If you’re interested in how bioidentical hormone therapy can help you, you’re not alone. Here to explain what patients stand to gain by using bioidentical hormones is Dr. George Solomon, a respected physician in practice at AgeLess MediSpa in Port Orange, Florida, who has spent years researching the field and helping patients use bioidentical hormones to reach their physical and emotional goals.
Bioidentical hormones have been used for over 56 years, but they have really only sprung up in popularity in the United States over the course of the past few years.
Now that the alternative to bioidentical hormones has been deemed unsafe, people are finally beginning to show more interest in bioidentical hormone therapy. Despite the recent interest, however, the truth is that bioidentical hormones have actually been around for a long time. Essentially, bioidentical hormones are a type of hormones that are exactly identical to your own body’s, and these hormones are made out of soy or yam.
As women age, the way their body feels and responds tends to change, and bioidentical hormone replacement therapy is one of the ways that women can get that younger feeling back. Basically, bioidentical hormone replacement therapy is a way that doctors can help improve your quality of life using natural methods.
In the past, many doctors have used some synthetic hormones to treat these types of age-related issues ranging from depression to back pain. These types of synthetic hormones are still in existence of course, usually in things like Premarin, which stands for pregnant mare urine. So these synthetic hormones are estrogens that are made from the pregnant mare’s urine. Premarin was invented back in 1942; however we have been seeing a lot of problems with it ever since then. Increasingly, people who used Premarin were starting to report things like increased breast cancer rates or heart disease, pulmonary embolism, clots, and things like that. And that was traced back to the synthetic hormones.
Due to all of this, in 2002, the women’s health initiative determined that we needed to halt the use of these medications and stop giving them to patients, because of the increased risk of the things I just mentioned.
After hearing this news, the pharmaceutical companies came back and essentially said, “Well we can cut down the dose to half or even to less than half, so women will not develop these breast cancers and other side effects.” However, it is not really the dose that seems to be the problem with the synthetic hormones, it is the duration of how long a patient has been taking the synthetic hormones.
Because of all of this, there is now a huge wave of interest in bioidentical hormones, and countries like China and France have been using these medications for 50 or 60 years already. Unfortunately, because these bioidentical hormones cannot be patented, no pharmaceutical company in the U.S. can make money off of them, which means there’s nobody to endorse and advertise them to the United States population as a whole.
Without anyone endorsing bioidentical hormone therapy, many have started question its safety. So even though these bioidentical hormones have been used safely outside of the United States for years, they are still struggling to gain a following here in the States.
As time goes on and people gain more confidence in using bioidentical hormones, however, I have no doubt that more and more women will begin asking their doctors for this type of hormone replacement therapy as a way to cure everything from fatigue to irritability, and many other common issues.
The information in the article is not intended to substitute for the medical expertise and advice of your healthcare provider. We encourage you to discuss any decisions about treatment or care with an appropriate healthcare provider.
