Page 70 - ESCARPMENT MAGAZINE | Spring 2013

70 Escarpment Magazine Spring 2013
ESCARPMENT WELLNESS | make-overs from the inside out
HORMONE DECLINE is the
hard reality of aging, but do we really
have to grow old gracefully? The answer
is no. It's about having optimal quality of
life for your later years.With today's envi-
ronmental and personal stresses, hor-
mone imbalance is coming to the
forefront. Optimal health is about living
healthy, eating healthy and making
healthy choices as well as supplementing
with bio-identical hormones if needed.
Most people think of hormones as simply our sex hormones, but sex hormones
are only a small part of the equation. We have hundreds of hormones in our
body working in a complex, inter-related dance. There are too many hormones
to mention in a short article, but the main hormones are thyroid, adrenal and
sex hormones (estrogen, progesterone and testosterone for women; testos-
terone for men). Often an imbalance in one hormone can unbalance another
hormone. And you often find common symptoms between hormones that are
unbalanced. There's no question that people with hormone imbalance feel "off".
They haven't felt well for some time. They may have difficulty getting up in the
morning, feel sluggish and tired all the time, and feel cold. They're often ad-
dicted to stimulants such as coffee or energy drinks and they may be experi-
encing unexplained weight gain and reduced muscle mass. Even bone loss.
Memory loss and depression are very common. The patient is often handed a
prescription for anti-depressants when all they need to do is balance their hor-
mones. Women may experience night sweats, hot flashes, and low libido as
they begin to enter peri-menopause while men may experience unwellness and
low libido as well. So much attention has focused on women entering
menopause that little attention is paid to the chronic unwellness men can feel
from low testosterone levels. Even though their hormonal system is not as com-
plicated as a woman's, men are not immune to age-related hormone decline.
As if hormones weren't complicated enough, then you hear about Hormone Re-
placement Therapy (HRT). HRT gets confused with Bio-Identical Hormone Re-
placement Therapy (bHRT). There needs to be a very clear line drawn between
the two types of therapies. Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) was the gold
standard therapy provided for women during menopause until the Women's
Health Initiative Study, performed in 2002, found increased rates of cancer,
heart disease, stroke and blood clots. The study was consequently discontinued
and Hormone Replacement Therapy as we knew it fell out of favor. Unfortu-
nately, many women concerned about the health risks of HRT were left feeling
chronically unwell after discontinuing their "hormones" because they didn't
know there was another option.... bHRT.
So how is bHRT different from HRT? HRT differs because the "hormones" are
manufactured by pharmaceutical companies. In order to be patented, and
therefore profitable, the drugs cannot be identical to the hormone the body
makes. Consequently, the pharmaceutical companies had to manufacture a
hormone that was NOT identical in makeup to our own hormone.
In comparison, bHRT hormones are
compounded by a compounding
pharmacy, made as an exact replica
of the human hormone we make. Your
body recognizes this hormone as iden-
tical to what's in your body whereas
the pharmaceutical HRT hormone is
recognized to the body as something
foreign.
Is bHRT natural? This is where things
get a little confusing for people to un-
derstand. You can't pick a hormone off a hormone plant. For instance, we often
hear that bHRT progesterone cream is natural. It's not true. Human bio-identical
progesterone is derived from yams. What this means is that the yam is used as
raw material, but the resulting progesterone is nothing similar to the yam. It's
been synthesized in a lab to use what it needs from the yam. So in summary, a
synthesized hormone cannot be judged as bad for you. A patented hormone
is the problem, as was evidenced by the Women's Health Initiative Study. If
anyone tells you that their progesterone cream is natural, they are selling you
“yam cream”, not progesterone cream. Or they don't understand the difference.
Given the complexity of hormones, how can you tell if you have hormone im-
balance? You would have your hormones tested. There are two popular meth-
ods of testing hormones; blood and saliva. Each method of testing has its pros
and cons so no test is 100% accurate. That's why it's also important to listen to
the patient and treat by symptoms as well. Relying on test results over the pa-
tient’s symptoms can set the patient up for unnecessary hardship. They may
never feel well again. The reason is hormone tests (or any test for that matter)
rely on the average of the population. Most people will fall into a certain range
but that doesn't mean the range is specific to you. The only way to know if a lab
range is 100% useful to you is to compare a current hormone test to a hormone
panel taken when you were in your 20s. It's not likely. All we can do is make
an approximation of the hormone results and compare them with the patient's
symptoms.
Bio Identical hormone replacement can be an easy process.
At Bodystream, we test hormones through a combination of saliva and blood.
Blood testing is still the gold standard for testing the thyroid while the other hor-
mones are tested via saliva. The saliva test is a very simple process. You pur-
chase the kit, collect your saliva at home, then send it out to a lab for analysis.
Within 2 weeks, you will be booked for your first appointment with the doctor
to discuss your personal history, review your test results, and receive your pre-
scription for any hormones that are required. The prescription is sent out to the
compounding pharmacy, who in turn call you to make arrangements for deliv-
ery to your home. We then follow your progress and make adjustments to your
prescription as needed until we achieve the goal of optimum health. |E|
If you would like to inquire about bHRT, you can call Bodystream at 705-726-2004 or visit
our website atwww.bodystream.ca.We encourage you to fill out our online questionnaires
to determine if any of your symptoms relate to hormone imbalance.
BY DR. N.J. KALYNIUK
Bio-Identical
Hormone
Replacement
Therapy