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Due to media scares in recent years over the safety of traditional hormone therapy, many women are looking for alternative treatments to help them cope with their menopausal symptoms. Women may look to their family or friends for advice, but they also look towards other sources of information such as the internet, popular media and even celebrities. The recent movie Sex and the City 2 featured a storyline about a character who relied on a wide array of alternative treatments to manage her menopause symptoms.
The term ‘bioidentical hormones’ or ‘compounded hormones’ is often used to describe a type of hormone therapy which claims to contain oestrogen and progesterone that is identical to the hormones found in our bodies. Like conventional hormone therapy, bioidentical hormone therapy requires a doctor’s prescription.
A doctor who prescribes the bioidentical hormone therapy may decide what kind of preparation to prescribe based on blood and saliva tests. Unfortunately, these tests are not very reliable as hormone levels at midlife can fluctuate throughout the day.
Bioidentical hormone therapy is prepared by a compounding pharmacist, which means that the pharmacist mixes up the hormones specifically for a particular patient. The concentrations of the hormone preparations will vary from woman to woman however this makes it difficult to assess the safety, dose and quality of the treatment.
Due to lack of research bioidentical hormone therapy is not approved by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) or its US equivalent, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The Jean Hailes Foundation for Women’s Health can not recommend the use of bioidentical hormones until quality published research and trials are available to inform
women and their doctors on the safety and effectiveness of these agents.
For more information, go to
- www.tga.gov.au – Therapeutic Goods Administration 1800 020 653
- www.endo-society.org – The Endocrine Society
- www.imsociety.org – International Menopause Society
- www.fda.gov – Bio-Identicals: Sorting Myths and Facts
I think it’s really important that you avoid misleading women when you are making your claims. The reason that bio identical hormones are not approved by the TGA or FDA is because they are considered to be so close to the body’s natural hormones as to be “un patentable”.
When products can’t be patented there is little commercial interested from funding poor researchers to invest in extensive research along the lines of what you are discussing. Unfortunately this mean that many effective alternative treatments simply cannot compete with the cashed up multinational pharmaceutical companies.
Having said that, the proof of the pudding is in the baking. Robyn McGraw wrote an excellent book about bio identical hormones that includes many case studies of success. To get a balanced argument both sides need to be investigated and not just organisations like Jean Hailes who are pushing the pro pharmaceutical barrow.
Jean Hailes please continue to make factual comments that are not tinged with factually true but misleading comments like the one above which suggests that TGA and FDA lack of endorsement has to do with efficacy of this product rather than the truth which is that bio identical hormones are so close to the body’s own hormones that they do not require registration by these bodies.
Well put, Lesley. It seems that vested interests are all that matters. The government has no problem endorsing genetically modified foods or allowing us to ingest pharmaceutically-endorsed HRT drugs which are known carcinogenics, but denies women the right to make their own choices and decisions.