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Text Box: Let’s start by talking
about bio-identical hormones and what it means to use them instead of other types of hormones. It is easy to think of all hormones as the same. However, thinking that all hormones do the same thing in the body is like saying all foods provide the same nutrients. Some hormones are strong and some are very, very, weak. Many of our organs make hormones, not just our ovaries.
Every hormone introduced
into the body, bio-identical or not, causes its own particular response. The body’s response to a hormone is dependent on its shape. Once connected to a hormone receptor the hormone will fold itself around the receptor. The cells in the body then respond to the combined shape of this hormone and receptor. Sometimes the response will be large and sometimes it will be weak.
Pharmaceutical
companies deliberately change the shape of a bio-identical hormone, usually by adding a group of molecules, then patent it so other companies can’t use the new hormone. This new hormone is then used in a pharmaceutical product instead

Text Box: of the original bio-identical hormone. Does it make a difference if a bio-identical hormone is altered just a little bit and then used? That depends on what and for how long you want treatment.
The Women’s Health
Initiative (WHI) gave women estrogens which accumulated over time to extremely high levels, many times higher than a normal menstrual cycle. The ill effects of supraphysiologic (higher than normal) levels of estrogen were documented by the WHI and then assigned to all other estrogen products, even those resulting in normal levels of estrogen. If a person using thyroid replacement were given dosages much higher than was needed wouldn’t you expect ill effects? If a diabetic is given too much insulin, this too would cause many ill effects. Would you then label all thyroid and insulin medication with the same ill effects as the higher than normal dose produced? Of course not. Why then extend this label to normal or physiologic doses of estrogen?
Should you expect
greater health benefits from bio-identical hormones? Like treatment for other organ

Text Box: failures, the expectation of improved health increases as the treatment gets closer and closer to mimicking the function of that organ. The best example of this is diabetes. The better the insulin delivery system the greater the health benefits. Every area of medicine has moved away from non bio-identical to the use of bio-identical hormones. Why is the treatment for ovarian failure (menopause) handled differently? Perhaps the answer lies in the fact that ovarian failure is the only organ failure that has never had a clinical trial or subsequent protocol based on physiologic replacement developed for its treatment. Based on the success in other areas of medicine, particularly for long term treatment, it would be reasonable to conclude that use of a hormone regimen that closely mimics ovarian function would include bio-identical hormones.
Lend Your Voice
Together we can change the current cultural and medical norm towards ovarian failure and usher in a better and healthier future for all women. Let’s call menopause what it is, organ failure.