What is Hormone Replacement Therapy?

What is hormone replacement therapy, or HRT? At menopause this is the point in a woman's life when her monthly cycles have come to an end, as you likely know. And then there are symptoms that occur as a result – hot flashes, night sweats, insomnia, there can be a racing heart rate and a whole bunch of changes. One of the treatments is hormone replacement therapy. Why does menopause occur in the first place? Well, normally at the end of a menstrual cyclte, estrogen and progesterone levels tend to be very low and there is a gland in the brain that picks up on this message called the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus basically sends releasing factors down to another gland in the brain called the pituitary gland. Once this takes place, the pituitary gland secretes hormones that go to the ovaries to start another menstrual cycle. These hormones are called FSH and LH – follicle stimulating hormones and luteinizing hormones. As those hormones go through the bloodstream they alert the immature egg follicles in the ovaries to begin maturing and ripening. Around Day 14, one of them outpaces the rest and sort of pops out into the fallopian tube and we call that ovulation. While the egg follicle is developing in the ovaries it's also producing estrogen, and while it's rolling down the fallopian tube it's producing more estrogen. The part that gets left behind in the ovaries is called the corpus luteum, which secretes progesterone primarily in the second path of the menstrual cycle. If the egg fails to become fertilized by a sperm at some point, it's going to dry up and no longer be able to produce estrogen. Once this occurs, estrogen levels will fall down, the corpus luteum in the ovary will dry up and it will no longer produce progesterone, the levels will become very low, the endometrium will slough-off, the woman will have menstruation. When the estrogen and progesterone levels are very low, the brain begins to pick up on that message and say to the ovaries, "Okay girls; let's do it again next month", until the cycle starts again. So what happens at menopause? Do you run out of egg follicles in your ovaries? No, there are still about 10,000 eggs there, but they're the least responsive egg follicles. They've been with a woman since she was 13 or 14 years old, having a chance all those years to respond to those hormones and they're still sitting there going, I don't know what to do. It would appear that these are the least intelligent and responsive eggs that you have left. The brain knows the eggs are in there so it begins to bombard the ovaries with all these hormones like FSH and LH – even adrenalin gets into the act – and that's where all the symptoms come from. So the medical thinking has been, let's replace the estrogen and progesterone in order to compensate for this. If there are estrogen and progesterone in the bloodstream, then the brain won't bombard the ovaries anymore. This was the reasoning behind hormone replacement therapy. The problem is, they used dangerous forms of estrogen; what are called conjugated equine estrogens which came from the urine of mares. Premarin – which is one of these drugs – literally means 'pregnant mare's urine. And they used synthetic progesterone, as well, which is not nearly as safe as natural progesterone. In fai
ess, those things helped to prevent osteoporosis, but because the estrogen caused cells to divide too quickly and because it causes blood to thicken, this resulted in an increased risk of breast cancer and vascular disease. In 2002, they came to the forefront; The Women's Health Initiative Study and also the study out of the UK called The Million Women's Study both showed that breast cancer rates were 26 percent higher and heart attack rates were 29 percent higher and there was a 41 percent increased risk of stroke in women who had been administered hormone replacement therapy in this traditional way. That evidence had been mounting for years before then, and I had been warning my own female patients about it, yet, the medical community was still prescribing it and recommending it. There are certain critical risks attached to using hormone replacement therapy in this way that conce
me to a very large degree. It's not what I really want women to do. Many doctors have now switched to suggesting bio-identical hormones, but I believe the estrogens in bio-identical hormones may be just as dangerous as the synthetic ones that we talk about earlier, the ones from horses, if you will. The jury is still out. I prefer women to use natural herbal agents that have been proven in head to head studies against traditional hormone replacement therapy to do the exact same thing – reduce the symptoms of menopause, but without the risk of these very adverse side-effects. There are clinical studies that prove this. I've put all this together for you in an eBook called, The Natural Management of Menopause. I'd like you to please download it right now and read it through because 80 percent of all women could have total relief of menopausal symptoms without using any of those drugs. You'll see all the scientific references are there. If it doesn't quite do the job, you could talk to your doctor and possibly add natural progesterone. In my opinion, these things are the first steps you should take if you're going through menopause instead of traditional hormone replacement therapy. Download the eBook right now, The Natural Management of Menopause. Every woman should read this. Most medical doctors don't study nutrition and natural medicine in medical school to any appreciable degree, so they're typically not even aware of the value that can be received using these methods. It's all there in the scientific papers that they should be looking at every month as I do, to be honest with you. At http://www.MeschinoHealth.com, you'll see my other research review papers which might be of interest to you, as well as other videos I've created, footage from my live professional and educational seminars, other resources and downloadable files that I've created. They're all there to help you live a long, healthy and functional life. All my research papers and teaching materials have all the scientific references there so you can see that the information is coming from only reputable, sound and evidence-based research so you know you're on very solid footing for any health and wellness information that you might be looking for. Any topic that you might be searching for, you know you'll get information that's based on actual research, not just something that someone dreamed up. You should make http://www.MeschinoHealth.com and ongoing, reliable resource when it comes to health and wellness information for both you and your family members.