Hormone Replacement Therapy

When Is It Necessary?
http://mercola.com/2001/jul/4/hrt.htm



Tim O'Shea
http://www.thedoctorwithin.com/





Before researching the topic of estrogen, I admit my initial preconceptions
about hormone replacement therapy for menopause were less than brightness
and trust. The usual pattern seems to be:

- research studies funded by the same companies who propose to sell the drugs
- no conclusive positive results from controlled, randomized clinical trials
- A Drug In Search of a Market
- major side effects from the new drug therapy that are chalked up to the
"disease" itself


Guess I'm jaded. So sue me.


Trying to prove my preconceptions wrong, the research failed me. Anyone can
see how the whole thing was set up. Now this chapter is not light reading,
even though I tried. But if you are a woman, you need to read the whole
thing. After that, you're on your own.




Drug Hoax Phenomena Are Not New

The same thing happened in the Boer War (Hadwen), in the Philippines in
1905 (Hume, p 200), and in Desert Storm. Mass administration of drugs that
killed many more people than they saved. The difference here is that today
the control of information has become much more sophisticated, the focus
being trust your doctor, trust your doctor - you really don't have to
understand the details.

The target is the 30 million menopausal American women, and the game is the
$1 billion HRT industry, a vertically integrated boom market.




Here's The Basic Story

Since the 1930s, American women have been trained and bullied into thinking
that a natural normal event in their life - menopause - is a disease
condition requiring treatment. Let's stop with that for a minute.



If it's a disease, how did all the millions of women throughout history up
to the present time muddle through it? How do Third World women or non-HMO
lifestyles survive the ordeal? Keep those two questions in mind when you
read anything mainstream, either advertising or articles.


The "new" "medical condition" requires drug therapy, which coincidentally
has just recently been "discovered": synthetic estrogen - hormone
replacement therapy. Does it work? Are women better off now? Does it really
prevent osteoporosis? Read on!




What Is Menopause?

Menopause is a period of years in a normal woman's life in which gradual
hormonal changes bring about a shift away from the physical powers of
childbearing, in favor of a more mature condition of mental development and
wisdom.

The unpleasant symptoms we have come to associate with menopause are common
only in a small group of women in history: American and Northern European
women in the past 75 years. Outside that group, menopause is not so
problematic and is taken more in stride as a natural phase in a woman's
life, with little fanfare. It seems that the more simple the lifestyle, and
the more simple the diet - the more effortless the transition.

Throughout history, simple diet has been a function of low income. The most
nutritious foods are the least expensive: whole fruits and vegetables,
unprocessed dairy, whole grains. As lifestyle became more complex, and
incomes grew, expensive, empty, processed, nutrient-deficient foods were
popularized by marketing and advertising - the foods of commerce. (Royal Lee)

Less need to exercise, more focus on money, greater stress - the basic
formula for the rise of the most resistant group of diseases in history :
the degenerative diseases. Heart disease, cancer, arthritis, diabetes,
osteoporosis - are epidemic in our society, the richest nation in history.
Even 100 years ago such diseases were rare.

By now most of us have heard of a Shangri-La place in the Himalayas called
Hunza Land, famous for longevity to 120 years old. Two Americans, Dr. Allen
Banik and Renee Taylor, visited this isolated mountain civilization, one in
1958 and one in 1962.

Both wrote books describing their incredible experiences. Both detail the
simple diet as well as the lack of degenerative diseases, and infectious
diseases as well. Physically cut off from the world by treacherous mountain
passes, the Hunzas developed their own agriculture system of stone
terraces, fed by the mineral rich waters of the glaciers. Hunza health is
probably unequalled anywhere in the world, or in history. Symptoms of
menopause were unheard of in Hunza Land.

In Japan as well as in many other cultures with basic, unrefined diets,
there is no word for "hot flashes." As we shall see, the unpleasant
symptoms of menopause are directly related to the amount of estrogen a
woman has maintained during her adult life, prior to menopause.

Natural phytoestrogens (plant-estrogens) are found in plants like licorice,
soybeans, alfalfa, and many others, in very small amounts. Phytoestrogens
are weak estrogens and block the stronger forms. A diet abundant in
phytoestrogens before menopause will do much to moderate the day-to-day
estrogen level so that when menopause arrives, there will not be such big drop.



The Creation Of A Market:


How Did the Whole HRT Thing Get Started In The First Place?

The story really begins in 1938 with the discovery of diethylstilbestrol
(DES) by Charles Dobbs. DES was supposed to be the first "synthetic
estrogen" - an oxymoron, as we shall see. Dobbs first thought DES would
solve the problems of menopause, but the AMA immediately began to make
extravagant predictions for "preventing miscarriages" and solving all
problems of pregnancy as well. (Robbins, p138)




After many years, DES was being prescribed for a "safe pregnancy" and to
"prevent miscarriages." By 1960 it was found that between 60 and 90% of DES
daughters had abnormal sex organs, leading to high rates of infertility,
miscarriages, and cervical cancer. (Sellman p28). DES sons commonly had
testicular dysfunctional and were often sterile.



As for the mothers who had taken DES, their risk of breast cancer had been
increased by 40%. (Meyers p 143) DES was the first drug ever invented that
could cause cancer in the offspring when taken by the mother. (Reusch, p
22) But still the drug wasn't taken off the market until 1971! ( Kamen,
p99). By that time the industry didn't need DES any more for its bottom
line, because ERT was off and running.





Next Contestant

Public attention was then diverted away from the disasters of DES by a 1966
best seller called Feminine Forever, by Robert Wilson, a New York
gynecologist. Wilson's thesis was that menopause is an estrogen-deficiency
disease. All the unpleasant symptoms which accompany menopause were the
simple result of too little estrogen. Insufficient estrogen supposedly
caused a woman to lose her youth, beauty, cheerful attitude, and bone
density all at once, with the onset of menopause.

Not missing a beat, the drug industry immediately donated $1.3 million to
set up the Wilson Foundation for the sole purpose of developing and
promoting estrogen drugs. The usual story: limited studies with
inconclusive results, skewing results to please the company that was paying
for the trials, discontinuing studies that weren't turning out "right"…

The primary study that was the basis for vaulting synthetic estrogen into
the limelight, originally as a contraceptive, was a small, flawed trial
done in Puerto Rico, in which 20% of the 132 women suffered serious side
effects. Five of them died.

Negatives were swept under the carpet as irrelevant - the main thing was
that the new wonder drug supposedly cancelled the "horrible" symptoms of
menopause - hot flashes, vaginal dryness, migraines, etc. FDA approval for
synthetic estrogen was given based on this one study! (Marshall) Throughout
1964 and 1965, fueled by the advertising power of the biggest clients,
articles appeared in major women's magazines, like Vogue, Cosmopolitan, and
Good Housekeeping proclaiming a breakthrough that would finally set women
free from the ravages of the dread menopause. (Lee p24)

Within a few years, with no real proof that Wilson was right, with
superficial clinical trials, synthetic estrogen was being popularly
prescribed, and a new industry was off and running. They called it Estrogen
Replacement Therapy. Better living through chemistry.

A Little Snag Came Up In 1975

The New England Journal of Medicine (Dec 1975 p.1199) published its
findings after studying the causes of endometrial cancer. They showed that
women who took the new estrogen drugs had just increased their risk of
endometrial cancer by a factor of five times. Unless they had been using
the drugs longer than seven years. Then it was 14 times the normal incidence.




Sales slowed

Yankee ingenuity to the rescue: it was found, though not conclusively, that
rates of endometrial cancer could be reduced if synthetic progesterone were
added to the synthetic estrogen. Synthetic progesterones are called
progestins. So they changed the name from Estrogen Replacement Therapy to
Hormone Replacement Therapy, and the show went on. Sales climbed back up,
and then continued to grow. And grow.

With similar results to the 1975 study, 20 years later the American Cancer
Society conducted a huge 13-year study of some 240,000 postmenopausal women
to find the relation between HRT and cancer. Their findings: 40% higher
incidence of ovarian cancer; after 11 years of HRT, the figure went to 70%!
(Rodriguez)




How Could This Be?

As the HRT industry gained strength, the manufacturers began to make
additional claims about the benefits of HRT, claims that were again
unsupported by solid research:

HRT could prevent osteoporosis




HRT could prevent heart disease

The underlying, and unproven, assumption of this new "therapy" - HRT - was
that women's lives were being improved now that they were spared the
horrors of aging, menopause, osteoporosis, and the loss of femininity.
Unfortunately, these promises are rarely kept, and almost never because of
a program of synthetic hormones.

Worse, the side effects of HRT have proven to be a bigger problem than what
they were supposed to cure.

To begin to untangle this giant web of doubletalk and wrong information, we
have to look at some basic endocrinology: Can't tell the hormones without a
program. If this gets too complicated for the attention-challenged, just
skip to the next section, but at least give it a try.





Hormones

They are chemical compounds that are players in the most sophisticated and
exquisitely balanced internet in the entire body: the endocrine system.
This group of glands, including the adrenals, the pituitary, the ovaries,
the testes, the thyroid, and the hypothalamus are interrelated in
impossibly complex ways, about which we're just beginning to get glimpses
of understanding.

It's a swirling universe of chemical elegance and precision, involving
millions of refined little molecular firings which wink in and out of
existence every second. "Touch one strand and the whole web trembles," is
the way endocrinologist Deepak Chopra puts it. The endocrine system
controls all other systems of the body by means of chemical messengers, who
wait for an answer.





What Is Estrogen?

Estrogen is a hormone, one of the moving parts of that endocrine system. It
is a steroid (made from cholesterol) hormone, occurring in both men and women.

Estrogen's functions are primarily the growth and development of sex organs
and other tissues related to reproduction (Guyton p1023)

For a basic overview of one little part of the endocrine system, John Lee
has a very clear summary, like a recipe, for one group of hormones, those
made from cholesterol, the steroid hormones:


cholesterol > > >> pregnenolone
v v
v v
v progesterone > > corticosterone and aldosterone
v v
v v
17 OH pregnenolone
> 17 OH progesterone > >
cortisol
v v
v v
DHEA <> androstenedione> estrone estriol
v v
^ ^
androstenedio <> testosterone > > estradiol
v
estriol


Lee, p14





Don't worry, there's no quiz. Dr. Lee just wanted to show a little corner
of the complex give-and-take between hormones, how a change in any one
hormone in this chart can affect many others. Lee and Chopra both speak of
the dance of the hormones, the delicately interwoven choreography, about
which we have only the most rudimentary knowledge.

We've begun fooling around with this highly tuned endocrine system because
we've discovered a few coarse, synthetic, sledgehammer substances that
resemble real estrogen, or real thyroid hormone, or real progesterone. But
we really have only the vaguest notion what we're doing, because of all the
overlapping interrelationships. Our ignorance has given rise to a brand new
disease: endometrial cancer. Plus other big problems.




Back To Estrogen

Estrogen is really a general term for three separate hormones:


- estriol
- estradiol
- estrone


From here on out in this chapter, "estrogen" as is produced by the body
refers to all three of the above hormones.



Estrogen is produced in three main places in a woman's body:


- the ovaries
- the adrenal glands
- the fat cells



The main purpose of estrogen is to make the uterine lining, the
endometrium, ready to implant a fertilized egg in the event fertilization
occurs. To aid in this function, estrogen will promote


- water retention
- fat storage
- maturation of the female adolescent


All the above is OK if pregnancy is likely. But excess estrogen throws off
the timing. Excess estrogen causes the body to prepare for embryo
implantation all the time. This state of over-preparation is the cause of


- sluggish blood circulation
- migraines
- increased clotting
- high stroke risk
- disrupted copper/zinc ratios in brain cells/ mood swings
- fibroids
- endometriosis



Every system in the body has a feedback loop to keep balance. Estrogen has
a sister hormone called progesterone, whose functions are equally important.

Part 2







What Is Progesterone, Anyway?

Progesterone is the other primary female hormone. It is produced in the
ovaries. It is the precursor for both estrogen and testosterone, as well as
all other natural steroid hormones (see chart above).

Progesterone's functions are


maintains the endometrium in pregnancy

new bone formation

regulates blood pressure

fat conversion

sugar metabolism

maintaining myelin (nerve insulation)

regulates estrogen production

You'll remember that an egg is presented once a month from the ovaries,
wrapped in an envelope called a follicle. After the follicle lets go of the
egg, the egg journeys down the Fallopian tubes on its way to the uterus,
where it awaits possible fertilization. The burst follicle still has an
important job to do: it begins to produce progesterone, for the next two
weeks. Progesterone's job is to maintain the uterine lining until one of
two things happens:


pregnancy

no pregnancy

If pregnancy occurs, progesterone production is taken over by the
developing lining itself - the placenta. The burst follicle simply can't
make enough progesterone for the demand, since the uterus will expand from
the size of a lemon to the size of a basketball during the next nine months.

If no pregnancy occurs, the follicle stops producing progesterone, which
triggers the collapse of the blood-rich lining, which is then expelled as
the woman's monthly flow.

So the interplay between these two hormones estrogen and progesterone
controls the entire infrastructure of reproduction, on a daily basis, after
the onset of menarche (first flow) in adolescence. Estrogen creates the
lining each month; progesterone maintains it.

Then what's the problem?

Estrogen Dominance

If estrogen levels get too high, progesterone can no longer keep the
dynamic balance. This is exactly what happens in American women. who live
their whole adult lives with pathologically high levels of estrogen. Three
main reasons for the high levels:


overrefined diet

no exercise

external toxic sources of estrogen : xenoestrogens

Refined carbohydrates, hard fats, empty foods and too much of it all serve
to raise estrogen to abnormal levels, as much as twice the normal, which
are maintained for the better part of the adult lives of most American women.

Second, lack of exercise. Dr. Ellison of Harvard University found that
estrogen levels are much lower in women who eat little and perform
strenuous physical work, as in locales with non-industrialized lifestyle.

The opposite is true for the American woman who eats too much and gets
little exercise: abnormally high estrogen levels are the direct result. Dr.
Lee points out the obvious corollary: menopause is a much bigger deal in
our industrialized countries, because the estrogen decline is so radical -
the difference between pre and post estrogen levels is significant. This
hormonal rollercoaster dip is very stressful, and is the real cause of the
discomforts of menopause.

Third, xenoestrogens. Huh? Xeno- means foreign. So the word xenoestrogen
just means estrogens from outside the body. Many external toxins have been
found to have estrogenlike effects in the body. Most are petroleum
derivatives. Xenoestrogens are found in plastics, computer chips, PVC,
pesticides, soap, clothes, DDT and other modern manufactured goods.

There has been extensive zoological research in the area of xenoestrogen
effects on animals and the resulting birth defects. In studies of panthers,
alligators, birds, turtles, seals, fish, and many other species from
diverse parts of the globe, scientists are finding a common theme:
feminization of males, decreased sperm counts, low male testosterone, and
extremely high levels of estrogen in females, with plummeting numbers of
offspring.

Though some scientists had known about the problem for several years,
public attention was drawn by a series of articles that appeared in three
consecutive issues of the LA Times in Oct 1994.

Alligator offspring studied at University of Florida had very high estrogen
and low testosterone as a consequence of a large pesticide spill in Lake
Apopka near Gainesville. Again, gonad shrinkage was observed in males,
leading to a drop in alligator reproduction in the lake estimated at 90%
since the spill occurred.

Wild panthers in the Florida Everglades have had their sperm counts reduced
by 90%, due to high estrogen levels from years of state dumping of DDT and
other toxic pesticides into the swamp waters.

Between 1950 and 1970, some four million pounds of the pesticide DDT,
illegal today, was dumped into the ocean in Los Angeles. Examples of
eggshell thinning, gonad shrinkage and feminization in males, overdeveloped
ovaries in females, and failure to thrive are some of the defects found in
seagull studies at UC Davis by Michael Fry. In 1981, Fry published his
research in the journal Science. Shrugged off for years by the scientific
community, Fry's work is now being corroborated all over the world in
dozens of other species.

Males Are Also Affected

Think of the surfing implications for the L.A. spill…"two girls for every
boy"??? Not any more! Declining sperm counts in American males in the past
30 years is well documented. An article in Lancet, May 1993 estimates a
drop in sperm count of 50% in the past 30-50 years, and links the decline
to environmental estrogen mimickers.

Xenoestrogens, as well as a modern high-fat diet, are lowering the onset of
menarche for young girls. In 1900, American girls matured at 14. Today the
average age is 12, and for some groups is as early as 8 years old! (Beaton)

The effects of DDT and PCBs are often hidden, and often don't occur until
many years later in the offspring of these exposed animals. Birds are born
with twisted bills or deformed reproductive organs. Other animals have
physical characteristics of both male and female, but can't function
normally as either one.

The reason DDT and PCBs were outlawed was that they don't break down; they
persist unchanged in the environment for years and years, still capable of
the same trauma to living cells. These chemical simply don't degrade.

The effect of hormone-mimicking pollutants, the xenoestrogens, is being
kept under wraps, because of its obvious implications for liability by the
chemical manufacturers. Chemical contamination is not limited to a few
isolated areas. It is a global problem, beyond the scope of this chapter.
The reader is directed to Theo Colburn's startling book Our Stolen Future
for a better look.

The point is, we are in the same ecosystem, the same food chain, the same
biosphere as these animals. Human DNA is 98% identical to that of an ape.
Our cells and tissues are susceptible to these same distortions. It is no
coincidence that the women of the industrialized nations of northern Europe
and the United States have two things in common:


the highest rates in history of breast cancer, endometrial cancer, and HRT
consumption

high exposure to plastics, chemicals, computer chips, pesticides and other
xenoestrogens

John Lee talks about the "sea of estrogen" in which we exist as the result
of many factors:


• fat soluble hormones in meat • DDT
• PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) • cosmetics
• foaming agents in soap and detergents • plastic cookware
• tons of pesticides, herbicides • birth control pills
• condom spermicides • HRT

The pathway of causation is clear: xenoestrogens maintain estrogen levels
at double the normal values for the entire adult life of the human female.
As the complementary hormone that's supposed to balance the delicate system
of sex hormones, progesterone is simply overwhelmed by the dominant
estrogens. Natural hormones are subtle and fragile and transient.
Xenoestrogens by contrast are harsh and strong and long-lasting.
Progesterone just doesn't stand a chance. HRT is just another xenoestrogen,
making things worse.

Let's take a look at some of the Consequences Of Estrogen Dominance

As estrogen levels build up to twice the normal level, many systems of the
body are adversely affected. Body fat stores increase. Fluids are retained,
causing bloating and edema. There are defects in both fat and sugar
metabolism, often severe enough to cause diabetes. Risks of endometrial
cancer are increased to 5-14 times, as cited in the 1975 NEJM articles above.

Promotion Of Osteoporosis

Slow onset of blood poisoning (toxemia) due to inability of chemical
xenoestrogens to be broken down. This in turn obviously contributes to
autoimmune disorders like lupus, chronic fatigue, and arthritis, in which
the body begins to attack its own cells as they become so toxic that they
are unrecognizable as "self."

Alteration of zinc and copper uptake in brain cells causes mood swings, a
nice euphemism. Incidence of stroke increases 50% with estrogen, according
to an extensive project, known as the Boston Nurses Questionnaire Study, of
121,000 nurses. (Stampfer)

Normal estrogen stimulates breast and endometrial tissue. Excess estrogen
causes excess stimulation of breast and endometrial collagen, resulting in
fibroids in both locations. (McDougall, p87)

Another health detriment of estrogen is its destruction of B vitamins.
Nutritionist Jean Sumption documents the opposition of estrogen with
Vitamins B1, B2, B3, B5, B6 and other B-complex vitamins: Biotin, Choline,
Folic Acid, PABA, and Inositol. Most functions of cell metabolism depend on
B vitamins. Symptoms of depletion include fatigue, sluggish memory, hair
loss, and aging.

This Is Only A Partial List

It should be obvious that effects like these are systemic (everywhere the
blood goes) and as such can affect practically any weakened tissue in the
body. To say that drugs and chemicals cause a downward spiral of health is
not just a metaphor.

A growing number of medical researchers (see References) who do not
represent the interests of the drug cartels are stepping forward to show
that the symptoms of menopause are not caused by too little estrogen, but
by too much. To turn popular opinion around 180° from nature and trick
American women into thinking that at menopause symptoms and postmenopausal
dangers are caused by insufficient estrogen - once again, we are looking at
mastery in the control of information. The motivation is simple: $1 billion
per year.

Synthetic hormones are not harmless. The side effects of HRT are often the
same or worse than the original menopause symptoms they set out to cure.

Side Effect of HRT

• increased risk of breast cancer • breast tenderness • weight gain
• increased risk of endometrial cancer • vaginal bleeding • blood clots
• vastly increased rate of heart attack • skin reactions • rash, acne
• fluid retention, bloating • osteoporosis • hair loss
• high blood pressure • hair loss or gain




Part 3




Other Side Effects of HRT


Depression (Obstet and Gyn, 1992 80:30)

Breast Cancer (NEJM 19 Jun 97; 336:1821)

Stroke ( NEJM 1991 vol 325p756)

Lupus (Lee p258)

But wait a minute! I thought everything was supposed to be fine once they
added synthetic progesterone to the synthetic estrogen. That's what
everybody was supposed to think. But the real stats don't show it.

John Lee, MD, a California endocrine researcher, explains why. Simple:
HRT's synthetic progesterone is completely altered after going through the
digestive system, when it gets to the liver. The liver changes it into
three other metabolites. Any benefits are thus cancelled. So the big change
in the 70s from ERT to HRT was largely a change in public perception, due
to drug advertising, and its second cousin, peer-reviewed medical journal
articles.

Dr. Lee's view, and that of other proponents of natural progesterone
products is that the problems at menopause are not caused by lack of
estrogen, but by lack of progesterone. Remember that estrogen production
drops 40% at menopause.

Well, progesterone drops to 0%. And look at all the things it's responsible
for. The synthetic progesterone in HRT isn't doing any good, since it's
being changed into something else in the liver. It's not real progesterone.
Therefore the estrogen is still unopposed.


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CAUTION: Please be sure to read Dr. Mercola's warning on progesterone cream.


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The Anovulatory Cycle

Many American women in their 20s and 30s have monthly cycles in which they
don't ovulate. That is, an egg is not released from the ovary. Such a
widespread phenomenon is a new twist in human evolution. There are obvious
reasons, as well as serious effects which accompany this unnatural process
- the inability to reproduce - now taking place in so many adult females.

The reasons for anovulation are simple: severe biochemical imbalance. First
the xenoestrogens. We are in the same biosphere, the same food chain as all
the animals mentioned above who have experienced reproductive chaos from
chemical pollutants. Why should our species be exempt? It isn't. We drink
the water of the same planet, eat fish and plants and meat laced with the
same immortal PCBs and DDTs - it's a closed system.

Stress obviously promotes biochemical imbalance by overtaxing the adrenals,
which then steal progesterone to make more adrenal hormones, which further
promotes estrogen dominance. Coffee is a big culprit, as well as soft
drinks. A Johns Hopkins study found that women who take in more than 300 mg
of caffeine per day (three cups of coffee, or eight sodas) reduce their
chance of conception by 26%.

Effects of a female going through adulthood without being physically able
to reproduce? Look around you. See any sexual ambivalence in any areas?
I'll spare you my theories on contemporary social issues. But the physical
effects of anovulation are a very clear result of the disruption of the
fragile endocrine balance that has taken aeons to evolve.

One obvious ill effect of menstruating without ovulating as well as too
much estrogen is the overstimulation of the endometrial lining. After a
time, the excessive monthly lining promotes irregular lumps of connective
tissue known as fibroids to form. Too easily and too readily, the buzzword
"pre-cancerous" comes up, with the snap prescription for a completely
unnecessary hysterectomy.

Between 600 thousand and one million hysterectomies are performed on
American women each year, 90% of them unnecessary, according to Stanley
West, MD. That story is beyond the scope of this chapter except to raise
the red flag that estrogen dominance sets the stage for most of the
"irregularities" which end up with a prescription for hysterectomy. The
reader is referred to Dr. West's book The Hysterectomy Hoax for a dark
journey. Also the first half of John Robbins' Reclaiming Our Health.

What's Wrong With What Most Women Are Told About Menopause?

The standard line is that menopausal women need estrogen therapy to prevent
osteoporosis and other menopause symptoms because the body has stopped
making its own estrogen. HRT (synthetic estrogen + synthetic progesterone)
will take up the slack. HRT is routinely recommended in practically any
situation, physical or mental that can be even remotely tied to menopause.

What the drug industry has conveniently ignored is that at menopause,
estrogen output drops only about 40%. (Sellman, p16) Ovary production of
estrogen drops way down below the level necessary for reproductive
function. But adrenal and fat cell outputs of estrogen keep on going in
order to maintain the other important endocrine functions of estrogen,
which are not directly related to reproduction:


bone building

electrolyte balance

insulin balance

fat and protein metabolism

cholesterol synthesis

(Guyton, p1024)

That 40% figure is only for American and Northern European women, who have
the highest estrogen levels in the world. In nonindustrialized countries,
the drop is much less, primarily because their normal level of estrogen is
so much lower. What is commonly ignored is that progesterone levels drop to
0% at menopause, and progesterone is necessary to keep a balance with estrogen.

So do the math: if an American woman has had estrogen levels that are
double the normal for most of her adult life, and at menopause, estrogen
only drops 40%, that means she is still operating at 120% of "normal,"
compared with an agrarian-type, nonindustrialized woman. But with this
estimated 120% of normal estrogen, after menopause, there is NO
progesterone to offset it. Estrogen dominance is a new phenomenon in
nature, created by modern society, and modern medical politics.

Why Is The Solution Not Fake Estrogen?

Synthetic estrogen dosage is way too much, and too weird, for the body to
deal with. Synthetic hormones have molecular forms that do not occur in
nature. They are manmade. The dancing of the hormones in the above chart is
seriously disrupted by adding hormone-like chemicals than can mimic some of
the functions of real hormones, but cannot maintain their role in the ever
changing back and forth swirling biochemical dance that is taking place at
every second in the normal body.

These fake hormones are insensitive to the body's requirements for
instantaneous alteration into another member of the hormone chart.

Aspirin is made from the bark of the white willow. People have been using
white willow bark for centuries as a mild pain reliever. But white willow
bark cannot destroy the stomach lining on contact the way aspirin does. In
the same way that aspirin is not white willow bark, synthetic estrogen is
not estrogen. And synthetic progesterone is not progesterone.

The main problem with synthetic hormones is that they last too long. All
the natural hormonal feedback loops, which we do not even completely
understand, are disrupted because the synthetics can't act as precursors to
the changing hormonal forms in the same way that the natural hormones know.

The hormone system becomes fragmented with millions of one-way orders that
are supposed to have return messages. As long as synthetics keep coming in,
there's no way to de-frag the system. The result is loss of proper
interplay between the reproductive, adrenal, and thyroid systems. They all
suffer.

American women arguably are among the most stressed people in history,
emotionally and nutritionally, as well as environmentally. It is well known
that stress depletes the adrenal glands. When this happens, progesterone is
converted to adrenal hormones, like cortisol, to take up the slack and try
to keep up with adrenal demands. Remember, progesterone is their precursor,
in the above chart. The result is further depletion of progesterone, again
promoting estrogen dominance.

The above list of side effects of HRT is caused by one simple thing:

Unopposed Estrogen

Too pure and too much. And no progesterone.

So this is why cancer risks with HRT remain much higher than without HRT.
The connection between HRT and cancer is really quite logical when you
consider the normal functions of estrogen: controlling areas of rapidly
dividing cells in preparation for reproduction. Unopposed estrogen, as
we've known since the 1970s, upsets the normal endocrine balance. And where
does the imbalance appear?

Rapidly dividing cells of the reproductive tissues: endometrium, ovaries,
breast. Perhaps nature did not intend for these tissues to be going wild at
this time of life, when the reproductive system is supposed to be going out
of business. Wouldn't a tissue defect like cancer be a natural result of
artificially jumpstarting tissues which want to start winding down a
little? Especially when the hormones are of the imitation, manmade,
designer variety?

Dr. Lee underscores one amazing fact: the only known cause of endometrial
cancer is unopposed estrogen!

Unopposed estrogen is actually heightened by giving standard HRT because of
the increased ratio of estrogen to progesterone. Research has never proven
that estrogen deficiency causes cancer, but many studies have shown that
progesterone deficiency does.

A Johns Hopkins study of 1000 women showed that progesterone deficient
women had a tenfold increased chance of dying from cancer compared with
women who have normal levels of progesterone. (Cowan)

Jerilynn Prior, MD a world authority in endocrinology says that describing
menopause as an "estrogen deficiency disease" is the same as describing
headache as an "aspirin deficiency disease." She calls this type of
thinking 'backwards science.' Illnesses cannot be categorized by which
drugs they are missing. That would assume that drugs cure illnesses, which
almost never happens. Especially not in the case of HRT. Menopause is not
an illness.

So Why Don't Gynecologists Prescribe Progesterone?

Some do. The problem here is that natural sources of progesterone are easy
to find and inexpensive to make from many plants sources. As such they
cannot be patented.

This is a central point to keep in mind, perhaps the most important idea of
this chapter. There are inexpensive plant-based phytoestrogens and natural
progesterones which can control most estrogen imbalances, especially when
incorporated into a detoxifying low-stress diet. Synthetics (drugs) are
rarely necessary.

But Only Drugs Can Be Patented

There is no way to make massive profits from a natural plant source, and
you have just heard the primary reason for the organized attack on holistic
supplements that is under way in the US today. Natural risk-free products
are a threat to the drug trade. Drug concerns develop chemical compounds
that are almost like the natural hormone. But almost only counts in
grenade-tossing. Maybe the synthetic compound is only different by an atom
or two.

Perhaps it can mimic some of the activity of the real hormone. After that,
it is only necessary to create a market by control of information, by
controlling the outcome and publishing of clinical studies, and by
controlling regulating agencies, using political and legal tactics. But
that one-atom difference in the shape of the molecule is all the difference
in the world, in terms of breakdown, toxicity, and side effects.
Understanding this paragraph will go far in explaining many of the
contradictions of HRT, the unanswered questions, the indirect answers, the
arrogance one encounters.

Where Do These Designer Hormone Replacement Drugs Come From Anyway?

The most popular synthetic estrogen is a drug called Premarin, made from
the urine of pregnant horses! This is no joke. Manufactured by the
Philadelphia pharmaceutical giant Wyeth-Ayerth since 1942, an estimated
$940 million per year (Sellman p5) worldwide is generated by the sale of
this one drug. Most estimates are that at least 75% of HRT drugs contain
Premarin. Since 1993, Premarin has been among the top three drugs in the
U.S. in gross sales. (National Center for Health Statistics)

In 1992, Wyeth-Ayerth spent $9 million just for advertising Premarin! Their
ad execs came up with the brilliant phrase "untreated menopause." That same
year Premarin was the #1 drug prescribed in the U.S. (Robbins, p 140).

This Is Marketing Mastery

Before we consider the effectiveness of this drug, let's briefly look at
the circumstances involved in its preparation.

Some 700 "horse farms" are set up in remote areas of the United States and
Canada. Most of them have extensive security, and with good reason. At any
one time, some 80,000 or so horses suffer the slow torture of life as a lab
rat. Each mare is strapped into a tiny stall in which there is no room to
lie down or even turn around.

For seven months of the 11 month pregnancy, the horse is immobilized in the
stall, hooked up to a catheter which collects all her urine. She is
deprived of sufficient water in order to make the urine more concentrated,
thus raising its value to the drug company. Infections frequently occur at
the site of the catheter and from the restraining apparatus. Liver and
kidney disease are common.

The foals themselves are referred to as "by-products" by the manufacturing
company and are generally sold to the slaughterhouse. The mare is
immediately impregnated after she has given birth and soon is imprisoned
back in the tiny stall for another run. After about 12 years of this
horrible life, the mares are themselves slaughtered and sold for dogmeat.

This has been going on for 56 years! Over one million horses have been
cruelly abused in this way.

In Canada, the foaling generally takes place on open prairie. Mother and
foal are immediately separated, and most of the foals die. The ones that
survive are extremely stressed, and with good reason: they are sold to
slaughterhouses and shipped to Europe and Japan where certain cuts are
regarded as delicacies.

I think you get the point. For more details follow up at
www.allrealgood.com Information like this tends to suggest that agencies
like the ASPCA are basically PR fronts focusing on self-promotion and
making sure dogs in Jack Nicholson movies get enough overtime. .

Even if Premarin were the true answer to all of menopause's annoyances,
reviewing the above data should be enough for any sane person to feel some
twinge of guilt about contributing to a program of such horrendous cruelty.

Menopause can't be that bad, can it? But the reality is that Premarin and
other HRT synthetics do not work, do not do what they're supposed to do,
and have major side effects. If you have any notion whatsoever of universal
harmony or equilibrium, it seems logical that we're not gonna get away with
this. And we don't. The first payback is one of the biggies: cancer.

Henry Lemon MD of the University of Nebraska College of Medicine feels that
an unnatural imbalance is caused by putting horse estrogens into a woman's
body. The body does not allow two of the three naturally occurring
estrogens, estradiol and estrone, to hang around very long. It converts
them into the non-carcinogenic estriol, as soon as possible. Such a helpful
conversion cannot happen with Premarin because of the amounts involved. So
the propensity for cancer is clearly seen: the carcinogenic forms are
allowed to persist.

Premarin was approved by the FDA over 50 years ago, when requirements were
must less stringent. There are many unknown ingredients in Premarin which
may be normal in a horse, but not a human. It is likely that these are
instrumental in the abnormally high rates of uterine and breast cancer
following HRT, which rates are anywhere from a 30% to a 600% increase above
normal, depending on the study.

Are women informed? Hardly. Information like the above is very bad for
business.

Many phytoestrogens from plants are now available, as well as generic
synthetic Premarin substitutes. With clever legal maneuvering however,
Wyeth-Ayerth has successfully blocked the generic substitutes from FDA
approval by a twist worthy of Johnny Cochran.

They have claimed that the generics do not contain one of the unknown
elements that Premarin contains, which is true. However it is more likely
that the unknown element - 8,9 dehydroestrone sulfate - is toxic, not
beneficial! Even the FDA regards 8,9 dehydroestrone sulfate as an
"impurity" and yet the FDA will not approve the generics because they don't
have it! As all throughout history, today more than ever, politics controls
"science."


Osteoporosis

As if cancer risk is not bad enough, let's look at another of women's
greatest fears: osteoporosis after menopause. Here is a simple topic about
which most women have been completely duped. Standard "common sense"
inculcated by media, advertising, and their Ob/Gyn-drug reps warns women
that they must take estrogen and calcium or else they will experience bone
loss. This false notion is one of the truly great masterpieces of modern
disinformation.

First of all, there are no valid, randomized clinical studies which
demonstrate increased bone mineralization following HRT.

Bone is not what you see left on your plate after you're done with your
medium rare T-bone steak. In the body, bone is living tissue, with rich
networks of blood vessels and nerves. Bone is constantly being torn down
and replaced by specialized blood cells. Every seven years, your entire
skeleton is completely replaced.

Bone has a matrix, or framework, on which calcium is laid down. In America,
everyone gets enough calcium. True calcium deficiency results in a disease
called kwashiorkor, which is found only in Third World starvation
countries, not in America. Osteoporosis is not a disease of calcium
deficiency.

It's a disease of matrix deficiency: the framework got flimsier. There
isn't as much matrix to attach the calcium to. There's plenty of available
calcium. Calcium is an inert mineral contained in most foods. The body
maintains the blood levels of calcium at a certain level. Anything extra,
like in calcium supplements, is spilled out of the body by the kidneys,
because it's over the normal blood levels. If there's only so much
framework, it really doesn't matter how much calcium is in the blood; the
excess is spilled out.

Keep in mind that most calcium supplements don't even make it into the
bloodstream, especially if they're tablets. They never even dissolved in
the digestive tract; they pass right out of the body. This you can prove to
yourself by placing a calcium tablet in a glass of water and leaving it
there all night. Most of them don't dissolve.

Even the calcium supplements that do make it into the bloodstream are
mostly spilled out, for the above reasons.

In short, calcium supplementation will not increase bone density in
premenopausal women, nor prevent it post-menopause. (Ettinger)

American women don't get osteoporosis because they lack calcium, or
estrogen. Anybody who does a little research knows this. The countries with
the highest rates of osteoporosis on earth are Scandinavia, England,
Australia, and the U.S. These are also the places with the highest
consumption of dairy products.(McDougall, p176) It is pasteurized milk,
cheese, and butter which leach calcium from the body, since these
enzymeless, artificial, modern foods cannot be easily metabolized. The
processes of removal from the blood takes a lot of calcium stores from the
teeth and bones. (Recker).

The definition of pasteurization is removal of all enzymes via heat. One of
the enzymes in milk thus denatured is phosphatase. Its purpose? Calcium
absorption. Without phosphatase, calcium absorption doesn't happen.

But wait! What about milk as a source of calcium, building strong bones and
good teeth and all that? …and you never outgrow your need for it, and all
those movie stars with the moustaches? Marketing. Advertising. Promotion.

Who do you think pays for the dietary educational tools used in American
schools since the 1950s - you know, the four food groups, and all that? The
American Dairy Council and the dairy industry. The whole story is better
told in Twogood's book No Milk, available anywhere.

Processed foods are indigestible. The stomach keeps pouring out the gastric
juices, in the form of HCl (hydrochloric acid) but it's not enough to break
down these weird manmade chemically preserved foods. The food just sits
there in the stomach and rots. The abundant HCl may get splashed backward
into the esophagus, causing reflux (heartburn).

What Is The Medical Solution?

Prilosec, which does what? Right. Inhibits production of HCl. Does this aid
digestion? No. The undigested food still sits there and rots. Worse news:
guess what is required for calcium absorption in the stomach. HCl. Prilosec
in this way directly contributes to osteoporosis.

Another reason Americans lose calcium from bones and teeth is acid-forming
foods: soft drinks, too much meat, white sugar. All these tend to acidify
the blood. If the blood gets too acidic, death will result. For
self-preservation, the body must neutralize all this acid, maintain blood
pH between 7.3 and 7.45. The process is called buffering, and it requires
calcium.

When there isn't enough available, the body steals calcium from the bones
and teeth. This is why Robert Heaney MD says that eating a high protein
diet is like pouring acid rain on your bones. It is a high protein diet
that is the primary cause of osteoporosis. (McDougall, p171)

The point is, it's true that Americans have a high rate of osteoporosis,
not just women. But this has nothing to do with estrogen.

Do horses gets osteoporosis? Never. What do they eat? Grass. How about
cows? Are they taking Cal-Mag? Do they take Premarin? Calcium is in all foods.

Do menopausal horses get osteoporosis? Negative. Do menopausal third world
women get osteoporosis? Negative.

So if HRT is not going to reverse osteoporosis, what will? Reducing dairy
intake, and other artificial foods, like white sugar and soft drinks.

Not only is there no proof to support the fantasy so many doctors offer
their patients - HRT will save you from osteoporosis - there is abundant
research that shows that synthetic hormones actually have no effect
whatsoever on preventing bone loss. One of the most noted of these is the
14 Oct 1993 study in the NEJM, which conclusively shows that the risk of
hip fractures for women over 75 is the same whether or not the woman took
synthetic estrogen.

Hip fractures are the greatest fear of aging people, as well as a prime
indicator of osteoporosis. The article goes on to note that most women
believe their physicians when they say that HRT will prevent osteoporosis,
yet here is proof that it doesn't. The authors state that estrogen therapy
is simply unable to prevent loss of bone density.

Taking synthetic estrogen cannot rebuild bones. It can temporarily slow the
rate of bone loss, but when the HRT is stopped, osteoporosis soon catches
up like the woman never took HRT at all. Is that temporary benefit worth a
9-14 times greater risk of cancer? Dr. Lee thinks not. (Lee, p152)

In addition, many common drugs cause osteoporosis. Millions have been duped
into the thyroid scam - told they were overweight because they were
'hypothyroid.' Synthroid to the rescue. What the doctor never tells you is
that Synthroid stimulates osteoclasts to resorb bone. Remember how bone is
built by living tissue? Well, that happens with the simultaneous action of
two complementary types of blood cells: osteoclasts for tearing down old
bone, and osteoblasts for building new bone. Obviously an imbalance in
either one of these will cause a problem.

Other non-estrogen drugs which are prescribed to supposedly reduce the
chance of osteoporosis, have serious side effects. In his video, Dr. John
Lee outlines the dangers of a very popular drug named Fosamax.

It's actually quite simple. Again, living healthy bone must go through a
constant process of old cells being replaced by new cells, so that every
few years we have an entire new skeleton. Osteoclasts are cells that tear
down bone; osteoblasts build new cells in those spaces. Got that? OK. The
intellects behind Fosamax have decided that if they can stop the
osteoclasts from doing their normal job of tearing down bone, this will
prevent osteoporosis.

How?

By the buildup of Fosamax crystals in the bone, which just stay there long
after a normal lifespan, which artificially stops the removal system - the
osteoclasts. Now there are no spaces in which new bone cells can form. The
Fosamax crystals cannot be broken down by the body, and remain in the bone
for 15 or 20 years, taking up space, and offering an artificial,
plastic-like composition in what should be normal healthy bone.

Dr. Lee tells us that modern Fosamax is 1000 times more potent than the
original biphosphonate.

Even the manufacturers caution against indiscriminate long term use of this
drug: on p 1657-8 of the 1998 Physicians Desk Reference we find that: "bone
formation…is ultimately reduced…Fosamax decreases the rate of bone
resorption [tearing down] directly, which leads to an indirect decrease in
bone formation."

Decreased bone formation? Does that sound like something that's going to
maintain normal bone and prevent osteoporosis in your golden years? Dr. Lee
and many others don't think so.

The PDR also tells us that they have no idea what effects Fosamax may have
after four years! (p1661)

Here we have a prime example of the philosophical difference between
allopathic and holistic medicine: they forgot that Mother Nature always
bats last. You can't arbitrarily interfere with one half of a complete life
process like bone synthesis and expect no adverse consequences.

With Fosamax, we have arrogantly overpowered the body's normal system of
bone building which has developed and maintained the skeleton just fine for
the person's whole life, by pretending that one phase of that system exists
in isolation from the whole rest of the endocrine Internet, and can be
omitted with no consequences.

Doctors trick women by telling them that Fosamax will increase "bone
mineral density" but what they don't tell them is that the new mineral is
not calcium and is no longer part of the living dynamic process which has
maintained their bones their entire lives.


This is not yet even mentioning the side effects of Fosamax:


kidney disease

ulcers

heartburn

joint pain

headache

rash

Fosamax is a risky, artificial approach to osteoporosis which pretends like
the problem can be divided up into separate, distinct unrelated phases,
like with a car. Same old idea, over and over: another drug in search of a
market.

Same old story. Osteoporosis is big business. Big business to keep it
happening, and big business to treat it. The dairy industry, the meat
industry, the soft drink industry all keep it happening. The HRT industry,
the nursing home industry, and the hospitals gain from the treatment of
osteoporosis. John McDougall explains:

"The diagnosis and treatment of osteoporosis is so profitable because
millions of people unwittingly weaken their bones, making them dependent
for the rest of their life on diagnostic tests and drug therapy that slows
the disorder…but never cures it."
- The McDougall Plan p172

Another area of major disinformation with respect to HRT is

Heart Disease

Unsupported claims are made actually claiming that HRT will help prevent
heart disease. There seems to be no limit to what they'll say. It's pretty
hard to reconcile such a recommendation with the fact that cardiovascular
disease is stated as a clear contraindication for most estrogen drugs.
Contraindication means a situation where the drug can't be prescribed. (Br
J of Obs and Gyn Feb 1997;104:163 also, PDR. 1998)

We all know that one in two deaths in the US is from heart disease. What is
less commonly known is that heart attack in the premenopausal woman is
virtually unheard of. Yet 10 years after menopause, and especially if the
woman is on HRT, the rates soon come up equal to men's rates. Just a little
research uncovers the likely reasons behind such a phenomenon.

In his videotape What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Menopause, John
Lee MD notes that HRT is the number one cause of increased rates of heart
attacks in postmenopausal women. Why? In a word, vasospasm. The word means
tightening of a blood vessel.

The coronary arteries are the ones that supply the heart with blood. They
are also the ones that get blocked in heart attacks, and therefore they are
the site of bypass operations. They are what is bypassed. The most popular
site is the Anterior Descending Coronary Artery.

In males who are screened for bypass, the Anterior Descending may be 80 to
95% blocked, and surgery will be recommended. If death comes first, on
autopsy these high rates of blockage are observed.

In postmenopausal women, however, autopsies frequently showed only a 30-50%
blockage of the artery, yet death was due to heart attack. Researchers
couldn't understand what was happening for the longest time. So they began
to do angiogram studies with Rhesus monkeys - animal abuse in the classic
Pasteurian tradition.

Angiogram, you remember, is where they X-ray the arteries after injecting
dye into them. Now monkeys don't go through menopause, so they had to
create it for the study. The way they did it was to first remove the
ovaries. To induce heart attack they injected Provera, which is a synthetic
hormone used for human birth control.

The results were "unrelenting" vasospasm of the coronary artery which means
that the artery which had as little as a 30% blockage constricted down to
complete closure and would not open up again no matter what they tried.
Obviously this killed Ms. Monkey in the ensuing heart attack.

So the researchers realized that HRT was the missing factor that was
responsible for heart attacks in postmenopausal women whose coronary
arteries were less than 50% blocked. Did you read that study anywhere in
Newsweek or in the Chronicle?. Information like this that challenges a
billion dollar HRT industry is systematically buried.

If natural progesterone is added to the Provera, the artery does not go
into spasm. This data was according to a study done in England at the
London Institute of Heart and Lung Research by Peter Collins MD.

Again the point here is that natural progesterone is unpatentable. It is
not a drug. They can't make a ton of money from it, so it's not promoted.
Natural progesterone is not routinely recommended, and most ob/gyn's don't
even bother to learn about it because they can't make money from it.

Safe Estrogens - No Thanks

It is the same with estrogen. There are safe, natural sources of estrogen
which could be recommended in place of drugs. Many plants have safe, mild
estrogen substances called phytoestrogens which are available to the body
in minute, physiologic doses, and which can be used to safely supplement a
declining estrogen output.

Hormones are only needed and used by the body in tiny, very transient
amounts. Transient means they only have to be around for a second or two. A
physiologic dose would mean a natural hormone like a phytoestrogen or a
wild yam-derived progesterone in the same amount as what might be produced
by the body for its own needs.

Natural hormones can be swiftly broken down after they have performed their
function. They don't just continue hour after hour like the synthetics or
the xenoestrogens, which are given in sledgehammer amounts called
pharmacologic doses. Big difference.

When the reality of this situation begins to sink in, it may sound a little
harsh at first. Can it really be that if it comes to a choice between money
and their patients' well-being, doctors will choose money most of the time?
We can't be too hard on them - they've incurred a lot of debt in medical
school.

John Lee and Lorraine Day, both medical doctors, well-respected in their
fields, excuse their colleagues' ignorance and indifference about the value
of natural progesterone by saying that the doctors are too busy with
paperwork, hospital duties, and their own lives to have the time to read
anything outside the medical library.

Since the medical journals in the medical library are very tightly
controlled by the pharmaceutical companies, no natural non-drug therapies
are allowed to appear, especially one like progesterone which actually does
what synthetic estrogen is supposed to do, except with no side effects. So
they tell us not to be too hard on doctors, because the doctors just don't
know. So does that mean we should be forewarned that doctors are primarily
reps for the drug companies, because that's all they have managed to learn?

It's frightening that to make an informed decision about embarking on any
course of patentable drug therapy, these are the considerations that must
be undertaken. The more you learn about it, the more naïve you realize you
have been to have thought that things have ever been any other way.

Cancer

Since the beginning of estrogen drugs in the 1960s, the spectre of cancer
has always been there, lurking about in the shadows. That's why progestins
(synthetic progesterone) were added in the mid 1970s, changing ERT to HRT.
Original studies were shaky, and the majority of modern studies show
conclusively that HRT significantly increases the risk of both endometrial
and breast cancer. Dr. Lee states flatly that HRT is the only known cause
of endometrial cancer! (Lee, p220)

Abstracting ourselves for a moment away from citing 10 medical studies
which prove this point, just use your common sense. Let's go back to the
beginning of the chapter. What does natural estrogen do? Prepares for
reproduction. What tissues does it affect? Those tissues that what? Right.
Are rapidly dividing: endometrium, cervix, breast, ovaries. Now, what is
cancer? Very simply, cancer begins when a cell has lost its ability to
specialize, but not its ability to multiply, or proliferate.

Or divide rapidly. A tumor is a group of cells multiplying rapidly out of
control, but unable to perform any life function. So therefore, which
tissues do you think have the greatest tendency to become cancerous? Right
- those which normally will tend to divide rapidly, like endometrial and
breast tissue.

So estrogen and cancer have a lot in common from the get-go. Is it really
that much of a surprise that dozens of controlled medical studies and
research reviews have proven practically beyond dissent that HRT, which is
estrogen gone wild, can cause cancer? So would it be too impertinent of me
to pose the obvious: why is HRT still out there?

Let's see, it doesn't do what it's supposed to do - control menopause
symptoms, it has no effect on osteoporosis and it's been proven beyond a
shadow of a doubt to be a frequent spark for cancer.

The above-cited Boston Nurses Questionnaire Study involving over 121,000
participants found that taking estrogen therapy alone for at least ten
years raised breast cancer risk by 40%. If they took progestins as well
(synthetic progesterone) that figure went to 100%! (Australian Doctor, 29
Aug 97, p3)

A meta-analysis is when researchers compare several studies and come up
with a conclusion. In 1991 a meta-analysis of 16 separate studies was
written up in JAMA.. Their findings:

"After 15 years of estrogen use, we found a 30% increase in the risk of
breast cancer.."
- Steinberg p1985 JAMA 1991

Different studies, different numbers. How about this one, in Sweden, from
the New England Journal of Medicine, with over 23,000 women in the sample
group:

"Overall we noted a 10% increase in the relative risk of breast cancer for
23,334 women for whom estrogens were prescribed for menopause. …this risk
to increase with increased duration of treatment to an excess risk of 70%
in women with more than nine years of use."
- Bergkvist, p293 NEJM 3 Aug 89

Fairly credible sample size.

There are many other studies, but you can see where this is going. These
are the top medical journals in the U.S. Doctors know that HRT causes
breast cancer. Why is this happening? Just keep thinking about that $1
billion per year, and things will eventually come into focus. That's a
thousand million per year.



Part 5



Natural Non-Toxic Solutions

Here are three holistic methods for reducing the incidence of menopause
annoyances:


clean diet

plant-sourced estrogens - Phytoestrogens

natural progesterone cream
1. Diet

Eat non-acidifying foods: raw fruits and vegetables, whole grains, good
stuff. Acidfying foods, fast foods, processed foods, white sugar, hard fats
- the usual culprits in most other disease patterns - once again make their
appearance. As explained above, estrogen dominance is promoted by a
lifetime diet of these common foods. Stress and nutritional deficiency
deplete the adrenals, which deplete progesterone, which promotes estrogen
imbalance, which causes symptoms of menopause.

Normally estrogen should just cycle through the body once and then be
broken down in the liver. High fat content in the diet prevents such
breakdown and allows estrogen to go around a second time, promoting all the
above-mentioned imbalances. (McDougall, p87)


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Please also read Dr. Mecola's food choice program


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2. Phytoestrogens

Raw whole foods, fruits, vegetables, soy products contain mild amounts of
natural estrogens which circumvent the rollercoaster imbalance most women
experience. If phytoestrogens are part of the lifestyle prior to menopause,
there will not be such a radical drop when the body begins to downshift
away from the demands of always preparing for reproduction. In a study done
in Paris in the early 1990s, a physiologist significantly lowered estrogen
levels in the sample group simply by changing from a high fat, high sugar
diet to a more natural diet of fruits and vegetables. (Vines)

Phytoestrogens also appear in a variety of herbs, including black cohosh,
alfalfa, pomegranate, and licorice.

3. Natural Progesterone

By now you should know that progesterone drops to zero at menopause. If
estrogen levels have been high all along, problems begin to arise when the
sister hormone progesterone is no longer around to keep things in balance.

In the past few years, several doctors have found that natural progesterone
cream can take up the slack both before menopause, in the case of the
stress-challenged woman, and after menopause, in the case of the less
stressed woman who has incorporated natural phytoestrogen foods into her
lifestyle. Both can benefit from the regulating influence of natural
estrogen in small food-bound doses. Physiologic doses.

Dr. Lee has organized most of the pertinent information about the clinical
effects of natural progesterone cream. Osteoporosis, heart disease, breast
cancer, endometrial cancer, hot flashes, dryness, skin shrivelling are
routinely avoided completely by the daily use of this simple natural
lotion. On p 271 of his book, Dr. Lee has a list of products which contain
natural progesterone in a usable form.

The reader is directed to What You Doctor May Not Tell You About Menopause
for the complete story on progesterone. I don't think it's an exaggeration
to say that if you are a woman you can't afford to skip his book.


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CAUTION: Please be sure to read Dr. Mercola's warning on progesterone cream


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I realize the information in this chapter may be a bit overwhelming,
especially if you are hearing it for the first time. This is not light
reading. But it's worth the effort if you are considering a major step like
beginning hormone therapy, or birth control pills, to inform yourself.

The attached references would be your next step in verifying what I have
suggested in these few short pages. If you only choose one, I would
recommend John Lee's book, as it is the most comprehensive review of
current literature on the topic of natural hormone therapy.

We are taught to be too trusting of medicine, to a degree that it doesn't
merit. Almost two hundred prescription drugs come and go every year. Why
would that be, if they really worked? What happened to thalidomide,
fen-phen, seldane, DES, and a thousand others? What happened to the people
who took them, thinking they were safe?

Misled and misinformed by the forces of big business, American women find
themselves far afield of a rational outlook on menopause, in tune with
Nature's intentions. Incessant advertising and mental conditioning has
successfully programmed the public's hard disk into regarding menopause as
a disease absolutely requiring treatment, even in the absence of symptoms.
Such a perspective is the creation of the marketplace and is not even
supported by the most conservative and credible of medical authorities.

"Menopause is a natural rite of passage and should not be treated as a
disease."
- Betty Kamen, PhD HRT, p 239

"Menopause is not a disease. I t is a natural biological process that has
gone awry in some women because of less than optimum environment."
Lee p 279
Life Is Such A Pill

The foregoing information also applies for most birth control pills. Most
are synthetic steroid hormones which artificially prevent ovulation. The
lie is, the Pill will "regulate periods." The truth is the menstrual flow
is artificial, occurring only because the Pill was withheld for one week
per month.

Normal menstruation is the result of the cyclic dynamic between natural
estrogen and natural progesterone. With contraceptives, the flow is just a
result of a clumsy, sledgehammer approach to "managing" one small aspect of
an imponderably complex bio-system.

Long term, such a course is foolish, as it has the same pattern of side
effects as listed above: coronary artery disease, breast cancer,
endometrial cancer, strokes, high blood pressure, liver dysfunction,
respiratory allergies, digestive disorders, depression, blood clots,
osteoporosis, and weight gain. (Sellman, p78) This is sexual freedom?
Sounds more like slavery to me.

The Problem With Coffee

Most people realize that coffee has no real food value, but they figure it
won't kill them. And the idea of getting going in the morning without
coffee would be unthinkable after all these years. Many would probably
choose death over withdrawal. You've might even know someone like that…

So why are we talking about coffee in a chapter about HRT? Simple: it's in
the loop. Both are locked into the biochemical choreography of the swirling
hormones which blink in and out of existence every second. Adrenals,
thyroid, and ovaries are not three separate and independent entities.
They're more like three instruments in an orchestra, or three ingredients
in a cake, or three members of a yacht crew: change any one and the whole
outcome is threatened.

Coffee is an adrenal stimulator. So are white sugar, a leopard in your
living room, and the morning commute. The adrenal hormones trigger the
fight-or-flight thing, a leftover from the earlier days of our species'
evolution. Stress. Like from modern, empty foods, toxic exposure, and
emotional worry - you know the list - which send constant messages to the
adrenal glands.

The message is : either prepare me for battle or get me out of here. Now if
you have a friend who calls you on the phone fifty times a day because
there's an emergency, pretty soon you won't get so worked up about the next
call. Same with the adrenals. Only it's probably closer to several hundred
calls a day, if you're in Silicon Valley, or any metropolitan American
city. After awhile the adrenal glands get fried, depleted, out of gas, used
up.

As the most evolved system in the universe, the body's got back-up plans
for everything. And the first of the Plan B's for spent adrenal glands is
to convert another hormone into adrenal hormone, thereby taking the burden
off the adrenals themselves. Guess which hormone is first on the list for
this understudy duty? Right: progesterone. Remember, progesterone is the
precursor, or basic raw material, for all the steroid hormones (see above
chart).

So for many women who are really stressed and have been for years, they are
relying in large measure upon alternative sources of adrenal hormones. With
progesterone being the first of the volunteers to be changed into adrenal
hormones, this leaves little or no progesterone left to perform its primary
function, which was what?

Right again, to maintain the dynamic balance with estrogen. The result:
further promotion of estrogen dominance, which you know all about, from the
above pages.

Sumption, the nutritionist cited above, lists the B-complex vitamins that
are depleted by coffee - the same ones that are depleted by estrogen.
Without B vitamins, the body is drained of energy.

Coffee does not give you energy; coffee gives you the illusion of energy.
Coffee actually drains the body of energy and makes you more tired, because
of vitamin and adrenal depletion. What is the number one symptom that the
most people have?

Give up?

Fatigue is the what more Americans have than any other daily complaint.
Many people don't sleep at night as much as collapse from simple
exhaustion. A sign of this is when you wake up in the morning exhausted,
not refreshed. The body is tired from all that repair work it had to do
while you were asleep.

There is no feeling of waking refreshed and renewed. So what do we do, to
crank it up one more time? Coffee. Decaf? I don't think so. It's not the
taste that you're addicted to. Decaf causes the same overwrought cycle of
fatigue in a different way. Any coffee is a metabolic burden that has to be
dealt with. It contributes nothing to nutrition - no vitamins, no minerals,
no enzymes. Beats up the adrenals, uses up progesterone, promotes estrogen
dominance. And now you know what that means.

There are at least two different ways that coffee contributes to osteoporosis:

promotes estrogen dominance

raises the acidity in the blood
We've already seen how estrogen dominance leads to osteoporosis. With
acidifying of the blood, calcium is pulled from bones and teeth in order to
keep the blood from becoming too acid. This is called buffering - a basic
survival mechanism.

The increased rate of hip fractures with coffee intake was clearly shown in
a 1995 study in New England J Med (Cummings) Another study in American
Journal of Clinical Nutrition of over 85,000 nurses showed three times the
rate of hip fractures in the group who drank the most coffee. Promotion of
osteoporosis from coffee is not just a theory.

Hypothyroid? Guess Again…

The thyroid, the adrenals, and the ovaries. Closely connected, in a
thousand ways. Another award-winning snap misdiagnosis of the 90s has been
"hypothyroidism." To push Synthroid, a powerful thyroid mimicker, many
women are told they are thyroid deficient, for the flimsiest of reasons.

Fatigue is the usual complaint. Obesity is another.

A borderline thyroid level in one blood test is enough to trigger a
lifetime of problems, starting with a prescription for Synthroid. Perhaps
the thyroid levels were just temporarily low when the blood sample was
taken. Perhaps the thyroid was a little sluggish.

Doctors have known for years that iodine is necessary for a functioning
thyroid. Do doctors recommend that safe mineral supplement first before
trying the overpowering drug Synthroid? Never. Most doctors don't even look
at blood levels of thyroid hormones at all; but diagnose hypothyroidism by
symptoms only! (Lee, p147)

No matter; once Synthroid is served up every day, your thyroid's going
night-night. And your problems are just beginning, because you're now
aboard the Drug Express. To say nothing of the hormonal confusion that is
now created when every molecular message that the other glands send to the
thyroid system requesting an answer is ignored.

Empirically, who gets diagnosed hypothyroid, women or men? Let's see, why
would that be?

Thyroid and estrogen are natural antagonists: opposite effects. Thyroid
builds bone, estrogen stimulates bone loss. Thyroid stimulates metabolism
and burns fat; estrogen stores fat. With estrogen dominance, thyroid
function is inhibited, causing lower thyroid activity.

This doesn't necessarily mean the thyroid can't do its job, like the doctor
presumes. It just means with all the excess estrogen in the picture,
thyroid hormone is kept in the background - another one of the body's
give-and-take feedback loops, about which we know so little. Again the
sledgehammer arrogance comes barging onto the scene with the pretense that
synthetic thyroid hormone - Synthroid - is going to "fix the problem."

Check out the psychology here: consider the motivation for being diagnosed
hypothyroid situation.

1. The doctor is motivated because the patient is signing up for a life on
Synthroid
2. The patient is ready to believe it because her overeating and obesity
are not her fault: it's a hormone imbalance.

Is that what 'codependent' means?

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

- another carnival of disinformation. Chronic fatigue is almost always a
result of simple toxemia - blood poisoning - from years of the
indigestible, devitalizing American "foods of commerce." (Tilden) This is
self-evident to any holistic healer. Never missing a trick to sell powerful
drugs, medicine offers Synthroid to the rescue. Not only does it never work
for chronic fatigue, Synthroid whips the condition to a new level of
exhaustion by adding a new toxin for the already worn-out liver and blood
to try and break down. It's like putting out a fire with starter fluid.

The Underlying Tragedy Of HRT

All the horrific side effects and cancers and infertilities and permanently
damaged endocrine systems - all that aside - perhaps the most invidious
feature of HRT and its systematic enslavement of women is noted by John
Robbins:

"the strategy… is to make women feel less confident in themselves, for the
more alienated from herself a woman becomes, the more susceptible she is to
the lure of the drugs…This is the mass marketing of self- estrangement."
Reclaiming Our Health p140

Robbins quotes Christiane Northrup, MD:

"An entire generation of women is being brainwashed…Most women's trust in
their own bodies is almost nonexistent."

John McDougall, MD agrees:

"By adolescence, a great many young girls have come to believe that their
bodies are the problem."

- The McDougall Program, p17

Unpopular Opinion

You won't find the information in this chapter common knowledge. Your
doctor probably won't be aware of it. It's unlikely that you will see an ad
for natural progesterone in Time or Newsweek any time soon.

The devolving literacy in the U.S., the dumbing down of a people, is no
accident. Any knowledge that fuels the idea that people can be responsible
for their own health is systematically suppressed, in a hundred ways. You
are already in the vast minority just by finishing this chapter. It's not
the homogenized "readable" copy you're used to.

The glossing over of the side effects and the same tired images of HRT as
the savior of women from the clutches of wrinkly old age - this pitch is
still out there, coming across in hundreds of ways, every day. Those
millions in advertising are not being wasted.

So What?

This chapter has just skimmed the surface of the topic of hormone therapy.
I hope you don't believe anything you've just read. Disprove it, starting
with the appended references. The two most organized are Dr. Lee's book
What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Menopause, and Sellman's book
Hormone Heresy..


If you're taking estrogen or birth control pills now or considering it, you
can become more informed about the subject than your doctor, by reading
what the real experts say. Few women are actually given a choice.
Menopause? Oh, time for estrogen pills. End of story. With life-threatening
side effects like these, it's worth the effort to be informed.

The unpleasant side effects of menopause can be minimized or eliminated by
diet, herbs, and natural supplementation, as noted above. Dangerous
unproven pharmacologics hardly seem worth the risk.

Hormone Replacement Therapy is a phrase right out of Brave New World
mentality. Why? Because it's not hormones, it doesn't replace anything, and
it's definitely not therapeutic. The only thing getting replaced is the
drug trust's investment.

"The ritualization of the stages of life is nothing new. What is new is
their intense medicalization… Lifelong medical supervision…turns life into
a series of periods of risk."
- Medical Nemesis p 78

Perhaps life should just be lived, not supervised, risk-analyzed,
amortized, or ritualized.

References



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