Bioidentical Hormone Replacement Therapy: A Safe, Effective Option for Women (And Men!)

Newsweek generated major buzz with its recent piece criticizing Oprah and other celebrities for their support of alternative medicine, such as bioidentical hormone replacement therapy. The article suggested that celebrities, with their huge followings, are sometimes persuading their fan base to adopt questionable medical theories without the science to back them up. But Newsweek might have better served its readership by offering women access to the leading medical experts and scientific studies on both sides of this issue.

Multiple medical studies have linked traditionally prescribed synthetic hormone replacement therapies, such as the still-popularly prescribed Premarin and Prempro, to significant and sometimes lethal health risks such as breast and uterine cancers, heart attack, stroke, lung cancer and Alzheimer's disease. Meanwhile, recent medical research and multiple clinical studies published in this country and, also, internationally, validate the safety and efficacy of bioidentical hormone replacement therapies.

Newsweek generated major buzz with its recent piece criticizing Oprah and other celebrities for their support of alternative medicine, such as bioidentical hormone replacement therapy. The article suggested that celebrities, with their huge followings, are sometimes persuading their fan base to adopt questionable medical theories without the science to back them up.

But Newsweek might have better served its readership by offering women access to the leading medical experts and scientific studies on both sides of this issue.  Choices regarding hormone replacement can be a life or death decision. To make informed decisions, women need solid, scientific facts, medical research and clinical studies - along with honest and open debate about the pluses and minuses of each option. Menopausal symptoms such as hot flashes, night sweats, insomnia, weight gain, low libido, memory loss or brain fog, affect an estimated 45.6 menopausal women in the United States. And these women are not interested in suffering through 'The Change' only to become increasingly fat, sexless and senile! They are demanding that the medical community come up with safe, effective options for symptom relief and treatment.

So why is BHRT not more widely recognized as the menopausal treatment of choice? t's a matter of money and marketing.  Unlike the pharmaceutical giants with large sales forces, when a study about BHRT is published by a physician at an academic medical research center, such as Joel Hargrove, M.D. at Vanderbilt University Medical School, or Abraham Morgentaler, M.D. at Harvard Medical School, there is no sales force waiting to take that study to physicians' offices. Doctors who have developed an expertise in bioidentical hormones have had to seek out education and cull through the science and research mostly on our own. When marketing gets ahead of medical science, lives can be put at risk.

So let’s issue a challenge to publications like Newsweek to interview the top medical experts on both sides of this issue and compare the scientific data. Even better, Newsweek should raise its voice - along with its millions of possibly hot and irritated menopausal readers- to demand that the National Institutes of Health fund a head-to-head clinical study comparing synthetic hormones to bioidentical hormones. I am confident the results would validate what our patients have experienced for years - BHRT is a safe and effective godsend for menopausal women.