries were worse in men than in women, and was eventually approved to do a study in which brain injury patients were given injections of progesterone when they arrived in the ER. His research showed that those who received the progesterone did significantly better than those who didn’t. Similar studies have shown the same result.

Around the same time, researchers discovered that progesterone was a key component of the myelin sheath that protects or insulates the nerves—so important in fact that progesterone is made in the myelin sheath. Other research showed that progesterone stimulates the brain’s GABA receptors, those feel-good, calming neurotransmitters.

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Reading between the lines for real health risks

Leslie Carol Botha — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 06:27:01 +0000

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Irish Times

January 6, 2011

SARAH CAREY

Research claims published in medical journals can turn out to be exaggerated, misleading and wrong.

I USUALLY avoid reading health supplements in newspapers as they are full of contradictory guff and puff about what is supposed to be good or bad for you.

The puff emanates from drug companies exaggerating the supposed benefits of their products and the guff from PR companies promoting cosmetics or “food as medicine” style products. Governments and health agencies get in on the act too and over-emphasise certain research results to promote public health.

I remember being pregnant and getting annoyed by the alarmist guidelines issued to expectant mothers regarding foetal and newborn health. The risks of some behaviours seemed to be deliberately exaggerated because health agencies believe that nuance is dangerous.

For instance, a few glasses of wine a week for a pregnant woman is quite harmless, but public health policy, particularly in the US, warns against any alcohol intake in pregnancy. Or you will be warned that you could smother your baby accidentally if you let it sleep in your bed. The evidence shows that where that has happened, it was most likely when the mother’s drunk boyfriend fell asleep with the baby on the couch. But to tackle the behaviour of the stupid, the responsible are made pay the price. This excessively cautionary principle applies across a wide range of behaviours.

But public health policy is just one of many filters between truth and what you end up reading in the papers. The challenge when you are reading an article about the supposed effect of a pill, vitamin or lifestyle behaviour is to figure out how many other filters there are. You might be alert to the PR company ruses, or politicians making political capital out of a health story. You will put your sceptic hat on if some alternative medicine practitioner makes renewed claims about homeopathy. You can double-check with Ben Goldacre’s bad science site (badscience.net) where he debunks an astonishing amount of rubbish that purports to be based on empirical evidence.

But really, the easiest thing to do is ignore all the silly articles. I’m usually happy to take my doctor’s advice. However, two recent articles did bother me because they warn your doctor could be wrong too. Both articles were about the content of medical journals – the ones doctors read to keep up on the latest research.

One study, which was referenced by Goldacre, concerned advertising in those journals and the other, covered in the November edition of the Atlantic magazine, was about the research papers published in the journals. Both studies focused on well-known and highly respected publications such as the Lancet, the Journal of the American Medical Association and the New England Journal of Medicine.

Researchers in the Netherlands examined all advertisements in the journals between 2003 and 2005 and selected ads that made specific claims about the effect of a drug based on the results of drug trials. They checked the references and found that only 39 per cent of these adverts referenced a high-quality trial that supported their claim. The Dutch study is just one in a series that exposed the dubious claims of advertising by drug companies.

Menopause In Your 20′s

Leslie Carol Botha — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 02:06:28 +0000

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Medical Breakthroughs Reported by Ivanhoe

Reported November 12, 2010

BETHESDA, Md. (Ivanhoe Newswire) — For most women, menopause hits around age 50. But thousands of girls and young women have the “change” hit decades too early, meaning motherhood could be out of the question. Researchers are using a patch to help some women realize their dreams of being called “mom.”

Christine Eads spends her day talking to Sirius XM radio listeners about Hollywood happenings, current events, even the latest TV shows.

“I have to watch television and read magazines, and it’s just horrible,” Christine Eads, radio personality, told Ivanhoe.

But what played out in her real life was more like a bad soap opera. After years of irregular periods, night sweats and dozens of doctor’s visits…

“You’re too skinny. You’re not eating right. It’s the medicine you’re taking,” Eads said.

Even being told she might have an STD … finally, the right diagnosis– menopause at 26.

“It turns out, some young women, even teenagers, can have the signs and symptoms of menopause develop,” Lawrence Nelson M.D. National Institutes of Health reproductive endocrinologist, explained.

POI, or primary ovarian insufficiency, affects 1 out of every 1,000 women between 15 and 29 years old. The ovaries don’t work right… And a simple blood test can determine if you have it — but it’s often misdiagnosed for years.

More…

Read the complete article and related information at Menopause In Your 20′s