Is Hormone Replacement Therapy Really Necessary?
For women in menopause it’s a natural part of the aging process for the ovaries to produce less sex hormones. So why is it necessary to consider replacing the lost hormones?
It’s true that the ovaries will eventually stop producing estrogen and progesterone. However, that doesn’t mean that our bodies don’t still need those hormones to continue to function properly. Nature, in her wisdom, has provided other means for us to get those hormones from other organs in the endocrine system.
An important source for these “backup” hormones is the adrenal glands. The adrenals produce a variety of hormones that help us cope with stress such as cortisol and epinephrine, but they also produce the sex hormones progesterone, estrogen, and testosterone. The problem is that I see so many patients who have so much stress in their lives from so many sources that they are in adrenal fatigue, meaning that their adrenals can’t produce sufficient amounts of hormones to replace those they are losing as the ovaries decrease their output.
With that said, the question of whether or not a woman needs bioidentical hormone replacement therapy really comes down to the symptomology of the patient.
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Tina,
Thank you for such an informative post. I never understood the connection between the adrenals and the sex hormones quite this way before.
For women who are not sure how to go about finding a doctor who is skilled at using bioidentical hormones, what would you suggest?