If you are questioning hormone replacement therapy, you’re not alone.
When it comes to your body it is important to know the facts. And one of the most important pieces of information is that there are several baby boomers living in the United States who are women.
In 2006, the oldest of the baby boomers, those born between 1946 and 1964, began turning 60 years old. The US Census Bureau reports that as of July 1, 2005, there were approximately 78.2 baby boomers and 50.8% of them were female. That means, according to projections that 7,918 people turned 60 everyday in 2006, or about 330 hourly.
This is one of the reasons why countless women nowadays who are very uncomfortable with symptoms from peri-menopause or menopause. If you are one of more than 40 million women experiencing discomfort from menstruation to menopause, then you need to know the facts.
In simple terms, menopause is described as (a) the cessation of menstruation for 12 consecutive months (b) which usually occurs at ages 51 and 52 (c) marking the end of a woman’s reproductive years (d) where the ovaries stop producing the female hormone, estrogen. Another kind of menopause, called “immediate menopause,” can happen if your ovaries are surgically taken out. In either case, menopause affects women’s health and quality of life for the remainder of her lifetime.
The Women’s Health Initiative (WHI), was a National Institutes of Health (NIH)-sponsored study of over 161,000 women, ages 50-79, established to address the most common causes of death, disability, and impaired quality of life in postmenopausal women. It was an attempt to collect information on ways to avoid and lessen the incidence of heart disease, breast and colorectal cancer, and osteoporosis in postmenopausal women, and to identify the benefits and risks of using menopausal hormone therapy (MHT) to prevent these chronic diseases. These conditions are said to increase their chances of developing among females who are on the menopausal stage of their lives.
Many women are not aware of the fact that the above-mentioned study only discussed about cardiovascular disease, cancer and osteoporosis among 65-year-old women who are on synthetic hormone replacement therapy using the brands PremPro and Premarin only. Unfortunately, in July 2002, the investigators stopped the part of the study which is involved in the combination of estrogen and progestin - citing safety issues as the primary reason for such an action.
Statistics show that as of November 2003, about nine million Americans were using some form of Premarin. Premarin(r) is the acronym for Pregnant Mares’ Urine (PREgnant MARes’ urINe); PMU for short As soon as the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) results were released, and there was a reduction of 25 percent of the approximately 12 million women using PMU-based medications in 1999.
About 1/3 of the approximately 55 million post menopausal women in the United States are using synthetic estrogen replacement therapy (ERT), or hormone replacement therapy (HRT). Of them, approximately 49 % currently use “PMU” based products, down from a high of 79 percent in 1999.
The idea of using bio-identical hormones is most intriguing for women who are still doubtful of taking any HRT. Still, this task has become so perplexing because of the countless products that have been circulating in the market. It’s a wonderful thing though that the government dipped its finger on the matter -controlling all bio-identical hormone replacement therapy (BHRT) solutions that are circulated.
Women don’t have to be baffled about hormone replacement therapy. In menopause medicine, people have been openly discussing about bio-identical hormone replacement therapy (BHRT). But this term isn’t 100% correct since hormones aren’t really bio-identical. For one, natural hormones cannot be called restorative unless they really restore what’s been lost and they’re not bio-mimedic unless the body treats them as hormones. They can be mimicked, but they are not identical. They can only be restored, and never really replaced.
So how are biomimetic hormones different from bio-identical hormones? Derived from natural sources, biomimetic hormones mimic the undulating rhythms of the blood levels in a normal menstrual cycle. Undulating means to cause to move in a smooth wavelike movement.
To coincide with the chemical structure of natural hormones, bio-identical hormone products are made from plant sources. The premise is that, technically, the body cannot differentiate bio-identical hormones from the ones the female ovaries produce; however, different forms of human-produced hormones are recognized differently by cells. Thus, it makes sense that bio-identical hormone effects might also be different. Bio-identical hormone compounds should be presented biomimetically for them to be authentically similar to human hormones.
Biomimetic hormone restoration therapy is accurate, it is biomimetic and mimics the up and down rhythms of hormone blood levels in a normal menstrual cycle. That’s Biomimetic - not bio-identical.
How do you define rhythm? The rhythms of the body are regulated by a master clock that works much like a conductor. It activates one segment of the body’s orchestra as another takes a backseat, taking its primary cue from light signals in order to stay in tune with the 24-hour day. Figuratively, the hormones in the body ebb and surge at the wand of the maestro.
The circadian clock in our cells measures one 24-hour spin of the planet. For 28 days, the moon tracks the repeating of that sequence - and so does your body. The Wiley Protocol is an excellent example of a product that mimics the body’s natural production of hormones. To restore the hormone levels among the youth, topical creams differ - and the amounts of application are also different.
Among the latest treatment for women that employs the use of natural hormones in a bio-mimetic way is the multi-phasic rhythmic dosing of bio-mimetic hormone replacement therapy (BHRT). More than two million women in the U.S. use customized hormones for menopause symptoms.
According to forecast, in 2030, about 54.9% of the 57.8 million baby boomers would be female. That year, boomers would be within the ages 66 and 84. And by that time, they would hopefully still be living a comfortable life, thanks to the Biomimetic Hormone Replacement Therapy (BHRT).
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