What you need to know About Progesterone Cream
Q: Why do women need progesterone?
A: Is a precursor of other sex hormones, including estrogen and testosterone.
Maintains secretory endometrium (uterine lining).
Is necessary for the survival of the embryo and fetus throughout gestation.
Protects against fibrocystic breasts.
Is a natural diuretic.
Helps use fat for energy.
Functions as a natural antidepressant.
Helps thyroid hormone action.
Normalizes blood clotting.
Restores sex drive.
Helps normalize blood sugar levels.
Normalizes zinc and copper levels.
Restores proper cell oxygen levels.
Has a thermogenic (temperature raising) effect.
Protects against endometrial cancer.
Helps protect against breast cancer.
Builds bone and is a protective against osteoporosis.
Is a precursor of cortisone synthesis by adrenal cortex.
Helps protect against excessive hair loss.
Encourages new hair growth.
Q: Are there special needs for postmenopausal women?
A: Progesterone is needed in hormone replacement therapy for menopausal women for many reasons, but one of its most important roles is to balance or oppose the effects of estrogen. Unopposed estrogen creates a strong risk for breast cancer and reproductive cancers.
Estrogen levels drop only 40-60% at menopause, which is just enough to stop the menstrual cycle. But progesterone levels may drop to near zero in some women. Because progesterone is the precursor to so many other steroid hormones, its use can greatly enhance overall hormone balance after menopause. Progesterone also stimulates bone-building and thus helps protect against osteoporosis.
Q: What is progesterone?
A: Progesterone is a steroid hormone made by the corpus luteum of the ovary at ovulation, and in smaller amounts by the adrenal glands. Progesterone is manufactured in the body from the steroid hormone pregnenolone, and is a precursor to most of the other steroid hormones, including cortisol, androstenedione, the estrogens and testosterone.
In a normally cycling female, the corpus luteum produces 20 to 30 mg of progesterone daily during the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle.
Q: Why not just use the progestin Provera as prescribed by most doctors?
A: Progesterone is preferable to the synthetic progestins such as Provera, because it is natural to the body and has no undesirable side effects when used as directed.
If you have any doubts about how different progesterone is from the progestins, remember that the placenta produces 300-400 mg of progesterone daily during the last few months of pregnancy, so we know that such levels are safe for the developing baby. But progestins, even at fractions of this dose, can cause birth defects. The progestins also cause many other side effects, including partial loss of vision, breast cancer in test dogs, an increased risk of strokes, fluid retention, migraine headaches, asthma, cardiac irregularities and depression.
Q: What is estrogen dominance?
A: The term "estrogen dominance," is used to describe what happens when the normal ratio or balance of estrogen to progesterone is changed by excess estrogen or inadequate progesterone. Estrogen is a potent and potentially dangerous hormone when not balanced by adequate progesterone.
Both women who have suffered from PMS and women who have suffered from menopausal symptoms, will recognize the hallmark symptoms of estrogen dominance: weight gain, bloating, mood swings, irritability, tender breasts, headaches, fatigue, depression, hypoglycemia, uterine fibroids, endometriosis, and fibrocystic breasts. Estrogen dominance is believed to contribute to cancer of the breast, ovary, endometrium (uterus), and prostate.
Q: Why would a premenopausal woman need progesterone cream?
A: In the ten to fifteen years before menopause, many women regularly have anovulatory cycles in which they make enough estrogen to create menstruation, but they don't make any progesterone, thus setting the stage for estrogen dominance. Using progesterone cream during anovulatory months can help prevent the symptoms of PMS.
We now know that PMS can occur despite normal progesterone levels when stress is present. Stress increases cortisol production; cortisol blockades (or competes for) progesterone receptors. Additional progesterone is required to overcome this blockade, and stress management is important.
Q: What is progesterone made from?
A: The USP progesterone used for hormone replacement comes from plant fats and oils, usually a substance called diosgenin which is extracted from a very specific type of wild yam that grows in Mexico, or from soybeans. In the laboratory diosgenin is chemically synthesized into real human progesterone. The other human steroid hormones, including estrogen, testosterone, progesterone and the cortisones are also nearly always synthesized from diosgenin.
Some companies are trying to sell diosgenin, which they label "wild yam extract" as a medicine or supplement, claiming that the body will then convert it into hormones as needed. While we know this can be done in the laboratory, there is no evidence that this conversion takes place in the human body.
Q: Where should I put the progesterone cream?
A: Because progesterone is very fat-soluble, it is easily absorbed through the skin. Just massage a dime-size dollop of cream (about 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon) into your skin. Try your wrists, arms, thighs, tummy-whatever you like. Do that twice a day for 21 days, then rest for the next seven, and you're on your way to natural peri/menopausal balance. Or if you're looking for help with PMS balance, use 14 days on and 14 off.
Q: What is the recommended dosage of progesterone?
A: For premenopausal women the usual dose is 15-24 mg/day for 14 days before expected menses, stopping the day or so before menses.
For postmenopausal women, the dose that often works well is 15 mg/day for 25 days of the calendar month.
Q: How safe is progesterone cream?
A: During the third trimester of pregnancy, the placenta produces about 300 mg of progesterone daily, so we know that a one-time overdose of the cream is virtually impossible. If you used a whole jar at once it might make you sleepy. However, it is usually recommended that women avoid using higher than the recommended dosage to avoid hormone imbalances. More is not better when it comes to hormone balance.
Q: Wouldn't it be easier to just take a progesterone pill?
A: Since 80% to 90% of the oral dose is lost through the liver, the transdermal cream rather than oral progesterone should be considered. Thus, at least 200 to 400 mg daily is needed orally to achieve a physiologic dose of 15 to 24 mg daily. Such high doses may create undesirable metabolites and unnecessarily overload the liver.
Q: What other types of ingredients would be in a natural OTC progesterone cream?
A: Aloe Vera Oil has softening, healing, antimicrobial, and anti-inflammatory properties. Its moisturizing ability is its most widely recognized characteristics. Aloe vera penetrates the skin, supplying moisture directly to the tissue.
Avocado Oil may mobilize and increase the collagen of connective tissue; given the highest ranking by the Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology for sunscreen effectiveness. Avocado oil enjoys the highest penetration rate among similar oils.
Carrot Oil used since the sixteenth century for skin diseases due to its believed cleansing, depurative, and draining properties. This carotene-rich emollient has been indicated for acne skin conditions, dermatitis, skin irritation, skin rashes, and wrinkles; derived from the carrot root.
Lemon Grass Oil is considered astringent and tonic. Lemon grass oil is the volatile oil distilled from the leaves of the lemon grasses.
Natural Glycerin is used as a moisturizer and humectant to replace moisture in the skin.
Rosemary Extract is a natural preservative.
Natural Progesterone derived from Mexican wild yam root. These sterols are processed through several fermentation steps to yield progesterone which is identical to the progesterone which is produced by the human body.
Vitamin A Palmitate is known as a skin “normalizer.” It acts as an antikeratinizing agent, helping the skin stay soft and plump. Clinical studies with vitamin A palmitate indicate a significant change in skin composition with increase in collagen, DNA, skin thickness, and elasticity. Vitamin A palmitate’s stability is superior to retinol.
Vitamin E is considered the most important oil soluble antioxidant and free radical scavenger. As a moisturizer, vitamin E is well absorbed through the skin; derived from alfalfa and wheat.
Nutrition Month
Showing posts with label bone health. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bone health. Show all posts
Monday, April 16, 2012
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Vitamin D supplements liquid, topical, repletion ideas
What does vitamin D do for the body?
This essential nutrient is called a vitamin, but dietary vitamin D is actually a precursor hormone — the building block of a powerful steroid hormone in your body called calcitriol. It’s been known for many years that vitamin D is critical to the health of our bones and teeth, but deeper insight into D’s wider role in our health is quite new.
Vitamin D works in concert with other nutrients and hormones in your body to support healthy bone renewal — an ongoing process of mineralization and demineralization which, when awry, shows up as rickets in children and osteomalacia (“soft bones”) or osteoporosis (“porous bones”) in adults.
Researchers are discovering that D also promotes normal cell growth and differentiation throughout the body, working as a key factor in maintaining hormonal balance and a healthy immune system. It appears that calcitriol actually becomes part of the physical composition of cells, assisting in the buildup and breakdown of healthy tissue — in other words, regulating the processes that keep you well.
What’s more, evidence from studies tracking the prevalence of disease by geography and nationality shows clear links between vitamin D deficiency and obesity, insulin resistance, heart disease, certain cancers, and depression. Since most of these problems take many years to manifest, vitamin D deficiency has been overlooked by many providers for a very long time. I test all of my patients, and have been surprised to find that more than 85% come up with a vitamin D deficiency.
Your body can’t create vitamin D on its own. Instead, it’s designed to make it through sun exposure. In theory, you can make an ample supply of vitamin D with as little as a couple of hours per week in the sun — provided the UVB rays are strong enough. You can also ingest D through food, especially fatty fish like wild–harvested salmon. Plus, lots of foods are fortified nowadays, so vitamin D deficiency should be an easy problem to solve, right? But the truth is, we’re just not getting enough, and so many of us aren’t even close.
Few foods naturally contain or are fortified with supplemental vitamin D. For example, an 8-ounce glass of whole milk is fortified with 100 IU (international units) of vitamin D – just 10 percent of what the most conservative vitamin D researchers now say we need daily. In contrast, sun exposure to the skin makes thousands of units of vitamin D naturally in a relatively short period of time.
Vitamin D supplements are an alternative means of producing vitamin D when regular, non-burning sun exposure is not possible.
Humans spend less time in the sun today than at any point in human history – which is why more than 1 billion people worldwide are vitamin D deficient.
Consequences of low Vitamin D
Rickets: Rickets is caused in children by deficiency of Vitamin D, calcium or phosphorus. It used to be the most well known of the symptoms of vitamin d deficiency but has not been a big problem since food manufacturers started fortifying milk and other foods with small doses of Vitamin D.
Depression: There is some evidence to show that low Vitamin D levels have an association with depression, and studies have shown that Vitamin D3 has helped reduce seasonal depression during winter months. Lack of UVB Rays from the sun may be part of the reason for Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD).
Weakened immune system: Most cells in the body contain receptor sites for Vitamin D and these include immune system cells. Vitamin D has been shown to enhance the activity of those cells, and to decrease chances of developing autoimmune diseases such as Multiple Sclerosis.
Mysterious health issues: Vitamin D has many varied effects on the cells in the body, and if you are experiencing any mysterious health symptoms then you should have a blood test done to make sure you are not Vitamin D deficient.
Long term symptoms of Vitamin D deficiency
Osteoporosis: An important role of Vitamin D is regulating calcium absorption and calcium balance in the bones, and a well known symptom of vitamin d deficiency is weakened and brittle bones, where the severe cases end up with osteoporosis.
Cancer: Vitamin D deficiency has in research studies been shown to be highly correlated with many forms of cancer. This makes the recommendation of people avoiding the sun in order to prevent skin cancer to be extremely bogus, since avoiding sun would cause low vitamin d levels and therefore increase risks of developing other cancer forms.
Please find the dose that your health provider recommended you take and make sure your blood levels are monitored regularly if you are on a high dose supplement.
Suggestions for my patients:
Please consider all of the other calcium containing supplements when you view these suggestions.
Vitamin D levels — what’s really optimal? >100 ng/mL Excessive vitamin D (see note on toxicity) 50–70 ng/mL Proposed optimal range 30–50 ng/mL Suboptimal but still normal range <30 ng/mL Deficient <20 ng/mL Overt vitamin D deficiency <10 ng/mL Seriously deficient
Vitamin D level:
<10 level 50,000 IU weekly or 10,000 IU daily 10-20 level 5000 IU daily 20-30 level 2000 IU daily 30-50 level 1000 IU daily 50-70 level 400 IU daily for 12-16 weeks, then return for bloodwork. Levels over 30 are considered normal Levels 50-70 are considered optimal If you are pregnant or planning to become pregnant, the upper daily limit for pregnant women is 4000 IU daily. FDA Disclaimer The statements and products shown on this website have not been evaluated by the US Food and Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. Those seeking treatment for a specific disease should consult a qualified integrative physician prior to using our products if possible.
This essential nutrient is called a vitamin, but dietary vitamin D is actually a precursor hormone — the building block of a powerful steroid hormone in your body called calcitriol. It’s been known for many years that vitamin D is critical to the health of our bones and teeth, but deeper insight into D’s wider role in our health is quite new.
Vitamin D works in concert with other nutrients and hormones in your body to support healthy bone renewal — an ongoing process of mineralization and demineralization which, when awry, shows up as rickets in children and osteomalacia (“soft bones”) or osteoporosis (“porous bones”) in adults.
Researchers are discovering that D also promotes normal cell growth and differentiation throughout the body, working as a key factor in maintaining hormonal balance and a healthy immune system. It appears that calcitriol actually becomes part of the physical composition of cells, assisting in the buildup and breakdown of healthy tissue — in other words, regulating the processes that keep you well.
What’s more, evidence from studies tracking the prevalence of disease by geography and nationality shows clear links between vitamin D deficiency and obesity, insulin resistance, heart disease, certain cancers, and depression. Since most of these problems take many years to manifest, vitamin D deficiency has been overlooked by many providers for a very long time. I test all of my patients, and have been surprised to find that more than 85% come up with a vitamin D deficiency.
Your body can’t create vitamin D on its own. Instead, it’s designed to make it through sun exposure. In theory, you can make an ample supply of vitamin D with as little as a couple of hours per week in the sun — provided the UVB rays are strong enough. You can also ingest D through food, especially fatty fish like wild–harvested salmon. Plus, lots of foods are fortified nowadays, so vitamin D deficiency should be an easy problem to solve, right? But the truth is, we’re just not getting enough, and so many of us aren’t even close.
Few foods naturally contain or are fortified with supplemental vitamin D. For example, an 8-ounce glass of whole milk is fortified with 100 IU (international units) of vitamin D – just 10 percent of what the most conservative vitamin D researchers now say we need daily. In contrast, sun exposure to the skin makes thousands of units of vitamin D naturally in a relatively short period of time.
Vitamin D supplements are an alternative means of producing vitamin D when regular, non-burning sun exposure is not possible.
Humans spend less time in the sun today than at any point in human history – which is why more than 1 billion people worldwide are vitamin D deficient.
Consequences of low Vitamin D
Rickets: Rickets is caused in children by deficiency of Vitamin D, calcium or phosphorus. It used to be the most well known of the symptoms of vitamin d deficiency but has not been a big problem since food manufacturers started fortifying milk and other foods with small doses of Vitamin D.
Depression: There is some evidence to show that low Vitamin D levels have an association with depression, and studies have shown that Vitamin D3 has helped reduce seasonal depression during winter months. Lack of UVB Rays from the sun may be part of the reason for Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD).
Weakened immune system: Most cells in the body contain receptor sites for Vitamin D and these include immune system cells. Vitamin D has been shown to enhance the activity of those cells, and to decrease chances of developing autoimmune diseases such as Multiple Sclerosis.
Mysterious health issues: Vitamin D has many varied effects on the cells in the body, and if you are experiencing any mysterious health symptoms then you should have a blood test done to make sure you are not Vitamin D deficient.
Long term symptoms of Vitamin D deficiency
Osteoporosis: An important role of Vitamin D is regulating calcium absorption and calcium balance in the bones, and a well known symptom of vitamin d deficiency is weakened and brittle bones, where the severe cases end up with osteoporosis.
Cancer: Vitamin D deficiency has in research studies been shown to be highly correlated with many forms of cancer. This makes the recommendation of people avoiding the sun in order to prevent skin cancer to be extremely bogus, since avoiding sun would cause low vitamin d levels and therefore increase risks of developing other cancer forms.
Please find the dose that your health provider recommended you take and make sure your blood levels are monitored regularly if you are on a high dose supplement.
Suggestions for my patients:
Please consider all of the other calcium containing supplements when you view these suggestions.
Vitamin D levels — what’s really optimal? >100 ng/mL Excessive vitamin D (see note on toxicity) 50–70 ng/mL Proposed optimal range 30–50 ng/mL Suboptimal but still normal range <30 ng/mL Deficient <20 ng/mL Overt vitamin D deficiency <10 ng/mL Seriously deficient
Vitamin D level:
<10 level 50,000 IU weekly or 10,000 IU daily 10-20 level 5000 IU daily 20-30 level 2000 IU daily 30-50 level 1000 IU daily 50-70 level 400 IU daily for 12-16 weeks, then return for bloodwork. Levels over 30 are considered normal Levels 50-70 are considered optimal If you are pregnant or planning to become pregnant, the upper daily limit for pregnant women is 4000 IU daily. FDA Disclaimer The statements and products shown on this website have not been evaluated by the US Food and Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. Those seeking treatment for a specific disease should consult a qualified integrative physician prior to using our products if possible.
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