Resources on Hormones

Hormone therapy has been around for many years.  There has been a recent resurgence in its use despite negative media and lack of main stream medicine endorsement. For many people, it is the simple quest to feel better. For others, it is the treatment and/or prevention of chronic disease processes.  There are well over 50 years and greater than 10,000 research articles on the topic. Women are no longer so keen on accepting their menopausal fate and just “living with it” while men are realizing they don’t have to feel past their prime. The current medical model has made strides in increasing lifespan however it mostly ignores health span. Having “normal” lab values doesn’t mean they are optimal for you and being “average” for your age is not a good litmus of your health. If the average person your age had high blood pressure it doesn’t mean that average is healthy. There is nothing healthy about aging, menopause or andropause (male menopause). True, aging is “natural” but it is not healthy! High blood pressure, osteoporosis, and cancer are all natural processes but we don’t think twice about treating them.  In 1900, the life expectancy was about 50, now we are looking at potentially living a third of our adult life in a hormonally deficient state. For many, this has a big impact on their health but even more so on their quality of life.   

Hormones are chemical messengers your body uses to communicate. There are many different hormones with many functions which often overlap. It is like an ongoing symphony of complexity in thinking of all the bodily functions and how hormones relate to these. The big players that become unbalanced and that can be medically addressed quite readily are testosterone, estrogen, progesterone and thyroid.  Each individual is affected a bit differently by these imbalances and brings their own unique genetic blueprint, of which we are only beginning to unravel and understand. This is why hormones are adjusted based on symptoms as much as lab values.   

Hormones also can have a big role in a persons mental and emotional state. There is clear and compelling data showing improvement in anxiety and depression with hormone replenishment. Additionally, an improvement in ones sense of overall vitality has also been shown. While replacement of testosterone has been shown to improve libido in both men and women, a better word choice would be improvement in Eros. Eros would be ones “life force”, mojo, sense of pleasure, joy and wellbeing. While improving libido is certainly important, it really short changes the potential full effect some people realize with hormone optimization.  Directly and indirectly, improved libido/intimacy often has a positive impact on people’s relationship with their spouse or significant other.  In general, couples who are regularly sexually active tend to be happier and have lower divorce rates. Testosterone is equally important for men and women. It is not the “male” hormone that we have culturally been engrained with. Similarly, estrogen is important for men and they potentially suffer health consequences when it is too low.    

The choice to proceed with hormone replacement is a personal one. There is much misinformation out there from a current fear based media campaign surrounding hormones.  This is for men and women alike. Hormones, thankfully, can not be patented as they are naturally occurring, however this leaves them without a pharmaceutical champion to market them and therefore profit from them.  There is not a limit for how long to replace them unless you are taking synthetic hormones, then caution should be used. If you are using bio identical hormones, meaning exactly what your body makes, then most evidence would suggest that the longer you are on it, the better the chronic disease reduction. No different than other medicines, the effect wears off after you stop using it.    

There are many articles, books, podcasts and other medical sources of information that are sometimes contradictory and often confusing. I have listed a few that I find to be most grounded in medical data, common sense and what I have found to be clinically successful after over 20 years of family practice.  I encourage you to read them and be knowledgeable about the therapy you may chose to pursue. Likely you will come upon others, medical providers included, who will have differing opinions.  Also, life still happens and people still have bad things happen despite their best efforts ie. bones break, heart attacks and strokes still happen and people get cancer. There is compelling data that hormones reduce these risks but not always. Bad things can still happen.  Therefore, it’s important to be knowledgeable about what’s important for you, as you’re making this decision. Knowledge is power!!