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Natural Hormone Replacement Therapy
A
large and rapidly growing body of scientfic evidence demonstrates that
a number of hormones decline with aging, and these declines can result
in many of the manifestations of aging. The first to be
recognized, of course, is the preciptious decline in estrogen and
progesterone production in women called "menopause". Menopause
was easily recognizable because of the obvious signs and symptoms
brought on by ovarian failure. These signs and symptoms
include: the absence of menstruation, infertility, and relatively
acute symptoms such as hot flashes. The other hormones that
decline are testosterone in men and women, growth hormone, and the
adrenal hormones DHEA and pregnenolone. The decline in these
hormones starts much earlier and is more gradual. Recently
adopted terminologies are: andropause,
the precipitous decline in testosterone; somatopause, the precipitous decline of growth hormone;
and adrenopause, the precipitous decline of the adrenal hormones DHEA and pregnenolone. The production
and release of melatonin, which is produced by the pineal gland, also declines in most individuals.
These
hormone levels begin to decline by our early 30's. We measure the
level of these hormones in your body by blood tests and then prescribe
replacement hormone doses to restore them to their optimum, youthful
levels. The hormones discussed above are not the only ones that
contribute to our well-being and vitality. The entire endocrine
system participates in the aging process; therefore, the
supplementation of other hormones and nutritional supplements (aka
nutraceuticals) have a significant impact on our "youthful aging"
experience. The first of which we will discuss is the master
hormone of the pituitary gland, Human Growth Hormone, which
diminishes significantly with age, and restoring levels of this
important hormone to more youthful levels has been associated with a
multitude of wonderful benefits including a reduction of body fat and
an increase in libido and energy.
Hormone
modulation is the science of optimizing hormones that are no longer
being adequately produced by the body. While genetic programming
does many wonderful things, nature's plan brings us to the age of
reproduction and nurturing, and then seems to have little use for
us. At this point we begin to fail. In fact, much of aging
can be seen as deficiencies in many of the substances that our body
once produced in abundance. The goal of hormone management is to
modulate our hormones to the levels at which our immune system is the
strongest, our metabolism the most efficient, and our ability to build
muscle, differ based on the naturally occurring hormones once produced
by each sex. The menopause program is for women and the
andropause program is for men.
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