Learning curve: Menopause and bio-identical hormone replacement

September 23, 5:47 PMLA Health and Beauty ExaminerSarah Torribio

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Oprah is an advocate of bio-identical hormone replacement.  AP Photo/Peter Kramer

More and more women are seeking customized solutions when it comes to relieving the symptoms—and addressing the vulnerabilities—that come with menopause.

Quite a bit of discomfort can accompany the proverbial change of life.

Common symptoms include hot flashes and night sweats; insomnia; diminished libido; loss of focus and difficulties with memory; hair loss; vaginal dryness, atrophy and infections; painful urination and incontinence; heightened depression, anxiety and mood swings; pain during sex; and loss of muscle strength.

There is also a close correlation between menopause and osteoporosis, a condition marked by thin, brittle, fracture-prone bones, according to a Women’s Health article on About.com.

I know. It’s not fair.  

There are, however, some options for addressing a life stage that every woman must eventually face.

At one time, standard hormone therapy or HT was the norm. This is the practice of prescribing menopausal women a medication featuring estrogen, often in combination with a synthetic form of progesterone called progestin. Sometimes, testosterone is also administered. HT may come in the form of a pill, nasal spray, injection, patch, skin gel, vaginal cream or a vaginal ring.

It can be quite effective at alleviating many of the symptoms of menopause. However, there are a few side effects and several risks associated with hormone replacement, according to an article on MedlinePlus, an informational website sponsored by the U.S. National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health.

Most of the side effects detailed on the MedlinePlus website sound pretty similar to those that come with premenstrual syndrome: nausea, headaches, mood swings, water retention, bloating, and breast soreness and headaches.

HT also increases women’s risk of developing an assortment of health problems, according to MedlinePlus: blood clots; breast and uterine cancer, as well as endometrial cancer for women who have had a hysterectomy; heart disease; stroke and gallstones.

With this in mind, women who are approaching or experiencing menopause might want to look into bio-identical hormone replacement therapy (BHRT), often called natural hormone replacement therapy.

Bio-identical hormones are engineered in a lab, and most often contain ingredients derived from plants. To be effective, proponents say, the hormones should match the formula of your own body’s optimal hormone levels.

A BHRT prescription generally begins with a saliva test, which is a more accurate way of measuring hormonal levels than blood and urine. This test may be performed at your health practitioner's office, or at home. There are literally dozens of sites offering home saliva testing kits.

One of these is the HormoneProfile site, which offers tests ranging from $69.95 to $255.95, depending on thoroughness.


 

One of the most famous advocates of BHRT is media magnate Oprah Winfrey who, in January of 2009, did a show on menopause and bio-identical hormone therapy, which she said she hoped would “start a conversation” about a topic she considers hugely important.

Winfrey, 55, said she was blindsided by the effects of menopause, as well as a thyroidal imbalance. She spent two years plagued by a general sense of depression, anxiety and malaise, as well as a variety of symptoms such as heart palpitations and insomnia.

“You feel like the life force is being sucked out of you,” Winfrey said about her experience with menopause and hormonal imbalance.

According to Winfrey, she felt significantly better within three days of commencing bio-identical hormone therapy.
 
"After one day on bio-identical estrogen, I felt the veil lift," Winfrey wrote in a February 2009 “O” magazine article.

"After three days," she shared, "the sky was bluer, my brain was no longer fuzzy, my memory was sharper. I was literally singing and had a skip in my step."


 

Insert photo caption or credit here

Suzanne Somers has been a pioneering advocate of BHRT. She has sung its praises in books like 2007’s

“Ageless: The Naked Truth About Bio-identical Hormones”

and the lengthily-titled

“The Sexy Years: Discover the Hormone Connection: The Secret to Fabulous Sex, Great Health, and Vitality, for Women and Men.”

  (2005).

Given the fact that Somers has no training in medicine, and is most famous for her stints as the airheaded Chrissy on “Three’s Company” and as pitch-mistress for The Thighmaster, it is perhaps unsurprising that she has faced allegations of quackery.

Are they fair, though? Aren't laypersons allowed to give anecdotal evidence? I'll leave it to you to be the judge.

Oprah Winfrey has been similarly scrutinized. She was slammed in May of this year in a Newsweek

article

that contends that her pseudoscientific health claims are a problem.

One of the author’s major beefs is with Winfreys' and Somers' on-air touting of the benefits of BHRT.

There’s always another side, though, isn’t there? Blogger Jim Donovan did some math for a recent post titled

“Why is Newsweek Attacking Oprah?”

His conclusion is that money had a hand in the decision to run the article, which was accompanied by an unflattering picture of Winfrey with next to the all-caps headline “CRAZY TALK.”

“The reason the pharmaceutical industry opposes natural cures is quite simple, they can’t patent it and, therefore, there’s no money in it,” he writes. “A single issue of the magazine contains $1.4 to $2.3 million in pharma ads.”

It should be noted that BHRT is not FDA-approved. In fact, the Food and Drug Administration issued a press release in January 2008—picked up by major news organizations such as Reuters—warning that claims certain pharmacy operators were making about bio-identical hormones were posing a danger to the public health:

"The FDA is concerned that the claims for safety, effectiveness, and superiority that these pharmacy operations are making mislead patients, as well as doctors and other health care professionals," the release said.

Advocates of bio-identical hormone replacement therapy are quick to point out that the agency created the release in response to a petition by the pharmaceutical company Wyeth, a company that sells a traditional, FDA-approved hormone replacement therapy. The company is, notably, another opponent of BHRT with a lot at financial stake.

I suspect I have some hormones out of whack, and may look into one of these saliva tests in the future. I have not yet reached menopause, however, and have not tried BHRT. What’s more, I dropped out of med school—Oh, wait! I never enrolled—so I am not the one to listen to regarding the efficacy and safety of pharmaceutical-grade or bio-identical hormone replacement.

It certainly sounds like it’s something worth learning more about, though.

One way to start is by attending a lecture by pharmacist and hormone replacement consultant Elaine Bleiden. Bleiden—of the Panorama Compounding Company in Lake Balboa, CA— will discuss menopause and BHRT, as well as how to work with a doctor and physician to “create a customized hormone replacement therapy to fill your needs” at the following times and places:

* Tonight (Wednesday, September 23) at 6:30 p.m. at the Granada Hills Branch Library, located at 10640 Petit Ave. in Granada Hills. (Sorry about my late notice on posting this one. I just came across the event this afternoon!)

* Wednesday, October 21, at 7 p.m. at the Calabasas Library, located at 200 Civic Center Way in Calabasas.

and

•    Tuesday, October 27, at 7 p.m. at YogaWorks Valencia, located at 23951 Newhall Ranch Road in Santa Clarita, CA.

You may contact Bleiden at the Panorama Compounding Company for more information by calling (800) 247-9767 or (818) 988-7979, or via email at uniquerx@aol.com