Are Bioidentical Hormones Safe?

With the premature termination of the 2002 by the Women's Health Initiative, which linked hormone replacement therapy with increased breast cancer risk, many women dropped taking their hormone medication almost overnight. And although their breast cancer rate decreased, their quality of life also decreased. Symptoms of estrogen and progesterone imbalances like: irritability, mood swings, anxiety, depression, decreased sex drive, sleep problems, weight gain, fatigue, food cravings, water retention, bloating, headaches, joint pain, acne, PMS, irregular menstrual periods and brain fog were once again having to be dealt with that were eliminated almost magically before by taking the hormone replacement therapy had once again surfaced as an almost unbearable way to live.

This caused women to seek out possible safer alternatives to standard hormone replacement therapy (HRT). This is when bio-identical hormone replacement therapy (BHRT) entered the stage as a possible way to get back to a normal way of life again. The bio-identical hormones were made from natural substances instead of pregnant horse urine. The question arose, if HRT is unsafe then how can we be certain that BHRT is safe and will not cause cancer like the hormones that were taken before. Estrogen is a pusher, driver hormone. It makes things grow. When you are twenty, this hormone makes a women a women. Estrogen decreases appetite, improves mental capacity, stabilizes mood, acts as a antidepressant, promotes sex drive, works synergistically with growth hormone to keep your skin thick and tight preventing wrinkles, it helps prevent osteoporosis, heart disease and Alzheimer's disease. This hormone ensures health of the ovaries and vagina so it is vital for pregnancy.

This all sounds good, to feel like you are twenty when you are fifty is what every women wants so they reach for the powerful antidote to all their symptoms of less than optimal health. There is one catch- if you force the body to do all these wonderful things when it is fifty then you also increase cell growth and increase your risk of cancer significantly. Here lies the dilemma that you must choose: door number one is to take hormones and feel great but end up with cancer and die prematurely or door number two which is to not take hormones and struggle through life with unbearable symptoms that at times make you want to end your life prematurely yourself! To take or not to take safer bio-identical hormone replacement therapy that is the question.

This BHRT issue has not had enough research yet to come to a conclusion but if you look at BHRT from a physiological standpoint you can finally see a picture of having the best of both worlds: Taking supplemental hormones making you feel great and NOT increasing your risk of cancer. This can be achieved when you balance all the systems of the body in priority along with balancing the biochemical and mental/emotional states. Once you balance the whole then the individual parts like your hormone levels will balance also as God intended them to.