Thanks to Suzanne Somers, natural hormone replacement is gaining acceptance by women. Because natural hormones ? estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone -- are not patentable, the pharmaceutical industry is not happy. When women switch from synthetic to natural hormones, pharmaceutical industry profits are threatened.
Board certified internist Dr. Michael E. Platt, M.D.is not happy about Suzanne's promotion of natural estrogen for another reason. Dr. Platt says estrogen, natural or synthetic, causes six kinds of cancer, and has statistics to back it up.
Author of an extraordinary new book, "The Miracle of Bioidentical Hormones", Dr. Platt treats causes of illness while conventional, pharmaceutical industry-driven medicine treats symptoms.
He believes it's proper to prescribe natural estrogen for severe menopause symptoms. Other than that, estrogen replacement is not necessary. After menopause, the body continues to produce estrogen.
But "The Miracle of Bioidentical Hormones" is about more than just estrogen. Dr. Platt's favorite (and safest) hormone for men, women and children (yes, men and children) is natural progesterone. It's an amazing hormone, which traditionally trained physicians seem to know little about because they have been trained to use synthetic hormone replacement.
For years, doctors have prescribed synthetic progesterone and synthetic estrogen derived from horses? urine and now we are living with an epidemic of breast and other cancers.
Using actual patient histories, Dr. Platt explains how he treats common health issues such as PMS, fibromyalgia, ADD in children and adults, morbid obesity and more ? with natural hormones and specially formulated dietary supplements.
Some of Dr. Platt's solutions to common problems are not traditional, but they work. For example, if a woman has urinary incontinence he prescribes testosterone and an exercise regimen. He says the problem will clear up in one week if the patient follows his directions. And who would think that progesterone could cure a migraine headache? But Dr. Platt makes it happen. His success in treating ADD in children and adults with progesterone is amazing.
Traditional incontinence treatment utilizes drugs that don't cure ? they only alleviate symptoms. And they are a lot more costly and side-effect ridden than Dr. Platt's solution. Traditional treatment of migraine headaches means using potent drugs with nasty side effects, and they don't always work. Children diagnosed with ADD or ADHD are dosed with potent drugs that are mind and personality numbing.
Many people seek Dr. Platt's advice as a last resort ? conventional medicine hasn't helped them. As you read his case histories, and see how he has helped ?hopeless? cases, you get the sense that something is seriously lacking with our traditional health care system.
The Miracle of Bioidentical Hormones is a highly readable, informative, eye-opening book. Read it if you are open to untraditional solutions to some difficult health problems. You will be glad you did.
Recently there was a Danish study on research regarding healthy hormone replacement therapy (HRT), suggesting that women must cycle their hormones and have a menstrual bleed to be truly safe from cardiovascular events. The study found that overall there was no increased risk of heart attacks in current users of HRT compared to women who had never taken hormones.
The study is a significant validation of the value of cyclical (estrogen, followed by a combination of estrogen and progesterone) hormone therapy, indicating that biomimetic hormone restoration therapy (BHRT) may actually be safer than statically dosed continuous-combined.
There are more and more women today turning back to Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT), but there are many products on the market, making the right choice difficult.
Thia Danish observational study is the largest to look at the effects of HRT since the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) trial in 1991, which followed 698,098 healthy Danish women, aged 51-69. All of the questions about hormone therapy started back when the National Institute of Health (NIH) sponsored the WHI study of more than 161,000 women, which was designed to identify the benefits and risks of using hormone restoration therapy to prevent chronic diseases. It was ended mid-stream in 2002 when WHI investigators found that the risks of this approach using synthetic therapy exceeded the safety limits.
The results of WHI study dealt with only women over 65 who were taking only synthetic hormone replacement therapy which just consisted of the drugs PremPro and Premarin. This study proved that dosing synthetic HRT in a static, low-dose regimen was harmful to woman over 65, with regard to stroke and cardiac situations.More than 14 years and nearly $800 million taxpayer dollars later, the overly emphasized negative results of the WHI were released back in 2002.
This news caused millions of women to immediately stop taking their Premarin or Prempro, or any other product deemed a hormone by their doctors.
Interestingly, the WHI never looked at hormones, only drugs with "hormone-like" effects dosed in a regimen far from that of human replacement. This study has led us to believe that conjugated equine estrogens (from pregnant mare urine) and a synthetic progestin (Prempro) dosed on a daily basis in static doses is clearly very harmful to women after only a few years, and yet, in contradictory reports from the same agency, PremPro seemed to have had positive effects as well. The other drug studied, daily Premarin, seemed to show substantially less harmful effects. Bioidentical hormones in static doses were not included in the study because they tend to be prescribed and dosed too many different ways.
After all of that, acquiring hormones is quite a challenge as doctors are leery of even what is known as the "Standard of Care" approved synthetics. What is more, finding legitimate insurance-covered mainstream physicians to prescribe even bio-identical hormones has been difficult.
This is why the new studies on hormone replacement are of tremendous importance, and offer much hope to women in menopause.
Both Barbara Morris, R.ph. - & Kristin Gabriel are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Barbara Morris, R.ph. - has sinced written about articles on various topics from . Barbara Morris is a pharmacist and author of "Put Old on Hold." Visit http://www.PutOldonHold.comSign up for her newsletter and get ?Twelve Diva Tested Tips for Fabulous Skin.? More about The Miracle of Bioidentical Hormones at http://www.DrPlatt.com or h. Barbara Morris, R.ph. -'s top article . to your Favourites.
Kristin Gabriel has sinced written about articles on various topics from Cure Anxiety, Heart Diseases and Aging Problems. Writer Kristin Gabriel works with T.S. Wiley developer of the Wiley Protocol Biomimetic Hormone Restoration Therapy (BHRT), also known as