The Pros And Cons Of Natural Hormone Replacement Therapy
If you are reading this, then you are probably a woman entering menopause who does not want to support the cruel industry of estrogen replacement drugs. This is where pregnant mares are forced to stand in tiny stalls and pee into machines at all hours of the day and night. Their foals are immediately taken away to be auctioned off or killed (most of them die just from being away from the mother) and then the grieving mother is impregnated again. One of the most highly touted alternatives to this barbaric practice is to use natural hormone replacement therapy, also called bioidentical hormones.
The Advantages
The main advantages are that natural hormone replacement therapy doesn't need a prescription to buy and they don't involve pregnant mare urine. The main ingredients are derived from botanicals (plants and herbs) but often there are steroids in the mix as well. The plants used (like soybeans) were chosen for hormone replacement therapy because Oriental women generally do not have a problem going through menopause and they eat a lot of soybeans and plant-based foods which contain the estrogen hormone.
And it's always a pain to have to get a prescription from your doctor and then get it filled at a pharmacy. You can usually buy natural hormone replacement therapy directly from health food stores and online sites, which saves a lot of time and convenience.
The Disadvantages
The main disadvantage of natural hormone replacement therapy is that you don't need a prescription to get it. I know I also listed that as an advantage, but not needing a prescription for a drug is a double-edged sword. Natural hormone replacement is not approved by the FDA for anything. Legally, doctors can't recommend it for anything, either.
Another disadvantage is that natural hormone replacement therapy costs a lot of money. Because doctors can't prescribe it, there is really no way you could get your health insurance company to help pay the bills. If you get bad reaction from natural hormone replacement therapies (which could happen, even though nothing seems to be documented), you don't have legal grounds to sue the product maker because you were not following the manufacturers' recommendations.
Natural hormone replacement product making and selling is a self-regulating industry and no one is really doing much of anything about regulating it. Therefore, you really don't know what you are buying. In conclusion, natural hormone replacement products sound promising but needs a lot more study in order to be proven both effective and safe.
Filed under Women's Health by Healthy Living
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