Replacing hormone output with synthetic or natural hormones (or their analogs) has become BIG BUSINESS! Everyone has jumped on the bandwagon and is selling these products, each suggesting their product is the best. Herbals products, natural glandulars, bio-identical hormones. While I will not endorse or be critical about products here, I will take on the idea of ‘replacing’ hormones.
First let me qualify and say that there are many circumstances where taking hormone supplements such as progesterone, estrogen, testosterone, thyroid, adrenal, pituitary etc. hormones can be beneficial and even life saving. Most people on these meds don’t fall into that category.
The philosophy of raising hormone levels by dumping them into the body is an allopathic philosophy and it supports the basic premise: treat the symptoms and you are cured! If you have the symptoms of low hormones, add more. This sound fine as long as you don’t care about figuring why the body’s hormone levels are low and solving the problem. It’s fine if you are content to add pill after pill (or herb after herb) every time your body has a problem for the rest of your life.
When the risks of synthetic hormone replacement became known, the ‘natural’ health industry jumped on the bandwagon and started making natural versions of the same product. Now this must sound great to everyone since natural practitioners, health foods stores, and MLM’ers all started promoting these products like crazy.
I am not convinced this is a good thing. It is not the substances I object to as much as the underlying philosophy. As a Naturopathic Physician, I don’t want to just ‘copy’ prescription drugs with natural substances and cover up symptoms. I want to solve the underlying problem and get people off their pills (prescription, herbal, everything) because my objective is genuine healing: i.e. restoring health to the body so it can maintain a state of wellness ON IT’S OWN and getting people healthy so they can stay OUT of my office.
Take thyroid for example. Natural or synthetic, supplementing with thyroid hormone replaces thyroid output making the gland weak and unable to support the body on it’s own. Take the supplements away and the body is worse off than before you started. Are you really healthy if you have to take thyroid every day for the rest of your life to feel good? Does it matter if it’s synthetic or natural if you take it daily as a drug? Yet 90% of my patients who are treated for thyroid are off everything within about 18 months. That’s because we treat underlying problems and strengthen thyroid function to allow it to stand on it’s own. That is what I consider to be genuine health and that is my objective as a physician.
Many women see me who slather their bodies with self-prescribed progesterone creams. And somehow they feel immune from harm because it’s a natural product. Arsenic and lead are naturally occurring. Digitalis and Aconitum are herbs that are extremely toxic, yet they are completely natural. Do you think you are more immune from reproductive cancers if you are alter your hormone balance with natural hormones instead of synthetic? Over half of the women in my practice taking ‘natural progesterone’ have progesterone levels over 200 times the normal limit. You wouldn’t walk into a prescription pharmacy and self medicate off the shelf. Yet if something is ‘natural’ it seems ok and somehow safe.
Many people are doing long-term damage to their endocrine system by taking hormonal substances. Some are prescription, some are recommended by alternative providers, and some are self medicated. Usually these substances ‘replace’ normal function with the supplements, leaving the endocrine organ progressively unable to do it’s own job. This makes you completely dependant on receiving hormones from an external source and furthers the imbalance that caused you to have difficulty in the first place. It sets you up for what I call the ‘conveyor belt of ever increasing technology’. Take one pill to cover up a problem. The unsolved problem creates more problems that also need to be covered up by a pill. These each create more problems… it makes the cost of that initial pill very high even though at first it appears to be a simple logical solution.
Since this happens in the natural health industry with the same frequency as the dominant school of medicine industry, health care is a buyer-beware market. Before you take anything, evaluate whether it covers up a problem or accelerates healing. Evaluate how long you need to take it before you start. My personal rule of thumb is 3-12 months depending on severity. Be realistic that we are used to taking drugs so we can do things that are bad for us! Antacids because we won’t look at digestion/nutrition habits. Allergy meds and pain relievers so we can ignore dietary allergens. Stimulants so we can ignore the body’s need for rest. Achieving good health REQUIRES us to care for our body and understand its limits.