Prevent Osteoporosis with Natural Estrogen Therapy
For many women, the decrease in estrogen production due to menopause results in many highly apparent and aggravating adverse effects. The visible symptoms of menopause may include hot flashes, mood swings, difficult-to-lose abdominal fat, painful intercourse, sleeplessness, and more.
However, a far more severe effect of menopausal hormone decrease stays hidden. Estrogen loss also causes osteoporosis – a life threatening condition in which a woman’s bones become brittle and highly susceptible to breaking.
How Menopause Hormone Loss Causes Osteoporosis
While estrogen is often thought of as a “reproductive hormone,” it is also necessary for the body to build and maintain strong, healthy bones. Menopause causes a decrease in estrogen levels, which results in bone loss. This significantly increases a woman’s chance of breaking one or more bones. Indeed, 50% of women over the age of 50 will have a bone fracture as a result of osteoporosis!
And, since osteoporosis has no outward signs, many women are unaware they have it until they suffer a fracture.
Fortunately, osteoporosis can now be avoided in women approaching or experiencing menopause by using 100% natural, easy, and safe bioidentical estrogen replacement therapy, which is offered at Ruthie Harper, MD® in the greater Austin, TX region.
Osteoporosis Prevention Through Natural Estrogen Therapy
First, it’s essential to understand how correct hormone balance safeguards the bones. One of estrogen’s many roles is to increase the activity of specific bone-producing cells called “osteoblasts.” Thus, when a woman’s estrogen level decreases after menopause, these osteoblasts cease to generate new bone cells, resulting in the bones becoming more “hollow” or porous and weaker.
Decades ago, the first FDA-approved medication for osteoporosis prevention was actually estrogen replacement therapy. Pharmaceutical firms have since jumped on the osteoporosis bandwagon, providing a range of synthetic medicines and treatments to treat loss of bone density. Bisphosphonates (such as Fosamax and Boniva) and anabolic steroids are examples of them. However, as with any laboratory-created drug, osteoporosis medications come with a variety of adverse effects.
Thus, although there are many new synthetic medicines available to treat osteoporosis, the majority of educated medical experts prefer to address the underlying cause of the disease – which is estrogen insufficiency – in order to maintain bone density and avoid bone fractures in postmenopausal women. However, simply substituting a one-size-fits-all synthetic hormone tablet or cream is not the ideal solution.
The Two Types of Estrogen Therapy for Osteoporosis
Hormone replacement treatment is classified into two types: synthetic hormones synthesized in the laboratory and “bioidentical” replacement hormones obtained from 100% natural, plant-based sources.
Nothing produced in a laboratory will ever exactly replicate what occurs naturally in the body. However, “bioidentical” hormones derived from natural, living, plant-based sources have a chemical structure that is almost identical to that of human hormones. Thus, bioidentical hormones are more easily “recognized” by the human body, and they “fit” better with the body’s other cells. As a consequence, bioidentical hormones are more effective, safer, and freer of side effects than hormones synthesized in the lab.
Bioidentical Estrogen Therapy for Osteoporosis
Because bioidentical hormone replacement treatment mimics the hormones produced naturally by the body, bioidentical estrogen therapy is very safe for the majority of perimenopausal, menopausal, and postmenopausal women. The prestigious American Society for Reproductive Medicine, the Endocrine Society, and the North American Menopause Society, and have all declared clearly that the majority of healthy postmenopausal women may safely take estrogen replacement therapy to prevent osteoporosis.
(Note: A tiny percentage of women with specific health problems, such as breast or uterine cancer, liver illness, or a family history of blood clots, should avoid estrogen therapy. Estrogen replacement treatment is likewise not recommended for males or for premenopausal women.)
Pellets: The Most Effective Estrogen Therapy
Historically, estrogen replacement therapy was administered in a number of ways: daily tablets, gels and lotions, patches, and injections. However, Ruthie Harper, MD® also offers the latest and most advanced estrogen replacement therapy method which uses long-lasting, time-released subcutaneous estrogen pellets that last from three to five months with a single implantation.
To begin, estrogen pellets are very easy to use because there are no daily doses to remember, no patches to change weekly, no sticky lotions to apply, and no unpleasant injections.
In clinical research, estrogen replacement pellets were also shown to be much more effective than other means of estrogen administration. Studies have shown that estrogen pellets result in a fourfold rise in bone density compared to oral estrogen tablets, and a 2.5 fold increase in bone mass compared to hormone patches!
Additionally, unlike hormone pills, injections, or creams, which subject your body to a yo-yo effect of hormone dose increases and decreases, time-released estrogen pellets distribute hormones to the woman’s body in the same manner as the ovaries do — gradually and consistently over time, only as required.
Estrogen Therapy for Osteoporosis | Austin, TX
Bioidentical estrogen replacement therapy prevents osteoporosis by restoring the body’s natural hormone balance – rather than by using harsh and hazardous drugs produced in the laboratory.
It is never too late to take measures to avoid becoming one of the 50% of women who may have a bone fracture as a result of osteoporosis. If you are a perimenopausal or menopausal woman living in the greater Austin, TX area schedule a consultation with Dr. Ruthie Harper to determine whether bioidentical estrogen therapy is your best course of action for maintaining strong, healthy bones after menopause… and for the rest of your life!
