Health Alert for Women: HRT Conundrum

The dust has finally settled on the HRT storm. A number of prestigious universities and research organizations have gathered the data on the risks and benefits of hormone replacement for menopausal women. After all the facts were in it was determined that HRT (hormone replacement therapy) was not beneficial and actually detrimental.

The women taking these hormones faced significantly higher rates of breast and uterine cancer, and an increased risk of stroke and dementia.

This meant that thirty years of patent medicine has gone up in smoke, right? Actually not. It seems that the medical community was totally unprepared to handle the influx of patients complaining about the effects of hormone withdrawal. Women were returning to their offices after coming off HRT with full blown menopausal symptoms.

When faced by desperate and confused women the medical physicians put 25% of women back on their synthetic hormones. Unfortunately, this happened because medicine doesn't have the proper tools to treat these women. In many cases women were not only given the hormones like Prempro and Premarin women, but were also given an additional prescriptions for anti-depressants like Effexor, Prozac or Paxil to ease their anxiety.

There are no surprises here since there is a primary issue of disinformation, as well as deception and lies by the pharmaceutical companies surrounding the entire issue.

First, it is important to understand that menopause is not a disease. Menopause is a programmed event in the genetic code of each woman. Since it is not a disease it should not be treated as one. Menopause does lower several key hormones that are necessary for women to remain fertile. Since fertility is not desired in the 50's menopause puts the kibosh on the likelihood of childbirth. This is nature's plan. Nature also withdraws these hormones due to their potential to cause diseases when a women passes into the later phases of her life.

It is true that the symptoms of menopause are due to the decreased hormone levels in the body. Some women find these symptoms debilitating although most can tolerate the symptoms without resorting to other dangerous pharmaceuticals.

It is important to know that the symptoms of menopause are greatly exacerbated by nutritional deficiencies. Understanding this enables you to devise a nutritional strategy to ease or alleviate the symptoms without adding the risk of side effects from drugs.

The medical community is oblivious to this information, although the research lies in the pages of medical journals. The philosophy of symptom treatment and "anti- medicine" doesn't work in this situation and can be quite dangerous.

So all of this begs the question of "what can be done to reduce or eliminate menopausal symptoms? " The primary issue is to correct the deficiencies that are supplying fuel to the fire.

The Japanese have no word for "hot flash". The typical Japanese diet contains high amounts of fish and vegetable matter. In contrast Americans eat too much fat. Despite the high fat intake most Americans are deficient in a particular type of fat that your body needs called essential fatty acids.

The best sources for those fats are fish. They can also be obtained by eating nuts, flax, and green leafy vegetables. Supplementing with fish oil capsules is very beneficial for many health related issues and menopause is one of them.

The next issue is vitamin E deficiency. The RDA is 30 IU, however this should be taken supplemented at 400IU of mixed tocopherols from natural sources.

There are a number of nutritional menopausal formulas that feature black cohosh, which is a rich source of essential fats and lipids that have powerful effects on reducing menopausal symptoms. Evening primrose oil and borage oil supply GLA, which is also helpful for menopause.

The mineral magnesium is very effective in relieving tension without side effects. Magnesium citrate is particularly well absorbed. Vitamin D, K and calcium are also necessary to maintain good bone density.

There are a number of other herbs that are also effective for hormonal regulation including red raspberry and dong qui. Valerian root and hops have natural sedative properties without strong narcotic effects.

There is a natural way to ease you off dangerous HRT. There is hope to ease your suffering. The first step is knowing that there is an alternative.

The next installment of this article is extremely important for any woman whether she is taking hormones or not. It will focus on estrogen metabolism issues that cause cancer. I will tell you how to greatly reduce your risks of getting breast cancer, uterine cancer and other estrogen driven forms of cancer with well-proven nutritional therapies.

Yours in health,


Anthony Talorico DC
dr.talorico@zoominternet.net