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After years of promotional messages about the benefits of hormone replacement therapy (HRT), the results from the recent Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) have come as a surprise to patients and health care providers alike, leaving them with more questions than answers. Results from this 5.2 year study of more than 16,000 women clearly indicate an increased risk of breast cancer, heart attacks, stroke, and blood clots from using Prempro, the most widely prescribed HRT regimen for women. Although some protective benefits from HRT were observed for hip fracture and colorectal cancer, the study was halted three years early on the grounds that the risks outweighed the benefits. Clearly the conclusions of this study are disconcerting and leave women with a decision that feels no more certain than a roll of the dice.

It is important to bear in mind that the WHI trial tested only one drug regimen - a combination of conjugated equine estrogens derived from pregnant mare’s urine, and medroxyprogesterone acetate, a synthetic progestin. The study’s results do not necessarily apply to the more bio-identical hormones, including estriol, estradiol, and oral micronized progesterone, which are natural hormones and appear to have less adverse impact on health, particularly in breast cancer and vascular disease.

The WHI Study highlights the perils of applying “one-size-fits-all” medicine, but also plants the seed for better understanding the specific patients in whom HRT will be beneficial. Our goal is to better understand HRT: to apply it properly, individualize it appropriately, and monitor it thoroughly. We can do this by carefully evaluating each woman’s unique set of genetic, environmental and physiological risk factors.

Hormones are proteins and proteins are made of building blocks known as amino acids. Growth hormone is the largest protein produced by the anterior lobe of the pituitary gland with 191 amino acids.

In the year 1986, the Indianapolis-based drug company Eli Lilly succeeded in making a 191 amino acid growth hormone that was 100 percent identical, physically, chemically, and biologically, to the one made by the human pituitary. In the summer of 1996 the FDA approved human growth hormone (HGH) for the use in adults. A natural hormone.

HGH is produced in the anterior lobe of the pituitary gland, and is secreted directly into the blood stream. It goes directly to the liver where it is transformed into insulin like growth factors number one and two (IGF-1, IGF-2) IGF-1 being by far the most active. These growth factors re-enter the blood stream and then enter the interstitial fluid and hooks to a receptor on the cellular membrane and sends its’ message to the nucleus. It can do one of two things. Cause the cell to produce protein and repair itself, or it can get a message to cause the cell to divide and make a daughter cell. These daughter cells could be muscle cells, kidney cells, lung cells, heart cells, etc. Say this signal gets to the nucleus but you have inherited a mitochondrial defect - you may be going nowhere, but if tests have been done to determine the proper nutrients and their amounts you should be taking, your mitochondria will produce enough cellular energy to follow that signal. This is an example of changing genetic expression.

What is the big difference between youth and age? To a large degree, it is hormonal balance and cell receptor site sensitivity. When hormones are restored to their youthful levels, it restores the balance and improves cell receptor site sensitivity.

Replacing the hormones which decline with age, such as estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, DHEA, melatonin and now HGH, is as important to the treatment of aging as is replacing normal levels of insulin is to an insulin-dependent diabetic. HGH now sets the pace for all the other anti-aging hormones, not simply slowing the degeneration of aging, but actually reversing it! HGH is the locomotive that pulls all the hormones in the aging process. HGH is the master hormone that controls the rate of cell division in both young and old cells. There is nothing in the world medical literature reporting that keeping hormone levels at 30-35 years of age, in both men and women, with natural hormones has any deleterious effects.

What are bio-identical hormones? A natural hormone can be made in a laboratory. If it is 100% exactly the same physically, chemically and biologically as the molecule produced by the body it is natural. Natural hormones are derived from a group of wild yam herbs (Dioscoria) such as DHEA, estrogen, progesterone, melatonin and testosterone. These hormones cannot be patented, synthetic hormones can be patented. We use only bio-identical hormones for HRT at the Las Vegas Institute of Preventive Medicine, Inc.