Biomimetic Hormones | Six Million Women will Reach Menopause in the next Decade

Six Million Women will Reach Menopause in the next Decade

Six million women will reach menopause in the next decade in North America alone, according to a recent study.  That is a far reaching number.  How many doctors will be prepared to discuss menopause with their patients and be able to speak about the options available to women?  For many women all over Canada and the United States, it is still a difficult task to find a bioidentical doctor who has the knowledge to discuss all of the options available to women including natural bioidentical hormones.

There are still many, many doctors who are willing to just write a prescription for anti-depressants and Premarin (horse’s urine) and send women on their way.  This is an unfortunate scenario.  Women across the continent are watching the media and learning about bioidentical hormones.  They have already been scared off from taking synthetic hormone replacement therapy by the Women’s Health Initiative study in 2002 and the inherent dangers of taking synthetic hormones – dangers which include cancer and stroke.  However, talk show hosts such as Dr. Phil and Oprah have been presenting television shows which have introduced the masses to bioidentical hormones.  Before Oprah and Dr. Phil, Suzanne Somers who uses bioidentical hormones herself, promoted the use of bioidentical in several books.  Noted doctors in the U.S. began treating their patients with bioidentical hormones and also writing books on the subject.  Women are now demanding natural bioidentical hormones for the treatment of their perimenopausal and menopausal symptoms.  However, with the lack of doctors who understand how to monitor hormone levels and prescribe bioidentical hormones, women are left with the necessity of having to travel to another city, another province, another state just to obtain a bioidentical hormone prescription.  It’s tragic in some ways.

There are many naysayers to the phenomenon of bioidentical hormones.  It’s not that they are new.  Bioidentical hormones including bioidentical estriol have been used in Europe by women for over 60 years.  There has been some testing and some research on the subject, but these are little known studies.  Women in the United States have been using bioidentical hormones for at least the last 25 years.  Unfortunately, the naysayers are usually large pharmaceutical companies such as Wyeth who have lost millions of dollars when women stopped taking their synthetic hormones because of the Women’s Health Initiative Study.  Wyeth has even taken some compounding pharmacies to court to try and stop the sale of bioidentical hormones.  Bioidentical hormones, as a result, are now known as “biomimetic hormones” because the compounding hormone mixtures are taken in a biomimetic fashion – mimicking the natural rise and fall of hormones in the body. The problem with natural hormone preparations for the pharmaceutical companies is that the mixtures cannot be patented.  Therefore, the loss of big bucks.  This is the politics of bioidentical hormones.

The problem for the naysayers is that more and more women around the world are using bioidentical hormones and demanding them to treat their menopause symptoms.  How can you stop the tide of this growing demand?  As stated in the beginning of this article, six million women will reach menopause in the next decade.  I see the doctors and compounding pharmacists who have answered women’s demand for more natural solutions to the wretched symptoms of menopause as having great foresight into the situation.  Try and stop the demand for bioidentical hormones and you are going to have a great force of millions of women rise up against you.  Good luck.

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