Solving the Estrogen Conundrum: All Hormones are Not the Same

Young women have normal estrogen blood levels of 400 pg/ml, and menopausal women have levels anywhere from 0-40 pg/ml.
Yet young women do not experience side effects from their high level of natural estrogens—until they take birth control pills. Then they develop an increased risk of heart attack, clotting and cancer. The same thing occurs when the synthetic estrogen Diethylstilbestrol (DES), a drug given to pregnant women to prevent miscarriages, is taken.


Physicians have known for years there is a difference between taking natural estrogens such as Estrace, micronized estradiol and Estraderm, and taking synthetic estrogens. They have also learned the same is true of micronized natural testosterone versus methyltestosterone, a synthetic testosterone now linked with cancer.
The human mind is capable of being misguided by science. This is evident in the idea in which people believe menopause is a disease that needs to be treated with drugs. Menopause is not a disease; it is a normal part of aging, and the only way it can be successfully treated is by imitating the body’s own mechanisms. Natural hormones have been found to be capable of doing this without causing negative side effects. You cannot mimic the body’s own natural hormone levels with horse urine-derived estrogen, as Premarin is, and you cannot mimic it with birth control pills.
Dr. Hargrove, of Vanderbilt Medical School, developed a compound (estradiol, progesterone, testosterone) in the early 1990s. No side effects are associated with these hormones (Hargrove, 1995). Compounds made with natural estrogens—such as Estrace and Estraderm, which contain natural estradiol—have not been shown to have the same side effects as synthetic hormones.
It is the paradigm that synthetic methyltestosterone, synthetic diethylstilbestrol, and birth control pills are responsible for blood clotting, heart disease, stroke and cancer in women. Any time we modify the hormone from the natural state of the human being, we end up with disease rather than health.
We, as physicians, already know that all estrogens are simply not the same. When these natural micronized estrogens are combined and balanced with the proper amount of progesterone with micronized testosterone, we see astounding, positive results: the alleviation of menopausal side effects, while eliminating negative side effects.
Reference:
Hargrove, J.T. and Eisenberg, E., Menopause, Office Gynecology; Medical Clinics of North America, Vol.79, 6, November 1995.