Dr. Mercola Interviews Dr. Wright about Hormone Replacement

by Dr. Mercola

Can You Believe Drug Companies Used to Pay Me to Promote HRT?


'Yes, at one time I was part of the dark side. Many of you may not know this about me, but after finishing my medical residency training in the mid-80s, I was actually a paid speaker for the drug companies. I got paid to fly around the country to lecture physicians about estrogen replacement therapy. At the time, I was convinced it was an ideal strategy for menopausal women because I was manipulated and deceived by the overwhelming "evidence" that was published in the respected peer-reviewed medical journals.


Only decades later would I finally understand the massive corruption and collusion between the drug companies, medical journals and federal regulatory agencies that provided the illusion of scientific legitimacy when the real primary purpose was to increase their sales.'

Read more...

Read more »

Spicing Up Your Hormones Without Hormone Replacement

'One of the insurmountable problems with hormone replacement therapy is that when you replace a hormone you risk feeding the underlying glandular deficiency. 

 In the exuberance associated with the idea of overcoming age-associated declines in sexual, cognitive, skeletal, cardiovascular, etc. function, with both synthetic and bioidentical hormones, the hormone replacement advocates have often neglected to educate their patients to several unintended, adverse effects of hormone replacement therapy (HRT): 1) the endocrine system has a negative feedback loop which guarantees that with time the body's ability to produce adequate quantities of the very hormones being targeted for replacement will decline, resulting in the development of biological dependency on an external source of hormones -- not exactly a picture of empowerment.' 


Read more...

Read more »

The Truth About Cortisol

 

'Cortisol, also referred to as an adrenal cortisol hormone, is perhaps the most important hormone in our body as it affects nearly all the vital organs. Cortisol falls under a class of hormones known as glucocorticoids and is secreted by the adrenal gland.' 

Read more...

Read more »

Bioidentical Hormones, Waking Up From the Synthetic Hormone Nightmare

 

 by Jeffrey Dach MD


'Shirley is 52, and suffering from menopausal symptoms of hot flashes, night sweats, insomnia and mood disturbance. The next chance she had, Shirley asked her doctor for bioidentical hormones. Instead, her doctor offered her a prescription for Lexapro, an SSRI antidepressant. Shirley declined the prescription and ran out the door crying all the way home. A few days later, Shirley was sitting in my office asking, "Why won't my doctor give me what I want, bioidentical hormones?" '


Read more...

Read more »

Male Menopause and Low Testosterone

 

 By Dr. Jeffery Dash

'Male menopause and low testosterone is in the news again, thanks to Robert Brannigan MD and the public relations department of Northwestern University. Their news release was reprinted by all the major news services. 

Dr Brannigan tells us testosterone levels decline with age, and we now have 5 million men suffering from low testosterone levels resulting in "fatigue, mood swings, decreased desire for sex, hair loss, lack of concentration and weight gain." Low testosterone is commonly associated with diabetes and cardiovascular disease. In my experience, I have found both conditions improve considerably with testosterone treatment.' 

Read more...

Read more »

Bioidentical Estriol Still Under Threat

 





'Nurses in Oregon may soon lose their ability to prescribe estriol, the safe and effective bioidentical estrogen hormone. Meanwhile, an FDA-approved menopause drug is killing women at twice the usual mortality rate.
A new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) shows that women who take the synthetic estrogen replacement product Prempro^®—a combination of a potent estrogen derived from pregnant mares’ urine and a synthetic progestin—are twice as likely to die from breast cancer. (This confirms the research we reported to you in 2008.) This month’s Archives of Internal Medicine shows that women taking Prempro^® or Premarin^® are also 21% more likely to develop kidney stones over five years. A study published last year in The Lancet showed that Prempro^® raises the number of lung cancer deaths. And the government-sponsored Women’s Health Initiative study was halted in July 2002 because long-term Prempro use was found to raise the risk of breast cancer, heart attack, and stroke.'



Read more...

Read more »

Women Are Dying From Hormone Therapy; Why Is Pharma Still Allowed to Push It?

 Big Pharma is still pushing its hormone therapy for women, despite the fact that it increases women's risk of cancer and other health problems. 

'Want to increase your chances of getting, and possibly dying from, node-positive breast cancer? Take hormone therapy.

Pharma's lucrative estrogen plus progestin combo is already known to increase the chance of getting breast cancer by 26 percent. But an article in this week's Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) shows hormone therapy also increases the chance of dying from breast cancer, as followups are conducted on women who took it.

In fact hormone therapy, already indicted for causing delays in breast cancer diagnosis by increasing breast density (and increasing lung cancer deaths) is now so dangerous that Peter B. Bach of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, who wrote an accompanying JAMA editorial, told the New York Times that even the recommendation to take "the lowest possible doses for the shortest possible time" is now questionable. Perhaps like prescribing the fewest and lowest tar cigarettes as possible.'

Read more...

Read more »