Health@WashPost.com
Re: Estrogen controversy
Ms. Slomski has presented the mainstream ideas/beliefs regarding hormone replacement therapy [HRT] for women, biased by the disinformation from the Medical Journals that are bought and paid for by the Pharmaceutical industry. ["Big Pharma"]. The third member of this incestuous cartel is the FDA.2
What is the problem? The vast majority of research on "Estrogens" has been done with a specific product – PremarinTM.. Premarin is, indeed, one of the many estrogenic substances that are available by prescription – that means it has an estrogen-like effect on human tissues. Premarin is an acronym for "pregnant mares urine. Other examples are Birth Control pills, DES, and Tamoxifen. None of these was ever present on Planet Earth until the 20th century. [Yes, the horses had it but it wasn't available to humans and it isn't the same as human estrogens!] Aside from prescriptions, there are a huge number of "weak" estrogenic substances that are now recognized as "endocrine disruptors"1 such as phthalates, and bis-phenyl-A [they are solvents that leach out of plastic water and soda bottles and infant products such as baby bottles and nipples.]
On the other hand, every healthy human female that ever walked this Earth, has had three well-recognized and identified Estrogens coursing through her blood vessels and bathing her tissues and organs with powerful, beneficial effects – with the very highest blood levels occurring during pregnancy. Did God, or Nature, make such a stupid mistake as giving pregnant women cancer-causing hormones? Why is breast cancer a disease of the last half of the 20th Century – accelerating into the 21st? Because big Pharma has spent Multi Billions of dollars in a misguided effort to make patentable products for profit that they then claim are better than those found naturally in human bodies for millennia.
If you follow the logic, perhaps you can also believe that "Progestins" – such as Provera – that are supposed to "balance" the Estrogenic drugs, are not the same molecules that balance the Natural Estrogens – the real thing is Progesterone. Premarin and Provera have been the subject of intensive study, and have been implicated in the problems. As of this time The FDA has forced the first company that brought out a combination of all three of nature's estrogens – Estradiol, Estriol and Estrone – to pull their products off the market because of lack of evidence of safety. However, no one can possibly perform such studies without financial support, and natural hormones are not patentable, so there is no profit in the offing to "justify" such an investment.
Virtually all healthy post-menopausal women are deficient in these hormones, as is indicated by blood tests – not only low estrogens, but also low progesterone. Even more convincing are the very high signaling hormones – FSH and LH that remain elevated well into the octogenarian years and beyond – literally screaming: "I need more estrogen and progesterone!" They are fooled by the artificial, imitation, foreign "Xeno-estrogen" molecules of big Pharma, but the organs that require human estrogens are not – they change, but "not exactly," and lead to catastrophes in the long run.
Warren M. Levin, MD – FAAFP[ret], FACN, FAAEM
407 Church Street NE Suite E
Vienna, VA 22180
info@WarrenMLevinMD.org
Suggested reading: 1 Our Stolen Future – Theo Coburn
2 Poisoned Profits – P. & A. Shabecoff