Biomimetic-Hormone Replacement Therapy

One of the most difficult experiences during the time of menopause, apart from hot flashes and weight gain is probably sleep problems during this time. What makes sleep disorders so difficult to deal with is that many women are still working during these years and waking up in the middle of the night and not being able to get back to sleep after waking up means that working and even functioning during the day becomes more difficult. Lack of sleep is not only bad for your health, your weight, it also contributes to lower performance on the job and memory problems. Walking around in a brain fog the next day is not fun.

Some people in menopause will have difficulty falling asleep at night, but this is less common than the problem of waking during the early morning hours and not able to return to sleep. Of course, this is all attributable to hormone imbalance. Achieving hormone balance will cure the problem. The first step is to test hormone levels, but there are some things you can take to encourage falling asleep for the rest of the night.  Have your doctor order a full hormone panel for you – either a blood or a saliva test (saliva testing is more accurate.  If you are waking up during the night and unable to get back to sleep, most likely you are short of estrogen or DHEA with raised cortisol levels due to chronic stress. Also, you should work on managing your stress levels if this is a problem, learn to pursue relaxation and meditation if you know this is an issue.

Two natural solutions available at the health store or buy direct from Amazon to deal with sleep problems are calcium magnesium drink powder and melatonin. There is no need to take these together. Try both products one at a time and see what works best for you. You can experiment with melatonin – beginning with a 3 mg dose. However, you may find that you need a higher dose. It also comes in 5 mg., 10 mg and 20 mg. You could also try the delayed release melatonin if you don’t have a problem falling asleep and only have trouble staying asleep. Suzanne Somers says that she takes a 20 mg dose and she sleeps a full eight hours a night with melatonin. Melatonin, by the way is one of the hormones we lose as we grow older. Little children have lots of melatonin – that is why they sleep so well. There are many health benefits to supplementing with natural melatonin, which we won’t go in to here in this posting.

If melatonin is not working for you, try calcium citrate powder.  This is another natural solution you can either buy on Amazon or else at your local health store.  Our favorite is Peter Gillham’s Natural Vitality Natural Calm.  About a half hour before bedtime, mix up a teaspoon full of the powder and add to an 8 ounce glass of water.  You should sleep like a baby.  Adjust the dose – take one or two teaspoons – if two teaspoons give you diarrhea, reduce the amount you take.  Calcium citrate powder is good for you, Peter Gillham’s Natural Calm – is a natural solution to sleep problems.

In addition to the above solutions for sleep disorders in menopause, ensure that you relax before you go to bed. Take a warm bath and don’t drink caffeinated beverages after 3:00 in the afternoon. Make sure that you sleep in total darkness, blacking out nightlights and lights from your radio alarm clock. A few yoga exercises to stretch and de-stress before bedtime is also something that will promote healthy sleep. If you still experience difficulty sleeping after trying all of the above solutions, it’s time to go back to the doctor and discuss in depth you symptoms and the solutions you’ve already tried.

Tags: calcium citrate powder, DHEA, Estrogen, melatonin, sleep disorders, sleep problems, Suzanne Somers

Now you can test your hormones in the privacy of your home with an at-home saliva test kit, readily available from Amazon. This test will be shipped to you home and the results will “recommend” what amounts of bioidentical hormones you will need to correct your hormone balance.

Simple saliva test kit which allows patients to test for any 5 of the following hormones: Estradiol, Progesterone, Testosterone, DHEA, Cortisol, Estrone, Estriol, Androstenedione. Why test saliva? Because steroid hormones play such a vital role in maintenance of health, knowledge of an imbalance in any one or more hormones can help illuminate the cause of health problems and provide a rational basis for correcting the imbalance through diet, exercise, or hormone supplementation. Are the levels of steroid hormones in blood and saliva the same? When the various glands manufacture the steroids they are released into the bloodstream bound to carrier proteins. Only a small fraction (1-5%) of a given amount of steroid hormone breaks loose from the carrier protein in the bloodstream and is free to enter target tissues. This free or unbound hormone is what we want to measure, since it is active or bioavailable to the target tissues such as the breast, uterus, brain, and skin.

This news story from the Telegraph yet again speaks of the link between breast cancer and HRT.  Yet again, this news is bound to cause more confusion on the issue for our readers who are no doubt concerned about their health, about hormone replacement and whether there is a connection between HRT and breast cancer.  When your first read this article, keep in mind that the exact cause of breast cancer is still unknown, though age, relatives with breast cancer, alcohol consumption and diet are still believed to influence who gets breast cancer.  Also interesting to note is the fact that mainstream media still does not talk about natural bio-identical hormones.  It’s interesting because  it gives one the impression that the mainstream media when speaking about hormones has either been forbidden to speak about natural bio-identical hormones or else they just don’t know about this advance in medicine.

HRT link to breast cancer ‘flawed’

“The Million Women Study suggested that women taking HRT were twice as likely to develop breast cancer and more likely to die from it than those not taking the therapy.

The study, funded by Cancer Research UK and conducted by a team at Oxford University, triggered a collapse in confidence in Hormone Replacement Therapy and the number of women taking it halved.

Several studies subsequently showed a small increased risk of cancer and a fierce debate has raged over the issue.

In 2002, before the Million Women Study reported there were 4.9m prescriptions dispensed in England for the treatment, compared with 2.3m last year.
A new analysis of the study and two others, found it cannot prove that the treatment causes an increased risk of developing breast cancer, experts said.

There were many flaws in the study including that women may have already had breast cancer when they were enrolled in the study and that they were at increased risk of dying within three years which was ‘biologically implausible’, the researchers said.
Writing in the Journal of Family Planning and Reproductive Health Care Prof Samuel Shapiro from the University of Cape Town and others said: “The name ‘Million Women Study’ implies an authority beyond criticism or refutation.

“Here we conclude that the evidence in the Million Women Study was indeed unreliable. There were defects in the study design, and the findings did not adequately satisfy the principles of causation.
“HRT may or may not increase the risk of breast cancer but the Million Women Study did not establish that it does.”

The authors said inviting women to join the study would in itself have increased the number already aware of breast lumps or precancerous changes, leading to higher numbers of cancers being detected (detection bias), they added.

This is borne out by a higher rate of cancers among the study participants than in the general population, irrespective of whether or not they used HRT.

The authors also argued that crucial data was often also missing.

Prof Shapiro wrote: “Yet the validity of any study is dependent on the quality of its design, execution, analysis and interpretation. Size alone does not guarantee that the findings are reliable.
“The Million Women Study was an observational study, and it has the attendant problems and uncertainties intrinsic to such studies.

“If the evidence was unreliable, the only effect of its massive size would have been to confer spurious statistical authority to doubtful findings.”

Prof Shapiro and the other authors declared ‘competing interests’ in the research paper, in that they had all acted as consultants for pharmaceutical companies that make HRT, currently or in the past.

Dr Susie Jennings, Senior Policy Officer at Breakthrough Breast Cancer, says: “Many studies have shown that HRT increases the risk of breast cancer and this study does not change that. It does suggest the risks may, in some instances, have been slightly overstated.

“However, we know that the risk of breast cancer starts to decrease as soon as a woman stops taking HRT.

“We hope the Breakthrough Generations Study, which is following 110,000 UK women over 40 years, will provide further clarity on this issue.”

Hazel Nunn, head of health information at Cancer Research UK, said: “Women shouldn’t be unduly worried by this latest review of HRT and breast cancer risk. HRT can be an effective short-term treatment for menopausal symptoms – women taking it should try and use the lowest dose possible for as short a time as they need it.

“If you are considering starting or stopping HRT, or using it for a long time, you should discuss it with your doctor. The issues are different for every woman and your doctor will be able to help you weigh up the benefits and risks of different types of HRT and make the right choice based on your own circumstances.

“In the UK, HRT use has been falling since the start of the Millennium. Studies suggest that in 2005 there were 1,400 fewer cases of breast cancer in the UK among women aged 50-59 than would have been if there had been no drop in HRT use.”

The co-authors of the Million Women Study refuted the claims. “

This story originally appeared in the Daily Telegraph.

Read my previous posting on Synthetic HRT cases are now in the courts.  Remember, if you are using natural bioidentical estrogen, you must take it with natural progesterone in order that you not become estrogen dominant – which is a dangerous place to be.

Tags: Bio-identical Hormones, breast cancer, HRT