Menopause: Pros and Cons of Hormone Therapy

Menopause means the cessation of menses, but often brings in its wake a flood of other symptoms including hot flashes, sweating, thinning of the skin, thinning of the bones-osteoporosis, changes in mood, lowered energy level, vaginal dryness, and decreased sexual desire. Many women feel that they have lost control of their own bodies.The good news is that this stormy and unpleasant course does not have to occur. There are safe and effective natural medicines that you can use to eliminate the symptoms of Menopause. Life-style and dietary choices, including supplementation with specific vitamins & minerals, and extracts of certain foods rich in plant estrogen and progesterone can help make this natural transition a smooth one.
To understand Menopause, you need to know a little about your hormones estrogen and progesterone. Starting in a woman’s 30s, blood levels of estrogen and progesterone gradually decline. This is what nature intended. Estrogen is necessary for the monthly production of new endometrial cells to line the uterus in preparation for a baby. Progesterone increases the vascular development of the uterus and breasts. When the child bearing years are over, the hormone levels decrease dramatically.The use of synthetic estrogens, first isolated in the 1920s, did not become popular until the 1960s, when it was touted in Feminine Forever, by Robert Wilson, as the antidote to aging in women by preventing the otherwise inevitable thinning and wrinkling of the skin, drying of the vaginal membranes, and thinning of the bones that caused stooping of the shoulders. By 1975 more than half of the 30 million postmenopausal women in the United States were being prescribed estrogen. However, about that same time, studies began showing that these women were five times more likely to develop uterine cancer than women who did not take this Estrogen Replacement Therapy.
 
More recent studies have shown that estrogen also increases the incidence of breast cancer.There are three types of estrogen in a woman’s body that work together to safely produce the desired effects. The three types of estrogen are Estrone (E1), Estradiol (E2), and Estriol (E3). Estrone and Estradiol have now been shown to be carcinogenic when given by themselves, while Estriol has been found to be anticarcinogenic and therefore protect the body from the harmful effects of the other two. However, all of the current estrogen drugs used in this country are combinations of synthetic copies of estrone and estradiol.
Rather than admit they were wrong and open themselves up to millions of dollars in law suits, doctors and pharmaceutical companies in the U.S. continue to make the synthetic copies of the forms of estrogen that are known to be carcinogenic, although the safe estrogen, Estriol, has been prescribed in Europe for a number of years.
Doctors and pharmaceutical companies in the U.S. are either afraid to learn the truth and therefore don’t investigate it, or they are involved in a horrible cover-up that is killing thousands of women every year. They rationalize their position by contending that although the statistics show that the estrogen drugs are statistically associated with an increased incidence of cancer of the uterus and the breast, it is impossible to prove a direct cause in any individual case. They also contend that estrogen is also known to be positively associated with a reduced indidence of hip fractures by preventing osteoporosis.
Since there are more than 1 million hip fractures annually in this country compared to only 46,000 cases of uterine cancer and 175,000 cases of breast cancer, many doctors believe that the risks of osteoporosis so far outweigh the risk of cancer that it is justifiable to continue to prescribe the synthetic estrogens Estrone and Estradiol.
To add to this bias, new studies have recently shown that adding progestin (synthetic progesterone) for at least 10 days each month to the Estrogen Replacement Thereapy exerts a protective effect against uterine cancer. Women are therefore now being told that adding progesterone to their Estrogen Replacement Thereapy resolves the health concerns. However, this is not true. Although synthetic progestin may protect their risk of uterine cancer, it increases their risk of breast cancer and heart disease, and it again causes them to have to suffer monthly bleedingThe real question every woman needs to ask is, “Is there a safe hormone replacement therapy?” The answer is a definitive YES! There are natural sources of both estrogen and progesterone that have been shown to be safe and effective.
In the January 2, 1978, issue of JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association, Dr. Alvin H. Follingstad, M.D. wrote an article entitled Estriol, the Forgotten Estrogen? Dr. Follingstad calls Estriol the neglected estrogen. “In our country,” he says, “it has been labeled as a weak or ineffective estrogen and difficult if not impossible to obtain. Actually it is not weak if given in adequate doses. A dose of 2 to 4 mg is the equivalent of 0.6 to 1.25 mg of conjugated estrogen or estrone and is just as effective. It has been available in for many years and is cited in articles on the equivalent doses of various estrogens.
Dr. Follingstad reported, “Studies of ethnic groups with low incidence of breast cancer compared with the high incidence on our country and in Britain have shown higher urinary excretion of estriol in the low-incidence countries. Animal studies have shown that a high endogenous estriol level protects against the tumor-producing effects of estrone and estradiol.””According to an unpublished study by Lemon, Foley, and Kessinger, 2.5 to 5 mg and occasionally 15 mg of estriol, equivalent to a little more than 0.65 to 1.25 mg of conjugated estrogens was used, with the informed consent of patients, in postmenopausal women with breast carcinoma and metasiases. Thirty-seven percent receiving this small dosage had remission or arrest of metastatic lesions.”
In conclusion to his article, Dr. Follingstad restates the essential question and then gives the answer “Do we have a safer and possibly a noncarcinogenic estrogen that has been neglected, one that can be administered orally, maintains its unique identity, and is as effective as estrone or estradiol? Enough presumptive and scientific evidence has been accumulated that we may say that orally administered estriol is safer than estrone or estradiol.”

In spite of Dr. Follingstad’s plea to his colleagues to investigate and use estriol, most doctors continue to ignore the use of this estrogen. Instead, they continue to prescribe Premarin (synthetic estrone and esradiol) and Provera (synthetic progestin) which has some progesterone effects, but also has an additional 30 negative side effects that are listed in the Physician’s Desk Reference.

In my practice, I recommend a combination of Estriol and Progesterone, extracted from natural sources. The Estriol is extracted from Soybeans and the Progesterone is extracted from the Wild Yam. Estriol can prevent the typical symptoms of menopause (see “PROS” in the table). Taking natural Progesterone helps to prevent uterine cancer and can actually increase Bone Mineral Density (BMD). In 1990, Dr. John Lee, M.D., reported a study entitled: Osteoporosis Reversal, The Role of Pregesterone, Clinical Nutrition Review, 1990, 10:384-391. The study showed that postmenopausal women who took natural progesterone increase their BMD by 10-15% within 6 months and 20-25% in 3 years.
Naturopathic Physicians have been using natural hormones from plants for at least a hundred years. Alfalfa, Soybeans, Dong Quai, Angelica, and the Wild Yam, all contain natural plant estrogen and/or progesterone that are virtually identical to the natural estrogens made by the human body. These are safe and effective alternatives to synthetic drugs, providing all of the benefits and more, without the negatives.