Bioidentical Hormone Replacement for Women
Dr. Scott Resnick | Chattanooga TN
Dr. Resnick has been utilizing Bioidentical Hormone Replacement with his female patients for almost 14 years. At Chattanooga Functional Medicine we look to the latest research to optimize the safety and effectiveness of your hormonal replacement regimen. Similar to hormone replacement in men, it is incumbent that your HRT is part of a functional perspective that includes considering the health of your adrenals, your thyroid, your detoxification pathways, and your gut. By matching the appropriate testing to your hormonal needs, we can optimize the effectiveness and the safety of your hormonal choices. Don’t put yourself at risk by using hormones without knowing their levels, metabolism, and clearance.
Dr. Resnick has been utilizing Bioidentical Hormone Replacement with his female patients for almost 14 years. At Chattanooga Functional Medicine we look to the latest research to optimize the safety and effectiveness of your hormonal replacement regimen. Similar to hormone replacement in men, it is incumbent that your HRT is part of a functional perspective that includes considering the health of your adrenals, your thyroid, your detoxification pathways, and your gut. By matching the appropriate testing to your hormonal needs, we can optimize the effectiveness and the safety of your hormonal choices. Don’t put yourself at risk by using hormones without knowing their levels, metabolism, and clearance.
Menopause results from significant hormone changes as a woman ages
Menopause. It is a term that over the years has elicited cultural images of the frazzled woman, flushed face and battery-operated fan, delivering a hormonally fueled tirade at her friends, children and co-workers. It has been the fodder for jocular self-help books, Saturday-Night Live skits, and even a Broadway musical. But to millions of women around the country and the world, the rapid changes of hormonal levels that occur around the age of 50 are the cause for significant physical, social and emotional stressors. For the millions who suffer, this is often no laughing matter. The text books tell us that the average age for menopause is 50.4 years, and experience shows us that for many women, the decline of their sex hormones, estrogen and progesterone, fully begin to taper off around this age. As a practicing Gynecologist, Dr. Resnick noticed that menopause was less a “switch” that was flipped off by the ovaries at the half-century mark, but more of a progression or evolution, with hormonal changes starting around the age of 35, and progressing through and beyond the conclusion of the menstrual cycle. Again, a textbook definition of menopause is a “cessation of menses for six months”; but this definition over-simplifies the complexity of the female hormonal cycles, and the clinical effects of the hormonal fluxuations that start to become more pronounced after the age of 35.
Part of the challenge in assessing the symptoms around the menstrual cycle (or lack thereof) is that for a majority of a woman’s life, the hormones are constantly changing and in a state of flux. Throughout a month and over the years, the variable amounts of the primary hormones estrogen and progesterone are changing relative to one another, in addition to the multiple other hormones that influence a woman’s mind, body, appearance and mood. A thorough evaluation of a woman’s hormonal status is not simply relegated to a spot check of her estrogen and progesterone. Hormones such as thyroid, cortisol, insulin and DHEA all influence multiple physiologic pathways in the female (and male) body. Other sex hormones, such as pregnenolone, estrone and testosterone similarly have strong influences on female biology, physiology and anatomy.
Hormone replacement: in the reproductive years and menopause
Many women may have mood changes that may have been brought on by years of hormonal replacement or birth control pills, which for forty years have been known to severely deplete the body of the B vitamins essential for the production of the “feel calm” neurotransmitters dopamine and serotonin. Still other women in the peri-menopause and menopause may have relatively elevated levels of the hormone estrogen generated from the presence of excessive adipocyte cellular function. More plainly put, fat cells make estrogen. Excessive estrogen has been associated with many cancers, namely those of the breast and uterus. Current science is showing that it is not only estrogen that increases our risk of cancer, but the estrogen metabolites, breakdown products of the hormone estrogen.
As many women enter into the menopausal years and stop ovulating, the protective effects of the ovulatory hormone progesterone are lost. Progesterone is the ‘yang’ to estrogens ‘yin’, and counters the growth promoting effects of the hormone estrogen in tissues like the uterus and breast. Is your physician checking the correct hormone and metabolite levels, or just placing you on a “standard” dose of hormones? Are you testing with salivary, blood spot or serum hormone tests? If your doctor doesn’t check your metabolic pathways, or understand the correct ways to sample your levels of hormones, you could be putting yourself at risk for estrogen-dominant cancers.
Hormone replacement: Manage your hormones safely and decrease risk
All this leads to the final question about the use of hormones in menopause; “is Bioidentical Hormone Replacement safe?” While the data may not be fully referenced by the “Big-Pharm” fueled industry in the United States, there is extensive evidence from European studies. One by a Doctor Fournier with over 70,000 patients showed that in patients using “bio-identical” hormone regimens, the relative risk of breast cancer is one. This statistical reference means that relative to a non-user of hormones, there is no increased risk over a baseline for breast cancer. Several studies have already shown that hormone replacement therapy (HRT) likely decreases the risk of colon cancer, osteoporosis and coronary artery disease.
But is Bioidentical Hormone Replacement a panacea? Is it for everyone? Probably not. The best way to assess for hormone replacement is with an individualized, unique approach that incorporates you personal medical, reproductive, and family history. Only with this information, and a careful laboratory assessment of your hormonal, metabolic and eliminatory (detoxifying) capacities, should a course of hormonal therapy be started.
What's Next?
Contact us to setup your New Patient Appointment.
Visit our Home Page to read more about Functional Medicine.
Menopause. It is a term that over the years has elicited cultural images of the frazzled woman, flushed face and battery-operated fan, delivering a hormonally fueled tirade at her friends, children and co-workers. It has been the fodder for jocular self-help books, Saturday-Night Live skits, and even a Broadway musical. But to millions of women around the country and the world, the rapid changes of hormonal levels that occur around the age of 50 are the cause for significant physical, social and emotional stressors. For the millions who suffer, this is often no laughing matter. The text books tell us that the average age for menopause is 50.4 years, and experience shows us that for many women, the decline of their sex hormones, estrogen and progesterone, fully begin to taper off around this age. As a practicing Gynecologist, Dr. Resnick noticed that menopause was less a “switch” that was flipped off by the ovaries at the half-century mark, but more of a progression or evolution, with hormonal changes starting around the age of 35, and progressing through and beyond the conclusion of the menstrual cycle. Again, a textbook definition of menopause is a “cessation of menses for six months”; but this definition over-simplifies the complexity of the female hormonal cycles, and the clinical effects of the hormonal fluxuations that start to become more pronounced after the age of 35.
Part of the challenge in assessing the symptoms around the menstrual cycle (or lack thereof) is that for a majority of a woman’s life, the hormones are constantly changing and in a state of flux. Throughout a month and over the years, the variable amounts of the primary hormones estrogen and progesterone are changing relative to one another, in addition to the multiple other hormones that influence a woman’s mind, body, appearance and mood. A thorough evaluation of a woman’s hormonal status is not simply relegated to a spot check of her estrogen and progesterone. Hormones such as thyroid, cortisol, insulin and DHEA all influence multiple physiologic pathways in the female (and male) body. Other sex hormones, such as pregnenolone, estrone and testosterone similarly have strong influences on female biology, physiology and anatomy.
Hormone replacement: in the reproductive years and menopause
Many women may have mood changes that may have been brought on by years of hormonal replacement or birth control pills, which for forty years have been known to severely deplete the body of the B vitamins essential for the production of the “feel calm” neurotransmitters dopamine and serotonin. Still other women in the peri-menopause and menopause may have relatively elevated levels of the hormone estrogen generated from the presence of excessive adipocyte cellular function. More plainly put, fat cells make estrogen. Excessive estrogen has been associated with many cancers, namely those of the breast and uterus. Current science is showing that it is not only estrogen that increases our risk of cancer, but the estrogen metabolites, breakdown products of the hormone estrogen.
As many women enter into the menopausal years and stop ovulating, the protective effects of the ovulatory hormone progesterone are lost. Progesterone is the ‘yang’ to estrogens ‘yin’, and counters the growth promoting effects of the hormone estrogen in tissues like the uterus and breast. Is your physician checking the correct hormone and metabolite levels, or just placing you on a “standard” dose of hormones? Are you testing with salivary, blood spot or serum hormone tests? If your doctor doesn’t check your metabolic pathways, or understand the correct ways to sample your levels of hormones, you could be putting yourself at risk for estrogen-dominant cancers.
Hormone replacement: Manage your hormones safely and decrease risk
All this leads to the final question about the use of hormones in menopause; “is Bioidentical Hormone Replacement safe?” While the data may not be fully referenced by the “Big-Pharm” fueled industry in the United States, there is extensive evidence from European studies. One by a Doctor Fournier with over 70,000 patients showed that in patients using “bio-identical” hormone regimens, the relative risk of breast cancer is one. This statistical reference means that relative to a non-user of hormones, there is no increased risk over a baseline for breast cancer. Several studies have already shown that hormone replacement therapy (HRT) likely decreases the risk of colon cancer, osteoporosis and coronary artery disease.
But is Bioidentical Hormone Replacement a panacea? Is it for everyone? Probably not. The best way to assess for hormone replacement is with an individualized, unique approach that incorporates you personal medical, reproductive, and family history. Only with this information, and a careful laboratory assessment of your hormonal, metabolic and eliminatory (detoxifying) capacities, should a course of hormonal therapy be started.
What's Next?
Contact us to setup your New Patient Appointment.
Visit our Home Page to read more about Functional Medicine.