Maybe hormone replacement for women CAN be safe....

Today's Post:  Tuesday, 10-23-2012

After our introduction, we cover some important news on how hormone replacement can be made much safer.

Introduction: 

At menopause, many women have some kinds of problems.  Hot flashes can be very uncomfortable and many women have problems with weight gain, lower mood, and less energy, or a shrinking or even disappearing libido.

Some women also develop osteoporosis or become more at risk for heart disease.

A kind of hormone replacement for women was created using synthetic hormone drugs, made from mare’s urine I’ve read.

The good news is that many women who tried that synthetic HRT found it did turn off their hot flashes and they had less of the other problems.  There was also hope that this would protect them from osteoporosis and heart disease.

Then a long term study found that women getting this kind of HRT had significantly more cancers and breast cancers and not that much heart protection.

Suddenly women were scared to take it and most women don’t use it now.

But in some ways that was unfortunate since many of the women who used it did feel dramatically better.

And, to counterbalance the risks and get more health protection there ARE things you can do directly to do so.

For osteoporosis prevention, NOT drinking any soft drinks which are so acidic they leach calcium from bones in people who do drink them helps a lot by turning off a major cause. The same is true of getting weight bearing exercise, taking magnesium supplements and at least 3,000 iu a day of vitamin D3 plus eating FOODS high in calcium and taking vitamin K2.

For cancer prevention, staying away from all tobacco products and tobacco smoke cuts out at least 30 % of ALL cancers.  Taking turmeric or curcumin supplements with black pepper and eating some curried foods that have the yellow turmeric in the spice mix cuts back on cancer risk.  Regular exercise, which can be the same walking or strength training that prevents osteoporosis slows aging and cuts cancer risk.  Eating a lot of raw cruciferous vegetables not only helps prevent cancers, it helps prevent aggressive cancers connected with sex related body parts.  It also helps prevent fat gain or helps lose it. And taking at least 3,000 iu a day of vitamin D3 or possibly closer to 5,000 to 8,000 turns down your risk of man cancers.  Since it also helps prevent osteoporosis, that too does double duty.

For heart disease prevention, staying away from all tobacco products and tobacco smoke cuts out even MORE heart disease risk than it does cancer risk!  Second hand smoke and smoking not only cause heart disease the longer you are exposed, they trigger heart attacks too!  Stop ingesting ANY hydrogenated oils.  See our post last Friday, 10-19-2012.  Stop drinking soft drinks, eating foods with high fructose corn syrup, and foods made from refined grains. And cut WAY back on regular sugar intake.  It’s not yet widely known but each and every one of those causes heart disease, and tends to cause type 2 diabetes and obesity. (People who still ingest this stuff have too high blood sugar and insulin and dramatically higher triglyceride levels.) Regular exercise ALSO helps prevent heart disease in addition.

So taking the original synthetic hormones can be done more safely and with more of their intended health benefits by following these other practices too.  And, it may also cut risk by gradually taking a bit less of the hormones once you find how much you need to feel better.

The big news:

But now there is a way to measure the risk that takes weeks instead of years. 

Even better, we now know there are significant protections that target the causes of cancer even more precisely that people can do. 

Best of all, you can do a retest to see if you need to do more after a few more weeks.

Lastly, there as always been a significant chance that using bioidentical hormones instead of synthetic ones would remove the risk of having hormone replacement therapy.

But even though it makes excellent sense conceptually, there hasn’t been a quick and reliable way to test that idea – or of even more importance – to test it in YOU if you try using the bioidentical hormones yourself.

The wonderful news IS that there are two tests that indicate conditions likely to cause bad health effects that get worse when women take the synthetic hormones.

But you can take steps to turn down each of these conditions directly!  The even better news is that many of the steps above also help improve these two conditions.

AND, if you take the bioidentical hormones, you can get these two tests after a few weeks to see if it puts you more at risk to do so!

Then, even if it does in your case, you now have a choice between stopping them or continuing them while taking steps to turn down the two risks.

There was a more recent study with fewer women who took the synthetic HRT for 4 years starting when they just began menopause.

In that time period, they didn’t develop the problems found by the longer study over a longer period of time.

Jenny Thompson of HSI looked at the details of the study however.  Oops!

The researchers DID find evidence of two conditions known to cause heart disease and make cancers more likely.

“But here's what IS meaningful. Triglycerides went up. C reactive protein went up. Those are serious red flags. They both mean that inflammation is an issue.”

But she missed the positive implications!

We now know what two things to measure to know what the risks of HRT are.

We now know more precisely what to do to counter those risks.

And, we now know how to get a fast and objective test of using bioidentical hormones within weeks – NOT years – of starting them!

Don’t know about you.  But to me these 3 things are extremely important news events!

Most of the risk reducers we list in the introduction, lower triglycerides and the chronic and excessive inflammation measured by the HSCRP test.

BUT some of them attack these two risks directly!  And, there is a set of things not included there that lower inflammation by quite a bit.

1.  You CAN lower high triglyceride levels.  Over 150 is quite dangerous! Over 100 is undesirable. And, less than 50 is the desirable and achievable level to shoot for.

In fact, if a woman wants to use either synthetic or bioidentical hormone replacement, she will be far safer if she begins the practices that lower triglyceride levels right then if she isn’t already using them.

“Stop drinking soft drinks, eating foods with high fructose corn syrup, and foods made from refined grains. And cut WAY back on regular sugar intake.  It’s not yet widely known but each and every one of those causes heart disease, and tends to cause type 2 diabetes and obesity. (People who still ingest this stuff have too high blood sugar and insulin and dramatically higher triglyceride levels.)”

In addition to that set of things, regular exercise, particularly regular vigorous exercise even if for a few minutes at a time, lowers triglyceride levels.

2.  Exercise, doing the things that lower triglycerides, and eating an abundance of vegetables and fruit high in antioxidants, each lower inflammation. So does taking antioxidant vitamins and minerals. 

Taking curcumin or turmeric and eating curried foods directly lower inflammation.  That, in fact, is a major way doing those things prevents cancer.  And, lowering chronic inflammation cuts heart disease formation and risk also!

But there is another major way to reduce chronic inflammation.  Most people have high inflammation today because they take in WAY too much omega 6 oils and hardly any omega 3 oils.

It IS doable to stop your excess omega 6 oil intake. And taking omega 3 supplements and DHA supplements – a brain and nerve protecting omega 3 oil -- AND eating wild caught fish low in mercury and high in omega 3 oils gives you far more omega 3 oils.

Not only do you need omega 3 oils to balance the omega 6 oils you eat, omega 3 oils are directly anti-inflammatory!

How you cut back on omega 6 oils is far more complex.  BUT it IS doable!

Stop eating foods made from refined grains.  Not only does that lower triglycerides, refined grains are very high in easily digestible omega 6 oils.

Stop eating ALL corn and soy oil.  They are almost pure omega 6 oils. And, cut way back on canola oil too.  Despite it having some plant based omega 3 oils, it too is way high in omega 6 oil.  (A far safer way to get plant based omega 3 oils is to eat walnuts. You eat less total oils and the fiber helps get rid of any excess omega 6 oil.)

Extra virgin olive oil is very low in both saturated fat AND omega 6 oils.  Using that instead of these cheap omega 6 oils has proven health benefits!

Unfortunately, factory farms feed grain to the animals they harvest for meat.  So their fat is LOADED with excess omega 6 oils.  Eat meat from animals ONLY fed grass or eat super trimmed, fat reduced, lean versions of foods with fats from animals fed grains.

What to eat instead?

The DASH II and Mediterranean diets each remove most of the foods high in omega 6.  Eating a combination of them including extra virgin olive oil and removing refined grains and adding extra vegetables is ideal.