The HRT Dilemma: Natural vs. Synthetic

What the Media Forgot to Tell You

"Synthetic hormones are simply no replacement for natural hormones. After many years of getting poor or no results with conventional HRT in my practice, natural hormones proved more effective and safer than any other treatment I've seen or used."

--Erika T. Schwartz, M.D. author of The Hormone Solution in response to JAMA findings.

"What people need to understand is that when their natural hormones are at optimal levels in their youthful prime is when they are the healthiest. It's only when hormones decline and synthetic hormones are introduced to the body that we see these problems. In my practice of prescribing natural hormones to women for five years, I have never seen the problems and side effects as we have seen with the synthetic hormones. Why not replace the body with natural biologically identical hormones. Anything else, as we have seen with the recent discontinuation of the WHI Trials, is dangerous to a woman's health."

--Neal Rouzier, M.D. , author of Natural Hormone Replacement for Men and Women: How to Achieve Healthy Aging in response to JAMA findings.

Many of our customers have called, concerned over the news regarding the discontinuation of a large study where women taking a form of HRT, Prempro, had a higher risk to benefit ratio. We have always understood your concerns, and that is why we only custom compound natural, biologically identical hormones.

Because pharmaceutical companies cannot patent hormones that exactly replicate what the body makes naturally, they have come up with alternative representations. The two hormones used in the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) trials are unnatural and molecularly altered. Since pharmaceutical companies cannot patent biologically identical hormones, there is no reason to fund studies regarding natural, human-identical hormones. Nor is there any money, and therefore reason, to educate health practitioners in this safer, and healthier form of hormone replacement therapy. Moreover, the results of the WHI trials are one-sided. The Journal of the American Medical Association , which recounted the discontinuation of the study, reported in its recent publication that a major limitation of the study is that it only reflects one drug regimen, Prempro. They also wrote that it is possible that supplementation of estradiol/progesterone (natural, bioidentical hormones) would have a more positive outcome.

At MedQuest, we believe putting women on a Premarin/Provera combination was a show of medical misjudgment. We know that synthetic hormones produce toxic metabolites in the body, whereas natural hormones do not. Studies have shown that altered, unnatural hormones will cause side effects. Premarin, derived from pregnant mare's urine, has over 30 different equine estrogens that are foreign to a female, human body. Provera has been molecularly altered and has been known to cause uncomfortable side effects from its very inception. In fact, two years ago, the Journal of the American Medical Association found that progestin (the same content found in Prempro), not progesterone found in the products made by compounding pharmacies like MedQuest, raised the risk of breast cancer well beyond the risk found in the use of estrogen alone. This has not been the case with Natural Progesterone .

Another study in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism , also reported that out of the women who were placed on three different regimens: estrogen, estrogen and progestin, or placebo, the women on estrogen and progestin had a greater breast epithelial cell proliferation and density than women on estrogen alone or nothing at all. The Journal of the National Cancer Institute has also concluded that there is an associated 10 percent higher risk of breast cancer for every five years of supplementation with a synthetic progestin. The common denominator, of course, is the synthetic progestin .

As far as heart health is concerned, multiple studies have shown that progestin, the synthetic hormone, can retard the health-enhancing benefits of estrogen for the heart. Estrogen has been shown to reduce by 50% the risk of coronary atherosclerosis. In 2000, the Journal of Reproductive Medicine illustrated that micronized progesterone (natural) did not affect estrogen's positive effect on the heart, whereas medroxyprogesterone acetate (Provera like in Prempro) did .

It has been an uphill battle from the start for women to get the help they need in the years after menopause. And now it seems they are again put in a catch-22 situation because with or without the customary hormones on the market women will have a higher risk to benefit ratio.

However, you do have an alternative choice, and if you are taking hormones through MedQuest Pharmacy you are on the right path to health and happiness. Biologically identical hormones natural estrogen and progesterone make sense since they mimic structurally, your own body's hormones. They are safer and healthier. If you are on natural hormones: biest, triest, estrace, estriol, estradiol, estrone and a micronized progesterone, you can be assured of better health benefits without the risks of the synthetics. Women fare better when they replace the natural homones that maintained their health in their youthful prime.

--MedQuest Pharmacy