TREATMENT WITH OESTROGEN AND PROGESTOGENE
It was only twenty years later that questions arose about the possible side effects of oestrogen. The whole history of health and medicine demonstrates the wisdom of skepticism about any ‘wonder’ substance that hits the headlines. I am suspicious about anything that is claimed to cure such a wide range of symptoms. And what is so ‘natural’ about the idea of women taking progesterone? As explained, production of both oestrogen and progesterone decline at the menopause. And while we go on making some oestrogen all our lives the production of progesterone will stop completely. So are we seriously suggesting that nature has got this all wrong? At a time in our lives when both hormones are dropping and progesterone can be absent, why then should we be adding it back in? Progesterone is needed to maintain a pregnancy, so we can understand why the body doesn’t need it at the menopause. Why replace it?
What, actually, could be more unnatural than doctoring ourselves with progesterone, when Mother Nature has arranged for its removal from the body in the normal course of events? The thinking behind the growing popularity of progesterone therapy is as follows. As inhabitants of an industrialized world we are being constantly bombarded by xenoestrogens – substances which have an oestrogenic effect on the body. These xenoestrogens are nearly all petro-chemically based and can come from packaging, plastics, foods and pesticides. They have been found in formula baby milk, presumed to have originated from the packaging used to contain the milk. They are believed to have a devastating effect on fertility, reproduction and health for both humans and wildlife. A number of disturbing developments are increasingly blamed on these chemicals. In the West it is reckoned that men’s sperm count may have dropped by 50 per cent in the last ten years. Other studies have linked these chemicals to the increase in breast and testicular cancers and to endometriosis, a painful uterine disorder. This major environmental factor lies behind the theory of oestrogen dominance.
The suggestion is that many of us are suffering from oestrogen dominance because of the increased amount of xenoestrogens we encounter daily. So, the argument goes, the answer is to balance all this unwanted oestrogen with progesterone – natural progesterone. I believe that our lifestyles and our environment have a profound effect on our hormones. That is why we must take a lot of care over our nutrition, which has such an impact on the body’s biochemical processes. I don’t however believe that the answer is to introduce ever more hormones into our bodies. And the question we should ask is, just how ‘natural’ is progesterone anyway?
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