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The entire basis for the FDA approving estrogen for birth control pills was the result of a single clinical study conducted on 132 Puerto Rican women who had taken the pill for a period of one year. Five of those women died during the study.
In 1966 a New York gynecologist, Dr. Robert Wilson, wrote a best seller entitled Feminine Forever, extolling the virtues of estrogen replacement to save women from the "tragedy of menopause which often destroys her character as well as her health."
According to Wilson, estrogen replacement was a kind of long sought after youth pill that would save poor, fading women from the horrors of age. Wilson energetically promoted menopause as a condition of "living decay." He popularized the erroneous belief that menopause is a deficiency disease.
Wilson’s book sold over 100,000 copies in the first year. Women's magazines eagerly seized upon his ideas and extensively promoted his concepts. He established The Wilson Foundation for the sole purpose of promoting the use of estrogen drugs and book sales. The pharmaceutical industry, including Searle, UpJohn, and Wyeth-Ayerst, makers of estrogen products, generously contributed over $1.3 million to his Foundation. Sales of estrogen products rose dramatically.
Warnings about the dangers of developing endometrial cancer from estrogen were known in 1947. When this was brought to the attention of the FDA, they insisted all estrogen prescriptions be accompanied by warnings about the risk of cancer.
Monied interests were so opposed to the FDA’s ruling that packaging include warning inserts; they took legal action. Based on company’s own briefs, legal action had to be taken because, “patient information would reduce sales of estrogen drugs and, therefore, reduce profits.” Estrogen makers lost in court, and sales quickly began to decline. Ayerst Pharmaceutical, makers of Premarin, hired the high powered public rations firm of Hill and Knowlton, to produce an intense promotional campaign.
Pharmaceutical companies advertised women as sad and depressed, a burden to herself and her family until and unless she started to take estrogen. Constant advertising bought into the notion a woman’s life would become meaningless; unless she was taking estrogen.
Describing menopause women as “castrated by Father Time” and menopause as a “defect in evolution,” drug companies used fears of waning femininity to fuel demand for estrogen.
Sales of unopposed estrogen climbed dramatically. However, there had been no formal assessment or clinical studies of the safety of unopposed estrogen therapy or its long term effects. Side effects and risks of estrogen were never mentioned.
In 1975, The New England Journal of Medicine examined the rates of endometrial cancer for estrogen consumers, concluding that the risk was seven and a half times greater for estrogen users. Women who had used estrogen for seven years or longer were 14 times more likely to develop cancer. Birth control pills had given rise to breast cancer, high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease on a scale previously unknown in medicine.
One very clear fact concerning estrogen had been established—It shortened the life of its users.
Popularity of unopposed estrogen dropped, and estrogen sales along with it. New approaches were needed to sell the product. Pharmaceutical companies dropped the false claims of estrogen preserving feminine beauty and youthfulness and came up with new false claims of urgent health matters.
The pharmaceutical industry resurrected estrogen replacement therapy with a combination of synthetic progesterone and estrogen—the new safe hormone replacement therapy. Emphasis was placed on preventing cardiovascular disease and protection against the ravages of osteoporosis
A landmark study, published in The New England Journal of Medicine in 1995, involving 121,700 women, revealed startling effects from taking estrogen, or HRT. HRT not only exacerbates present health problems but also contributes to the acceleration of the aging process of women. It either hastens the onset of other medical conditions or worsens the existing ones.
Women who used HRT to offset symptoms of menopause increased their chance of developing breast cancer by 30 to 40 per cent if taking estrogen for more than five years. In women aged between 60 and 64, the risk of breast cancer rose to 70 per cent after five years of HRT. The study concluded that women using HRT were 45 per cent more likely to die from breast cancer than those who chose not to use HRT.
One of the biggest selling points of HRT is the false claim estrogen protects against osteoporosis.
Old bone crystallizes, becomes brittle and is prone to break. This old bone must be dissolved before new bone formation can take place. Osteoclasts move through the bones eating the old bone out in a process referred to as osteoblasting. Osteoblasting creates lacuna’s in the ones, little lakes of nothing. New bone growth occurs in these lacuna’s, generating a constant process of bone regeneration.
Osteoclasts are driven by progesterone, inhibited by estrogen. Estrogen slows up the osteoclasts. Estrogen slows down the body’s normal process of bone regeneration, decreases bone density, creates porous or brittle bones, and increases osteoporosis.
The National Institute of Health, the world’s foremost authority on women’s health and osteoporosis, categorically states bone growth can only be achieved with the correct forms of calcium/magnesium supplementation in conjunction with Vitamin D and Vitamin K.
The supposed benefits of HRT are totally unproven. The sole basis of HRT is to create a commercial market that is highly profitable for the pharmaceutical companies.
Prior to ovulation progesterone levels are higher than estrogen levels. After ovulation estrogen levels are higher than progesterone levels and continue to climb until hitting the estrogen spike-which sets off menses. After menses estrogen levels pummel and progesterone levels are again higher then estrogen levels. This is the expected or normal rhythm of the female menstrual cycle.
ESTROGEN
DOMINANCE
The condition where a woman has deficient, normal, or excessive estrogen but little or no progesterone to balance its effects in her body. Even a woman with low estrogen levels can suffer from estrogen dominance if she doesn’t have proper levels of progesterone.
This hormonal imbalance can occur during the follicular phase of the menstrual cycle, the period prior to ovulation when; 1) estrogen levels are elevated over and above normal, and/or, 2) progesterone levels are lower than normal during this phase of the woman’s cycle.
In women that are estrogen dominant estrogen is dominant all the time. This excess estrogen causes symptoms to be continually present, and their symptoms do not subside with menses.
CAUSES
OF ESTROGEN DOMINANCE
Estrogen levels can be higher than usual if a woman is taking birth-control pills, as the active ingredient in any birth control product is estrogen. Taking NSAIDS (nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs)or using decongestants and analgesics such as acetaminophen (Tylenol) and ibuprofen (Motrin, Advil)as they result in vitamin deficiencies which lead to increased estrogen production in the woman’s body.
Our environment is also flooded with estrogen. Estrogen leeks into food out of aluminum cans; into the atmosphere out of plastics, such as the dashboard in your car, or the countless plastic products you handle every day.
Xenohormones, or xenobiotics, are synthetic chemicals such as pesticides and plastics, which have estrogenic effects. They have become so pervasive in our environment estrogen levels are elevated to the point where they are suppressing the woman’s LH (luteinizing hormone), the pituitary hormone that signals the ovaries to release the egg and to make progesterone.
Xenohormones combine with estrogen receptor sites to: (1) activate estrogenic action; (2) induce extra estrogen receptors; (3) inhibit the ability of the liver to excrete estrogen; and (4) inhibit the effects of progesterone.
The environment is so flooded with estrogen men as well as women suffer from estrogen dominance. In men there has been a 50% decrease in sperm count since 1938 and increased incidence of testicular and prostate cancer due to estrogen dominance.
Diet is often a major factor in women suffering progesterone deficiency. A diet high in fatty foods and sugar starves the body of the vitamins and minerals necessary for the ovaries to produce needed progesterone.
Lack of exercise and chronic stress have been proven to cause women to produce less than the desired or necessary levels of progesterone.
Progesterone deficiency may be a result of petrochemical damage to the fetus in the womb. In the first two weeks after conception the fetus is susceptible to more 700 petrochemical toxins common in our environment. Women who suffer from insulin resistance (Syndrome X), or polycystic ovarian syndrome also have chronically low progesterone levels.
EFFECTS
OF ESTROGEN DOMINANCE
Scientific and clinical studies have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt estrogen, in any form, produces an assortment of adverse side effects in women. In the short term excess estrogen causes dangerous and severe PMS and menopausal symptoms including bloating, breast tenderness, cramping, irritability, depression, bleeding, and weight gain.
Long term effects of estrogen include hypertension, exacerbation of liver disease, venous thrombosis or blood clotting, increase in heart attack and stroke risk, promotion of endometrical cancer, cancer of the uterus, breast cancer, and ovarian cancer.
The dangers of estrogen are so well known the FDA insisted there be a warning insert with every prescription of birth control pills. Birth control pills definitely create estrogen dominance in the woman’s body.
IMPORTANCE
OF PROGESTERONE
Progesterone’s most important role in the woman’s body is to balance or oppose estrogen. Estrogen causes breast fibrocycts, progesterone protects against breast fibrocycts. Estrogen increases body fat, progesterone use fat for energy. Estrogen is one of the main reasons women retain fluids, progesterone is a natural diuretic. Excess estrogen causes depression and headaches, progesterone is a natural anti-depressant. While estrogen impairs blood sugar control, progesterone normalizes blood sugar levels. Estrogen increases blood clotting, progesterone normalizes blood flow. Estrogen reduces oxygen levels in all cells, progesterone restores proper cell oxygen levels. Estrogen promotes many forms of cancer especially endometrical and breast cancer. Progesterone helps prevent breast cancer. Estrogen decreases female libido, progesterone increase the woman’s libido.
Comparison of effects indicates a perfect balance between progesterone and estrogen. Natural progesterone is essential to counter-act the negative effects of estrogen dominance.
Even a woman with low estrogen levels can suffer from estrogen dominance if she doesn’t have proper levels of progesterone. Estrogen dominance has led to hormonal imbalances in women at an ever-earlier age and to a significantly greater degree then has ever been known.
Estrogen dominance and progesterone deficiency is epidemic among women in industrialized countries. Synthetic hormones like estrogen, antidepressant drugs, and surgery are not the answer.
Natural progesterone is essential to counter-act estrogen dominance; however, natural progesterone is not widely recommended by doctors due to medical politics dictated by pharmaceutical profits.
PERIMENOPAUSE AND
PROGESTERONE
Sometime in their late thirties to their early forties the
woman’s ovaries begin to slowly and gradually produce less and
less estrogen. Her menstrual cycle becomes unpredictable and
erratic with blood discharge during menses being excessive to less
than normal, or spotty. Minor blood discharge, or spotting, after
sex is common and between periods. Cycles often last three to five
days longer than before, and cycles can occur much sooner than
previously.
During this period the ovaries also begin to produce less
progesterone, often the decline in progesterone is faster or
exceeds the decrease in estrogen production. The gap between
progesterone and estrogen becomes greater than it was during the
woman’s prime birth-bearing years.
This creates a bewildering cluster of symptoms; some of which
are typical of Premenstrual Syndrome, others much more common to
true menopause. This transitional period has come to be known as
perimenopause.
This transitory period varies from woman to woman, lasting from
one to four years for most women, but it has been known to take as
long as ten years with others. True menopause occurs when a woman
has gone one year, or twelve consecutive months without her
ovaries releasing an egg.
PERIMENOPAUSE
SYMPTOMS
Typically those symptoms associated with Premenstrual
Syndrome such as breast tenderness, water retention, and mood
swings become common and more intense than previously experience.
While fatigue, hot flashes, and decreased libido, symptoms of
menopause, become frequent or habitual.
The woman finds herself with a confusing and bewildering set of
symptoms which can’t be attributed strictly to premenstrual
syndrome nor explained away by changes associated with menopause.
HORMONAL IMBALANCE
Excessive or abnormal bleeding may be caused by birth control
pills, fibroids, pregnancy, and it can be sign of cancer.
Most women experiencing this confusing array of symptoms are
suffering from an imbalance between estrogen and progesterone.
Advancing age leads to both lower progesterone and estrogen
output by the ovaries. However, progesterone levels drop faster and to near zero,
while estrogen levels fall gradually but never to near zero.
This leaves the woman with greater than necessary estrogen, and
lower than needed progesterone levels. This leads to an abnormal
gap in the woman’s hormone levels. The greater this hormonal gap; the more symptoms she will
suffer, symptoms will occur with more frequency and with greater
intensity.
CLOSING THE GAP
In addition to the natural gap between progesterone and
estrogen occurring in the woman’s body, birth control pills and
HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy) further increase
estrogen levels in a woman’s body.
To counter this unnatural increase in her body’s estrogen
levels women must increase their progesterone levels or suffer
through a nightmarish cluster of symptoms.
Natural progesterone is available in and through a variety of
foods including bananas, nuts (Walnuts), and in some spices such
as fenugreek. However, the amounts available for the human body
are minute and the woman cannot possibly ingest enough of the
right foods to offset the gap in her hormones.
PROGESTERONE CREAM
Micronzied progesterone powder in a cream base is a convenient
and affordable option to expensive and inconvenient suppositories
or injections. Progesterone cream is neither a miracle nor a quick
fix for perimenopausal symptoms. Diet, exercise, and especially
the correct multi-mineral multi-vitamin supplementation are
vitally necessary.
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