What Are Bioidentical Hormones?

Natural hormones are identical in structure to the hormones naturally found in the body. For this reason, they are called bioidentical. They are compounded in a special type of pharmacy known as a compounding pharmacy. These are regular licensed pharmaceutical companies. They acquire the pure pharmaceutical grade hormone and compound it into the form ordered by the treating physician. This makes your program very customized and personalized.

Aren't health food store products "natural"? Products in health food stores provide people with a variety of natural options, usually from an herb or plant source. Folk medicine, naturopathy, and herbalists have evolved such that there is more substantiation and better acceptance of these alternative, herbal products.

However, the products from compounding pharmacies are different in several ways. First, the dose provided by a pharmacy requires a prescription. Health food store products (and over the counter products sold at pharmacies) are most often of a dose that is insufficient to produce a measurable difference in the body based on actual laboratory tests. They do sometimes help to relieve symptoms.

Second, the products from the compounding pharmacy utilize ingredients of pure pharmaceutical grade that are micronized. Micronized means that the product is a fine grain that will be well absorbed. This results in less waste as it processes through your digestive system.

In our bioidentical hormone clinics, prescribing natural hormones to women for 10 years, we 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.