Hormones: Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) or
 Receptor Restoration Therapy (RRT)
by Majid Ali, MD

This article was provided by:
Aging Healthfully Magazine

 Note: The information on this website is presented for educational purposes only.
 It is not a substitute for the advice of  a qualified professional.

Hormones are messengers. Our body's cells, tissues, and organs talk to each other with those messengers. Hormones are essential for growth as well as for aging with health and grace. Here are seven essential aspects of hormones:

1. We live in an age of synthetic estrogen overload.
2. Synthetic hormones injure cell membranes in many ways.
3. Natural hormones cannot work well when the cell membranes are damaged by synthetic hormones and free radicals.
4. Hormones are not solo performers. Hormones from different body organs work in concert.
5. Hormones work as keys, and their receptors as locks. However, the receptors are living locks that increase their numbers or become fewer to respond to their cellular environment.
6. Hormonal imbalances in women and men cannot be corrected without restoring battered bowel-blood-liver ecosystems of the body.
7. Holistic, integrated approaches that employ natural sources of hormones (phytohormones) do restore hormonal balance without synthetic hormones in most persons.

The Estrogen Monster
 In synthetic hormones and chemicals with estrogen-like effects (xenoestrogens), we have unleashed a monster. Synthetic estrogens and xenoestrogens are the real villains in the sad saga of hormone pandemics that we witness now. During the last 60 years, the incidence of breast cancer has risen steeply just as the use of synthetic estrogens and xenoestrogens has increased. The same holds for prostate cancer. Cancer of the uterus has long been linked to high estrogenic activity. I predict that future research will firmly establish the pandemics of breast and prostate cancers to be also directly related to the synthetic estrogens. People who understand hormones know that a hyperestrogenic state is clearly involved with disabling PMS, persistent menstrual irregularity, excessive bleeding, precocious sexual development, menopausal syndromes, endometriosis, and cystic disease of the breast.

In a recent study, 48% of African American and 17% of Anglo-Saxon eight-year-olds were found to show premature sexual development. Amazingly, three percent of three-years-old girls also showed such precocious development. This indicates a tremendous estrogenic overload and no one can predict what kind of trouble it spells for those girls.

Estrogenic activities have been shown in chemicals in common use, including pesticides, plastics, petroleum products, polystyrene, and PAHs (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons). Chemical companies usually pooh-pooh the health hazards of their chemicals claiming that minute amounts of their chemicals are safe. In a recent study, some plastic compounds were shown to have hormonal activity at concentrations as low as two parts per billion. The author discussed this serious issue in his book RDA: Rats, Drugs and Assumptions.

Hollow Tin Dolls
Discussions of women's health issues usually begin with estrogens and end with progesterones. That is a serious error. Women are not hollow tin dolls, nor are estrogens and progesterones little marbles rattling in female bodies. Female hormones actively influence, and are influenced by, all hormones produced by the pituitary, thyroid, pancreas, adrenals, bowel, hypothalamus, lungs, and many other body organs. Thus, in my view, prescribing synthetic hormones without a holistic, integrated assessment of the total health a woman is not optimal care.

Hormone Replacement Therapy (HIT) or Receptor Restoration Therapy (RRT)?
The common description of the interface between hormones and their cell membrane receptors as a lock-and- key union is grossly erroneous. The cell membranes, as I write earlier, are living surfaces which actively "read" their microenvironment and respond accordingly. The cell membranes in reality actively produce receptors ("hooks") to fish out needed supplies of hormone molecules. Hormones, on the other hand, are like the fish that can "choose" to swarm the membrane or simply swim away, depending upon whether the membrane is clean or polluted with synthetic hormones. When the cell membrane is damaged by synthetic hormones, pollutants, or free radicals, the healthful play between hormones and membrane receptors is blocked. The result: hormone "diseases." This is not mere poetic license. My colleague, Gary Viole, and I have observed significant benefits with a substance derived from soybean which is not a hormone and yet improves hormonal health by facilitating transfer of hormones into cells. (We were awarded a US patent for our research.)

The issue of HIT vs. RRT is an essential one. Lifestyle stressors, pesticides , and pollutants injure cell membranes at an ever-increasing rates. Sugar-insulin-adrenaline roller coasters further add to cell membrane stress. To pour salt on the wounds of the cell membrane with synthetic hormones makes no sense.

Hormones and Battered Bowel Ecology: Of Professors and Patients
When I began the study of medicine forty years ago, my professors taught me to consider as "diseases" imbalances in the function of the thyroid, ovaries, testes, adrenals, pituitary, and hypothalamus. Now my patients teach me something entirely different. I recognize that each body organ (glandular or otherwise) influences, and is influenced by, every other body organ. A part must have a relationship with the whole. That is the law of nature. Now when I see a female patient with PMS, menstrual irregularities, endometriosis, breast and ovarian cysts, I think of how a battered bowel ecosystem can produce excess toxins (organic acids, heat shock proteins, and others) which poison her adrenal glands. When someone consults me for breast and uterine cancer, I think how excess microclots in her blood create free radical storms that injure all her glands. (My colleague, Omar Ali, and I recently introduced the term oxidative coagulopathy for such microclots.1 ) I now see clearly that I cannot truly address the "female hormone problems" of my patients without holistically considering all aspects of their damaged bowel-blood-liver ecosystems and without providing support for the troubled thyroid-adrenal-pancreas trio.

Nondrug Hormonal Restoration in Young Women: The Big Seven
Hormonal imbalances in most young women (PMS, irregular bleeding, and endometriosis) can be reversed with the following three-pronged approach: (A) therapies that restore injured cell membranes; (B) therapies that facilitate entry of natural hormones into the cells; and (C) therapies that enhance the function of hormones on their target cells. Specifically, the author's list of the big seven include the following: 1. Avoid synthetic hormones.* 2. Eat soy products (learn from Asian women) who rarely develop breast cancer. 3. Maintain optimal hydration and learn about water therapies. 4. Take essential oils, including flaxseed oil 5. Repair injured cell membranes with nutrient and herbal protocols. 6. Restore battered bowel-blood-liver eosystems with nutrients and herbs. 7. Consider plant-derived raw materials for hormones, such as wild yam, black cohosh, dong quai, macca, chaste tree, licorice, black haw, hops, yarrow, and sarsaparilla. In many cases, use of plant-derived estrogens, progesterones and testosterone is advisable under medical supervision.

* At the Institute, my colleagues and I are able to control symptoms of hormone imbalance with the integrative approach given above in almost all women, though the progress in some patients is slow.

Nondrug Hormonal Balancing In Postmenopausal Women: The Big Seven 
Just as for young women, hormonal imbalances in older women also require an integrative approach. Specifically, the problems of menopausal hot flushes, temperature dysregulation, and problems of mood, memory and mentation must be addressed by the same three-pronged approach: (1) restore cell membranes; (2) facilitate hormone entry into the cells; (3) enhance action of hormones on target cells. Thus, the issues of the battered bowel-blood-liver ecologies are as important for older women as for the young. Similarly, avoidance of sugar-insulin-adrenaline roller coasters, stress control, and other measures listed in the preceding paragraph are essential.

The author's list of the big seven plant-derived substances for the elderly includes: (1) tofu, tempeh and other partially digested soy products; (2) wild yam cream or oil; (3) chasteberry; (4) black cohosh; (5) tincture of licorice; (6) aniseed; and (7) St. John's wort and/or motherwort.

Male Hormones for Women?
I am often asked about the value of testosterone (the "male" hormone) for women. All women produce (and need) testosterone for optimal health. This is yet another reason why I proposed my concept of holistic relatedness among all hormones. Many gynecologists do not seem to appreciate the value of small doses of oral testosterone supplementation (1.25 to 2.5 mg daily) for restoring hormonal balance in women. I find such doses of testosterone especially valuable for my female and male patients with fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, chemical sensitivity, and complex thyroid and adrenal problems. In addition I observe better results with a testosterone cream (2% strength of dipropionate form) than with estrogen creams for my patients with vaginal dryness and irritation. This subject however requires considerable experience on the part of the doctor. With small doses as mentioned here, the potential for adverse effects is extremely small. Many women report improvement in their sex drive. Hair growth, if it ever occurs, clears up quickly when testosterone is discontinued. I do not recommend that women do this therapy on their own, without close professional supervision. Testosterone is a prescription item. Androstenedione, a precursor of testosterone, is available without prescription but enough about its clinical use is not known. Hence, I do not recommend it for women at this time.

DHEA, Pregnenolone, Progesterone, and Androstenedione
Adrenal gland imbalance is very common among women with chronic disorders. Over 90% of such women at the Institute show abnormal test results when 24-hour urinary steroid studies are performed. For most persons with simple adrenal weakness, DHEA given in modest doses of 25 to 50 mg daily is enough. However, in many patients with chronic immune, ecologic, and metabolic disorders, adrenal weakness is also a complex problem. It is created by failure of adrenal enzymes at more than one level, and is often associated with functional weaknesses of thyroid, pancreas, and sex hormones. In such patients it often requires a multi-layered approach that addresses enzyme failures at whatever level they take place. Thus, I sometimes use 25 mg of DHEA, 10 mg of pregnenolone and 25 to 50 mg of natural progesterone in my female patients as a three-prong approach to restoring the normal adrenal and female sex hormone balance. So you can see it is not a matter of which is better, DHEA or pregnenolone. Rather, the issue consists of what hormonal support is necessary for a given patient with hormonal imbalance.

Comments?: E-mail to Dr. Ali
Click here to visit the Aging Healthfully Website

Copyright ©Majid Ali ©Aging Healthfully, Inc.