During the years that a woman is able to bear children, the hormone progesterone is produced from within her ovaries. In her post-menopausal years, her body continues the production of progesterone in the adrenal glands and fat cells.

“Natural progesterone” is a hormone produced from plants that is biologically identical to the progesterone created in a woman’s ovaries. It is made from soybeans and yams, and is readily accepted by the body.

Natural progesterone works within the body exactly as progesterone manufactured in the body would, causing few if any side effects. For many years, natural progesterone has been used by women consistently and successfully in hormone replacement.

Synthetic progesterone, or progestin, is a man-made hormone that is made using chemical compounds. Also used in hormone replacement therapy (HRT), it can produce various and undesirable side effects including headache, breast tenderness and PMS.

The use of natural progesterone provides women with a means of boosting unacceptably low levels of progesterone in their bodies. Low progesterone levels may allow the hormone estrogen to reach a “dominate” level causing problems such as breast tenderness, water retention, irregular menstrual periods, as well as other, more serious, health issues.

When natural progesterone has been used in treatment, it doesn’t interfere with the performance of estrogen hormones, but works in a balance as it would under natural conditions. One of the concerns of synthetic progesterone use is that it may diminish estrogen benefits.

Some of the benefits of natural progesterone include:

helps prevent fibroids in the uterus

improves sleeping

restores sexual desire

works as an antidepressant

relieves water retention

helps stabilize blood sugar

helps eliminate postpartum depression

helps fight obesity

facilitates thyroid activity

stimulates bone building

helps to restore clear thinking

The use of natural progesterone can help to re-establish hormonal balances in a woman’s body and relieve worsening premenstrual symptoms as a woman approaches menopause. It can be used safely in hormone replacement to restore a woman’s hormonal health to natural, optimal levels both comfortably and successfully.



Thanks to Jean Morgan for contributing this article to our Menopause blog:

Perimenopause And Weight Gain

Achieving balance between estrogen and progesterone helps to restore the body’s natural hormonal state and lessen the occurrence of severe PMS symptoms.

Premenstrual syndrome or PMS is the onset of various symptoms both physical and emotional that occur in an estimated 75 - 90% of women of child-bearing age, between 2 and 14 days prior to the onset of the menstrual period. The symptoms related to PMS are numerous (over 100), and occur most often in women from their late 20’s into their 40’s. Some of these include abdominal cramps, water retention, weight gain, moodiness, fatigue, lower back pain, breast tenderness, headache, irritability, depression, and food cravings.

A definitive cause of PMS is not known. For a number of years, PMS was considered a psychological condition, a view which completely ignored the hormonal, nutritional and biochemical characteristics related to the syndrome. Today it is widely thought that PMS is the result of women’s sensitivity to hormonal shifts during the course of the reproductive cycle.

About 10% of women who experience PMS have severe symptoms causing a disruption in their lifestyle. While stress can aggravate or amplify the symptoms of PMS, it is not a direct cause of the condition. PMS symptoms usually diminish or disappear altogether once the menstrual period (bleeding) starts.

PMS is usually diagnosed based on the collection of symptoms a woman may experience. Relief can be found through a number of remedies including taking magnesium or calcium supplements, regular exercise, and avoiding stress. Medical treatment is available for relief from severe symptoms.

The symptoms of PMS are related to the normal levels of estrogen in the presence of low progesterone, or elevated estrogen and the condition of estrogen dominance. In this condition, PMS symptoms are evident and can be amplified. When balance exists between estrogen and progesterone, the symptoms of PMS are lessened, giving a woman suffering those symptoms much desired relief.



Thanks to Jean Morgan for contributing this article to our Menopause blog:

Making Money Online

Can you answer literary cappy’s question about Menopause?:

I have PCOS and have always struggled with water retention, even when I was at a normal weight. I would like to learn more about the hormone Progesterone, how it keeps the body from retaining water. I’ve gone months without cycles, hence: no progesterone was produced because no ovulation took place.

Hair Loss And Menopause

Balancing out your hormones, if you are a woman, can be tricky business. Yet, when your hormones are off, it can affect you physically, mentally and emotionally in ways that are inexplicable.

The one thing we are hearing more about, especially among women in the United States and more developed countries is estrogen dominance. What is estrogen dominance – it is when the body doesn’t have enough opposing progesterone to lower estrogen levels during the second half of the menstrual cycle. And why would it be a bigger problem in developed countries? It is thought it is due to what is called xenoestrogens, manmade chemicals that mimic estrogen that we consume from our environment – which means that we aren’t necessarily getting enough progesterone but just way too much estrogen.

These hormones can be in our water and food and possibly the usage of birth control pills.

Pesticides are perhaps the biggest source of xenoestrogens. Most bioaccumulate, meaning they are stored in fat cells of fish, poultry and other food sources in increasing concentration until they reach the top of the food chain — where you and I consume them! They are highly estrogenic, and some experts estimate that the average American ingests over a pound of pesticides a year.

A second major source of xenoestrogens is the many growth hormones given to livestock and poultry, most of which contain fat-soluble estrogens. When we consume those animals or their milk, we ingest that estrogen. Organochlorides like dioxin (a by-product of chlorine when it is burned or processed), PCB’s, PVC’s, and some plasticizers are just a few of the many manmade chemicals that act like estrogen in our bodies. Many others have the effect of interrupting our normal endocrine function, hence the term “endocrine disruptors.”

So what are the symptoms of having too much estrogen? Anxiety, breast tenderness, cyclical headaches or migraines, irregular bleeding, water retention, weight gain and more. (Note that a number of these symptoms are also indicative of the exact opposite condition — a deficiency of estrogen — another example of why the concept of estrogen dominance is too simplistic.)

If estrogen levels stay unopposed, women may develop infertility, endometriosis, amenorrhea (skipped periods), hypermenorrhea (heavy bleeding), fibroids, uterine cancer, heart disease and stroke, and decreased cognitive ability, among other conditions.

How can we help ourselves with estrogen dominance? One can start with putting more fiber in our diet.  A low-fiber diet causes estrogen levels to be higher, while a diet high in fiber results in decreased estrogen levels in the bloodstream. Why? Excess estrogen is excreted in the bowel. When stool remains in the bowel for a longer time, the estrogen is reabsorbed. Studies have shown that women on a vegetarian/high-fiber diet have lower levels of circulating estrogen. Lower levels of estrogen mean less estrogen stimulation of breast tissue, for example, which reduces the risk of breast cancer.

We can also help strengthen our liver. The liver is a filter of sorts. It detoxifies our body, protecting us from the harmful effects of chemicals, elements in food, environmental toxins, and even natural products of our metabolism, including excess estrogen. Anything that impairs liver function or ties up the detoxifying function will result in excess estrogen levels, whether it has a physical basis, as in liver disease, or an external cause, as with exposure to environmental toxins, drugs, or dietary substances.

Use dietary supplements. Lecithin (a phospholipid) and the sulfur-containing L-taurine and L-methionine amino acids are compounds that will promote bile circulation, which enhances estrogen’s excretion out of the body. These lipotropic formulas support the liver metabolism of estrogen. A typical formula might provide the following, sometimes in a base of liver-stimulating herbs like milk thistle, black radish, beet, or dandelion, for twice-daily consumption: choline (a concentrated form of lecithin), 500 milligrams; inositol, 250 milligrams; taurine, 250 milligrams; methionine, 250 milligrams.

And last, eat soy foods like bean curd or tofu. They contain phytoestrogens, including diadzin and genistein. They act as estrogen blockers at the tissue level, blocking receptors that could promote cancer.



Thanks to R. Fredriksen for contributing this article to our Menopause blog:

Bioidentical Hormone Replacement

Lots of people think that a woman’s hormonal levels are really in one of two stages: menstruating and menopause. What you may not realize is that there is another stage - perimenopause. Perimenopause is the transition stage between normal menstruation, and menopause.

One of the signs of menopause is when a woman has not had a period for twelve consecutive months. Perimenopause symptoms begin to occur when are still experiencing menstrual cycles, but the time between or length may fluctuate quite a bit.

During this stage, women may still experience menstrual cycles, but they are fluctuating. Typically, perimenopause can happen occur during a woman’s late 30’s, 40’s or 50’s. Perimenopause indicates that a woman is approaching menopause.

Some of the Perimenopause symptoms are:

Changes to menstrual cycle - could be a lightening in flow, heavier flow, longer or shorter intervals between periods)

- Sleep problems

- Anxiety, depression, mood swings

- Difficulty concentrating

- Water retention or bloating

- Hot flashes

- Night sweats

- Weight gain

- Vaginal dryness

You may experience just a few of the perimenopause symptoms, or you may find that you suffer from a lot of them. Unfortunately, the perimenopause period can happen for several months, or even last for a few years.

During normal menstruation, estrogen is produced in the first part of the menstrual cycle and after ovulation progesterone is produced. During perimenopause, the ovulation period starts to decline, and as a result, there is a decline in progesterone. This declining progesterone against estrogen levels causes a hormonal imbalance.

If, for some reason, you have an imbalance in your hormone levels due to an illness or medical condition, you may experience symptoms that resemble perimenopause. Perimenopause is a natural condition, but you could be experiencing the symptoms of it early. The best way to determine whether you are experiencing signs of menopause is to get a simple blood test. Your doctor can test your estrogen and progesterone levels, as well as test for other conditions.

While you can’t prevent perimenopause, or the symptoms that are associated with it, you can minimize those symptoms and the impact they have on your life. For instance, watching your weight, getting sufficient exercise, eating a healthy, balanced diet, adding nutrient-rich supplements, and reducing your anxiety level can help minimize the symptoms of perimenopause and signs of menopause. Perimenopause symptoms indicate just one more stage in a woman’s life. It doesn’t have to be uncomfortable or frustrating. With the right information and watching your lifestyle, you can make the move into this new phase with little fuss or worry.



Thanks to John Russell for contributing this article to our Menopause blog:

Hormone Treatment For Menopause