We can drift along with general opinion and tradition, or we can throw ourselves upon the guidance of the soul and steer courageously toward truth.
Helen Keller 1
In our lives we often face situations that are new, perhaps even overwhelming. We find we have to make educated choices without sufficient education being available to us. As women, we may be barred from the knowledge critical to managing our own unique health problems from puberty through old age. Natural hormone replacement therapy, for example, is seldom provided as an option, and few of us know about it. Instead, the medical world continues to stick with its same conventional therapies, exposing us to the hostile and long-term side effects of synthetic hormones.
This story begins years ago before much was known about the physiology of the menstrual cycle. For many women the monthly cycle came and went with little or no discomfort. But for a significant number it was, as it is now, a time of physical and emotional affliction, often quite severe, and there was little that could be done about it.
Gradually, however, help began to arrive. The role of hormones in the menstrual cycle came to be understood better. Doctors began prescribing synthetic hormones as an antidote to the distress of premenstrual syndrome (PMS) and later in life’s progression, menopause. Women were given the hope that these chemically-altered hormones would rid them of the unpleasant menstrual or menopausal symptoms that many of them experienced. But unfortunately, far too often, such hormones just made the symptoms worse.
Today, we have a fresh opportunity to halt the onslaught of hot flashes, night sweats, bloating, tension, fatigue, cramping, mercurial moods, and depression that may accompany an imbalance in our essential hormones. That opportunity is NHRT: natural hormone replacement therapy, as opposed to the usual synthetic HRT. I invite you to learn how and why plant-derived progesterone can help prevent the symptoms of PMS and menopause, including osteoporosis, fibrocystic breast disease, cardiovascular disorders, and painful endometriosis; how it can help with many pregnancy-related problems; and how it may help reverse diseases ranging from vaginal atrophy to heart disease and even cancer.2, 3
Part of our challenge is to find qualified, open-minded, good medical doctors to work with us. One of those high on my list is the late Dr. Robert S. Mendelsohn. His insight and spirit captured the hearts of many, and his philosophy echoes over and over again in a wealth of articles and books about health.
Besides drawing from the wisdom of Dr. Mendelsohn, I’m delighted to introduce to the reader several other eminent minds. One you will be hearing about in the course of this book is Julian Whitaker, M.D. Often, while browsing in health food stores, I’ve heard people talking about the latest breakthroughs in natural healing publicized in his newsletter. Many of these customers were at one time exhausted and disheartened by adverse reactions to the various drugs that had been prescribed to them. Natural options such as those presented by Dr. Whitaker help to ease the decisions we must sometimes make concerning our health.
After reading the following paragraph from his newsletter Health & Healing, I knew immediately he would be added to my cadre of out-of-town medical advisors. He says, “In medical school … I was taught that the only tools that work to help people are drugs and surgery. In the twenty years since then, I have learned that a lot of what I was taught is just plain wrong. There are treatments for our most serious diseases that are not only safer than surgery and most drugs, but also more powerful.” He continues, “The medical profession tends to promote what is good for the profession, not what is necessarily good for the patient. The doctor’s joke, ‘Better hurry up and operate before the patient gets well!’ is truer than you think.”4
I shudder to think of the patient who wants to make haste and “just get it over with” before looking into existing alternatives. I was such a patient many years ago. Now, shaped by life’s experiences, I have learned to be much more inquisitive.
One day, reading one of Dr. Whitaker’s newsletters, I enthusiastically jumped out of my chair and ran to tell my husband, Jack, about the abundance of information it gave on natural hormone replacement therapy. After having looked for so many years, I couldn’t believe that such knowledge was suddenly available. I was so delighted I could hardly get the words out of my mouth. From this moment I was on the path that finally resolved my longstanding misery—the path that would eventually lead to the publication of this book.
I soon became immersed in the findings of natural hormone research. I came across some incredible accounts, both personal and clinical, involving botanical progesterone.
The chronology of events begins in the year 1938 with the first adaptation of plant hormones to conform to human progesterone. In time, this discovery by research chemist Dr. Russell E. Marker5 was followed by the work of other pioneers. Three decades later came Dr. Katharina Dalton’s studies on the use of progesterone in prenatal care, recorded in the British Journal of Psychiatry (1968).6 Ten years after that (1978), the Journal of the American Medical Association made further extraordinary revelations regarding natural hormone replacement;7 and in 1989 the research of Joel T. Hargrove, M.D., and his colleagues on micronizing (finely grinding) progesterone for better absorption appeared in the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.8 A couple of years later (1991), a landmark review by Jerilynn C. Prior, M.D., on progesterone and the prevention of osteoporosis was published in the Canadian Journal of OB/Gyn & Women’s Health Care.9
And for some of the most thorough and comprehensive work of the present day, we are indebted to the late John R. Lee, M.D., a leader in the field of natural progesterone. Raymond F. Peat, Ph.D. (an early mentor of Dr. Lee), Alan R. Gaby, M.D., Jonathan V. Wright, M.D., Betty Kamen, Ph.D., C. Norman Shealy, M.D., Ph.D., and Jane Heimlich are some of the many others who have pursued the truth and have been willing to share it with all women.
The chapters to follow will emphasize the accumulated knowledge of these noted authorities on subjects that range from combating stress and lowering cholesterol to fertility, easier pregnancy, and successful breastfeeding. The last chapter of the book, as well as appendix F, is devoted to helping women locate a doctor interested in correcting the complex deficiencies that occur before, during, and after menopause.
My book was inspired by physicians who realize the importance of natural foods, vitamins, minerals, herbs, homeopathy, chiropractic, and, most specifically, botanical hormone replacement therapy. I hold in great esteem those who put themselves on the firing line, up against many of their colleagues, for the sake of what is best for their patients’ health.
The health care practitioners who will be featured in this book recognize the injustice the medical community has promoted in the name of “consumer welfare.” Their compassionate efforts to reeducate the public have encouraged me to seek out, try, and then share these ideas. Although I wish I’d come across this information when I was younger, I feel blessed that it came my way at all. Now, past menopause, I actually feel more energetic than ever before. I have regained my health and vitality since discovering the natural way.
The revelations in these chapters should be read by all women and by those who care about them. We must start early to prevent chronic disease. Fatigue, headaches, heart disease, osteoporosis, and cancer, for example, can have various causes. Among these are a decline in hormones, unwholesome diet, food additives, environmental toxins, and nerve interference. Let’s say, for our purposes, that the cause is indeed a hormone deficiency. If we take prescription drugs to cover up what is really a decline or lack of natural progesterone, more often than not our condition becomes worse.
Yet, the subject of hormone replacement is complicated because no two women’s bodily needs are the same. For instance, past trauma or stress may cause some women to experience premenopausal symptoms in their thirties. Even the woman who sails through menopause without feeling any changes whatsoever is still at risk for cancer, heart disease, and osteoporosis. But regardless of how much estrogen we have, progesterone is our real concern because of the fact that very little is made anywhere in the body once ovulation ceases. As progesterone declines below one’s estrogen level a hormone imbalance, with its many complications, is established.
Needless to say, it’s important to know as much as possible about natural versus synthetic hormones and the side effects of the latter. First of all, you should know that natural progesterone is seldom prescribed by medical doctors. Yet it was first crystallized from plant sources in 1938 and is readily available today. Most doctors don’t know about it and don’t even consider it when making recommendations to their patients. Why not? Probably because it is not a prescription drug. Although it may not be carried by your local pharmacist, it is available in natural compounding pharmacies (which are listed in appendix G) and health stores. However, most physicians haven’t educated themselves or their patients about the benefits of such treatment.
John R. Lee, M.D., sheds some light on the reason why it’s so hard to get information on natural progesterone from our traditional health care providers:
Pharmaceutical sales success and profit are … also dependent on the patentability of the compounds to be sold. Since natural compounds (i.e., the hormone molecule as made by the ovary) cannot be patented, it is in the interest of the pharmaceutical industry to create compounds which are not identical to the natural hormone and are nowhere found in nature.10
Some medical doctors have told their patients that Provera, a synthesized compound, is progesterone. It is not!11 In fact, Dr. Lee informs us that it mimics only some of the activity of progesterone and is not identical. He says that altered and synthesized hormones such as Provera “may also provoke biologic responses which are undesirable or toxic. This is seen, for example, in the extensive lists of warnings, precautions, and side effects which accompany the descriptions of the synthetic hormones as found in the PDR (Physicians’ Desk Reference).”12 See appendix B.
Synthetic material does wonders in the making of cars, clothes, and Tupperware—but how desirable can it be for our biological needs? Before I started using natural hormones on a regular basis, I asked the pharmacists at the Women’s International Pharmacy some questions. The research material they sent convinced me that natural progesterone is effective and is a plant-based substance containing no animal by-products. They explained that the botanical hormone diosgenin is a sterol, or saponin—an oil manufactured by many plants, including the wild yam, and easy to extract.
In the body, we make (synthesize) progesterone from pregnenolone, which is synthesized from cholesterol. In the lab, the chemist makes (synthesizes) progesterone from diosgenin. This diosgenin from the wild yam—like the stigmasterol from soybeans—is actually a precursor to a number of hormones. Thus, with only slight modification it can be made to duplicate the progesterone molecule the body produces so that it can be fully utilized as needed.13
The ensuing chapters will present a wealth of studies concerning the many applications of this natural hormone. We’ll see how women who have suffered for most of their lives with various female problems have not only derived relief from their disorders but often achieved reversal of life-threatening illnesses such as osteoporosis and cancer.
We have no time to lose. I challenge women everywhere to use the information gathered here to evaluate for themselves all the pros and cons of hormonal treatment. We need to know the varied and multiple benefits of the natural form of progesterone over the synthetic, and to be thoroughly informed about the serious risks of pharmaceutical hormone products. As you will see in appendix G, even in the realm of natural hormone replacement therapy, there are wide variations in bioavailability and effectiveness in the multitude of new botanical products that are flooding the marketplace.
Unfortunately, previous generations have not had much choice in these matters. I can’t help thinking of my own mother. Although she was a nurse, she didn’t have this knowledge. I watched her slowly weaken from osteoporosis and disorders of the heart and kidneys. She became frail and bent over. Osteoporosis made her hip pain so severe that she was hardly able to lie on one side or even sit.
Because of my own experience with hormone imbalance, I have come to consider health problems as teachers, progressively opening my eyes to the power of the medicine found in nature. There is no need to be dependent on synthetic hormones or other drugs, which often cause sickness and premature aging. Age should not be a matter of how many years we have been living but rather a matter of the integrity of the tissues of the body. One’s “age” is also shaped by a positive mental outlook—by seeking what is good and acting upon what is sound, not only for the body but for the mind and spirit.
This leads me to reflect upon the philosophy of a truly great woman who suffered from severe limitations. Helen Keller, rather than dwelling on her misfortune, actively sought ways in which she could be of some service to her fellow human beings as a contributing member of society. Her own constraints and her strong religious faith led Helen to understand and express in her writings a conflict we often face:
We can drift along with general opinion and tradition, or we can throw ourselves upon the guidance of the soul within and steer courageously toward truth…. We have a choice in every event and every limitation and … to choose is to create.14
This book doesn’t pretend to have all the answers, but it does provide a thought-provoking look at the choices now available. During the relatively short span of a few years that it took to compile and write it, the procession of ever-changing information has marched on. To the best of my ability, I have presented an accurate picture of natural hormones based on what we know today. Of course, some parts of this picture might change tomorrow.
But one thing we do know for certain is that what the medical profession has been doing in the way of hormone replacement is not working. We know there is a better way, and we’ve opened a dialogue that is bound to lead us there—as long as we continue to ask the right questions with open minds. Naturally, those at high risk or with a history of serious health problems should do their homework and ask even more questions. Here we’ve tried to initiate this process.
Seldom in the past have our medical options been made very clear to us; yet, these decisions can have such a profound influence on our lives. Since my venture into natural healing I have personally felt an exhilaration, never experienced before, about the choices that are now available among the more gentle forms of health care. As we realize and experience their harmony with nature, we will also discover a gift of life.