Menopause: Can We Stop It From Happening?

Today's blog post is longer than usual.  That's because it contains a lot of interesting information and I think it's something all women should read.  I want to thank Beth Rosenshein for her article in "The Townsend Letter".  I have extracted what I believe to be the highlights from that article.  This is worthwhile reading for all of us.

Menopause might be natural, but it's still organ failure.  Ovarian failure is what creates menopause. Beth Rosenshein author of "Preventing Menopause" believes any organ failure results in ill health. The entire body suffers from the loss of the ovarian hormones and the deficiency is called "hypogonadism."

The ill effects of hypogonadism, particularly over a long period of time, are well-documented and are not gender specific. It's known as the condition where your sex hormones are at lower than normal levels.

Since 1942 when it was dubbed HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy) Premarin has been the only regimen ever tested in clinical trials for hypogonadism in women.  Premarin contains a large amount of estrogen, many times larger than what is produced in the normal menstrual cycle.  And, you have to be aware that the ovaries not only produce estrogen, but testosterone and progesterone as well. In fact Beth tells us the ovaries produce ten time more testosterone than estrogen and 100 times more progesterone than estrogen. She says the proper ratio of ovarian hormones is very important for an effective treatment of hypogonadism.  Taking Premarin creates a hormonal ratio sharply different from the ratio that arises in functional ovaries.  The fact that Premarin has never been associated with restoring sexual function should prove it's not really HRT at all

There are other ill effects of hypogandism beside loss of sexual function.  Beth believes that the dramatic increase in breast cancer is due to ovarian failure. That's because the ovaries  are programmed to produce sex hormones in a ratio that protects women from breast cancer. When that protection is compromised, the protection you get is greatly reduced. So, logically it would make sense, that any HRT regimen we use should be reducing the occurance of breast cancer, not increasing it. Another reason to think Premarin isn't really HRT.

So, if Premarin isn't HRT then what do we really need ?  We need a protocol that recognizes the physiologic window of each of the hormones that the ovary produces and replace each one within this specific window.  This treatment should be called Ovarian Replacement Therapy (ORT). ORT should provide the same health benefits as functional ovaries - restored sexual function, prevention of breast cancer, improved cognitive function, improved muscle tone and improved sleep.

So what's the problem? It's pretty evident. First and foremost there is no protocol. Evidence based medicine demands it, and it simply doesn't exist. In the 65 years since Premarin was introduced, the National Institute of Health (NIH) has used it for virtually every clinical trial it has conducted for hypogonadism. Even though it has been proved it does not restore sexual function it is still used in the same dosages, and made it the same way - from live horses.

In sharp contrast to every other area of endocrine medicine there has been absolutely no modernization of treatment.  There is no evidence-based medicine on physiologic replacement because the NIH has chosen not to do it. Without evidence-based trials showing health benefits, how is a physician supposed to effectively treat hypogonadism in women? 

Without an effective protocol pharmaceutical companies are not developing products based on replacing as needed. So what do we do?  Support doctors that endorse bioidentical hormones and use compounding pharmacies that provide us with exactly the dose our body needs. These pharmacies serve a very important service and have received nothing but bad press. Of course, it's always cheaper and easier to use FDA- approved products.  And, if they were providing us with what we needed we would use them. One-size fits all just doesn't work.

So, what does it really mean to prevent menoopause?  It means preventing hpogonadism either through effective treatment or by extending the functional life of the ovaries.  In other words, preventing menopause by preventing ovarian failure in the first place. Beth believes functional ovaries can maintain a healthy ratio of sex hormones in order to maintain a women's health and quality of life well into her seventies.

The timing of ovarian failure can be influenced.  Ovaries fail for one reason, they run out of eggs. The ovaries contain a certain number of eggs at birth. After puberty when the ovaries begin to recruit eggs every month the store of eggs go down.  As long as things go well, the number of eggs recruited each month is approximately the same.  Based on the number of eggs at puberty and the number of eggs recruited each month a women's ovaries should last well into her seventies.  So what happens to prevent that?

In our late thirties the ovaries begin to use more eggs than they need each month. As a result the store of eggs goes down faster. The reason they start to use more eggs is that they're not getting what they need to function well.  They need some help to work better.  If we provide that help they return to normal function.

To sum up, by preventing hypogandism a woman avoids loss of sexual function, loss of cognitive ability, and dramatically reduce the risk of breast cancer.  Preventing menopause means avoiding unnessary ill health and maintaining a quality of life we all deserve.

Again, I want to thank Beth Rosenshein for expressing her views so clearly. If you are interested in reading more about this really important subject you can click here.

Comments

[TS Wiley]

I have always believed that menopause is stoppable. It is, rather, multiorgan failure - including the brain. My work has been, in fact, a blatant attempt to "cancel" or eradicate menopause from experience and the language.

From the responses you recieved from women on the Protocol that I devised, it seems we are on the right track. Beyond the legitimate physical misery and life-threatening aspects of menopause, part of the mindset of being old and sick is the exogenous perception by the masses that you are. For women in the workplace, the watershed moments of menopuase are a clear signal to those who surround us that we're on our way out and they, more importantly; within us, accutely change our time perception and reactions. To a certain extent, we lose the ability to dodge and weave with the spin of the planet.

If women could, wholesale, refuse obsolesence, refuse to be catagorized in any way, we could re-join the tribe of the alive in a way that - in this world gone Darwin - we must to survive.