This morning I went to www.technorati.com to register my blog in an effort to reach more men and women. The goal? To stop the inexcusable needless suffering brought about by hormone imbalance. The “claim code” I am to post is 82WD9YSBB5XQ.

After years of hormone imbalance leading to a hysterectomy and synthetic drugs, I finally learned about natural hormone balancing in 2004. A nurse for 30 years, I became passionate about raising awareness to stop the inexcusable hormone imbalance suffering. My seminars and my blog led to the writing and publishing of my book, Stop the Needless Suffering, The Complete Woman’s Guide to Balancing Your Hormones Naturally.

It is a myth that hormone imbalance starts in our 40s and 50s. Hormone imbalance starts in our youth and affects men as well as women. It is also a myth that you must subject yourself to synthetic hormones, antidepressants, and hysterectomies.

My blog contains countless free articles that raise awareness of what is happening in your body, why it is happening, and what you can do about it. Isn’t it about time you live the life you deserve – full of vibrance and vitality, no matter your age?

My passion is to create a wealth of information to help men and women worldwide raise awareness of ways to invigorate your mind, body, and spirit – naturally.

You have a lot of life to live. Go ahead and start now! Please reach out to help teach others. Together we CAN stop the needless suffering!

“Hormone replacement skin products affect users’ pets, confound veterinarians” from the VIN News Service was posted by hormone expert, Andrea Duran, http://holyhormones.blogspot.com. See

http://news.vin.com/VINNews.aspx?articleId=15950.

Thank you, Andrea, for making us all aware! Animals exposed to their owners’ hormone replacement skin cream are having dramatic side effects… unintended medical consequences.

“Spayed dogs and young female puppies are showing up in veterinary exam rooms with markedly swollen vulvas as if they are in heat. Male dogs present with enlarged mammary glands and abnormally small penises. Animals of both genders experience fur loss.”

The phenomenon frequently stumps veterinary practitioners; sometimes patients go undiagnosed for weeks or months because clinicians don’t recognize the connection.

“The problem appears to stem from the use by pet owners of hormone replacement treatments in the form of lotions, gels or sprays that are applied to the arms — especially inner elbows and wrists — or legs. The users then handle and snuggle their animals, unwittingly transferring the drug to the pets.”

The same thing can occur with your children…

“A mother of two sons, Fox can’t help but wonder whether children, like pets, are being inadvertently exposed. ‘What if you’re, like, a grandmother holding a child up against you?’ she said.”

The article goes on to explain, “Such worries aren’t far-fetched. The FDA has documented cases of children being accidentally exposed to testosterone gels through contact with men undergoing male hormone replacement therapy. The men used topical hormone products on their shoulders, upper arms or stomachs.

The FDA publicized the adverse effects after it had confirmed eight cases in children ranging from nine months to five years of age. Symptoms included enlargement of the genitalia, development of pubic hair, advanced bone age, increased libido and aggressive behavior, according to the statement.”

Once the children no longer were exposed to the product, most signs and symptoms regressed, although in a few cases “enlarged genitalia did not fully return to age-appropriate size, and bone age remained modestly greater than the child’s chronological age,” the FDA news release states.

From my own personal awareness, I can tell you it works the same way with men too…

A few months ago I came across a gentleman who had severely elevated progesterone levels. Upon investigation, it was found that his significant other was applying progesterone cream to her inner arms at bedtime. Consequently, when they cuddled in the night, he too was being medicated by her topical progesterone. She then switched to applying the cream in the morning, which seemed to eventually alleviate the symptoms.

“Pessimistic, grouchy, bored, blue? Chronic low-grade depression can feel so familiar you don’t even know you’ve got it. But it’s rampant among women and underdiagnosed. The good news is that with treatment you can be better than ever.”

Since depression is often a symptom of hormone imbalance, these words caught my eye this morning in an article found on http://www.oprah.com/health/Diagnosing-Low-Grade-Depression-Dysthymia-and-Women

The article explains:

“Low-grade depression (dysthymia) is one of the most common ailments on the planet and one of the least likely to be diagnosed. Like its cousin, clinical depression, low-grade depression hits women roughly twice as often as men (though some researchers believe mood disorders in men are underreported because of social stigmas). Clinical depression is a kind of mental hurricane: Symptoms include debilitating insomnia, weight loss, anxiety or a mental fog so dense that people forget what they’ve read as soon as they’ve read it. The pain is so awful that suicide can seem an acceptable solution.

Low-grade depression is more like a year of drizzly weather. It is, by definition, chronic. A diagnosis requires the presence of symptoms on more days than not for a period of at least two years, which is what makes it so hard to pin down. Any given day might be okay, even happy. Yet in the general run of days, there are more gray ones than not, more unhappiness than joy. Most people afflicted with this kind of chronic malaise instinctively blame themselves: They would rather believe they can solve the problem—if they could just find the right job or the right man or lose weight—than admit they have a psychiatric disorder.”

The article explains that a healthy person might take action, or simply look around for a fun distraction. “A person with low-grade depression broods and gets stuck. Caught in that drizzly mental weather, she doesn’t seek shelter or buy an umbrella; she goes on slogging through puddles.”

Certain types of depression have a strong hereditary or hormonal component.

A family history of depression is a strong indicator of risk. Is the root cause genetic or environmental? Who knows for sure without an in-depth look into the individual’s life circumstances. We also know that many women who suffer from hormonal imbalance also have a family history of hormone imbalance.

The article states that not everyone who suffers from low-grade depression looks back on an unhappy childhood; for some, the problem begins in adolescence or early adulthood—the result, perhaps, of the inevitable stresses that accompany such rites of passage as moving into a first apartment, graduating from college or losing a first love. Someone who is vulnerable might slip into low-grade illness without even realizing it.

Some additional points of interest contained in the article:

• Low-grade depression and poor eating habits frequently go hand in hand. Scientists aren’t sure of the exact biological mechanism, but there is evidence that eating carbohydrates temporarily boosts a person’s mood by altering the brain’s level and use of serotonin. People with low-grade depression quite often binge on high-carbohydrate foods—pasta, crackers, popcorn—in what some doctors see as an unconscious effort to self-medicate.
• Depression is a whole-self illness. It’s hard to separate the biological from the situational factors. Regaining health often requires attacking the problem on all fronts: spiritual, physical, social and intellectual.
• Signs of low-grade depression

1. You feel sad, dissatisfied or pessimistic most of the time, although you still have days when you feel normal.
2. Your appetite changes.
3. You’re tired most of the time.
4. You have insomnia or you’re sleeping too much.
5. You’re harder on yourself than you should be.
6. You’re not working at your peak, and you’re having trouble concentrating.
7. Simple decisions somehow take forever.
8. You feel that every day is more or less a struggle.

• If you have at least two symptoms—especially the first one—see your doctor for a checkup, and if you’re physically healthy, ask for a referral to a mental-health professional. If you have five or more symptoms and are also experiencing anxiety, feelings of helplessness and loss of interest in sex, your depression may be more serious. Seek medical help immediately.

The important factor to keep in mind is that to remedy the situation, one must peel down to the root cause. An important factor to not overlook is hormone imbalance. Go back and look at your family history. Has anyone else in your family suffered from depression? Likewise, could there be some residual unhealed emotional trauma that you are unknowingly carrying around with you?

Notice if you have any of the above symptoms. Peel down to the root cause and take the appropriate action. Know that you too CAN feel happy, alive, and rejuvenated.

“What do you mean hormone imbalance symptoms may happen so insidiously that women might not even know they are suffering needlessly? What kind of symptoms do they have? When does it happen?”

When I was asked these questions this morning, I took pause and really reflected on the ones that tend to sneak up on you – the ones that might leave you totally unaware. The ones that when finally addressed give you such energy and enthusiasm that many women simply become euphoric. Women who lost a part of themselves and didn’t even know when it showed up missing.

It happens oh, so slowly that you just assume it is because you are getting older. It is not until the neon light-life halting problems strike that you seek help in desperation.

What happens so subtly, so slowly over time?

One of the most subtle of symptoms is the feeling of being tired, fatigued, worn out, no energy, exhausted, just not as much enthusiasm as you once had. You feel old and flat. It takes so much more energy to trudge up those stairs. You don’t feel like playing with the kids or grandkids. You’d rather put on that comfy robe and sit in your chair.

The second is a feeling of depression. There is a feeling of sadness that invades your life. The zest for living is just not there. You shuffle through your days in the hope that things might be better tomorrow. Tomorrow comes, and it is more of the same. You know it’s not right, but you may feel too embarrassed to talk to your doctor about it. If you do, you can pretty much count on a prescription for an antidepressant. But why do you feel this way? When did this happen?

The third is the infernal inability to sleep – night after night. You are so exhausted. Surely you will sleep tonight. It has been so many nights since you last slept. In fact, how long has it been since you’ve had a good night’s rest? Can you remember? You might lay there, totally exhausted, but not able to fall asleep. You might fall asleep, but sure enough, there you are awake once again in the middle of the night. You do all the things the books say to make you sleep – and nothing works.

What if I told you that all these effects might be happening to you not because you are getting older? What if I told you there’s a very good chance you can invigorate your life, sleep at night, and feel fabulous and energized?

Well you can. It all starts with what I call the LOVE Method that can be found in my book Stop the Needless Suffering, The Complete Woman’s Guide to Balancing Your Hormones Naturally. See www.RosieBrownRN.com.

Stop the Needless Suffering tells you exactly how to:

L – Learn All You Can

O – Obtain Help (From a health care practitioner knowledgeable in bioidentical hormone balancing – which includes the sex hormones, the adrenal glands, and the thyroid)

V – Validate with Data (how and where to obtain testing to see what your lab values are)

E – Engage in an Action Plan that is Right for You

The bottom line to this discussion?

Oh, yes, you can feel better!

Prostate cancer is the number one cancer in men. Prostate enlargement is a major cause of problems in elderly men. It appears that a simple, safe inexpensive solution to prevent and treat prostate problems is the use of progesterone replacement.

Research has demonstrated that progesterone has the ability to prevent and reverse many cancers. The research also shows that estrogen, specifically estradiol, actually causes breast cancer and prostate cancer.

Men also make estrogen and estradiol, but in smaller amounts than women. Males also produce progesterone, although about half as much as females do.

The male hormone, testosterone, is antagonist to estradiol. Testosterone prevents estradiol from causing prostate cancer by destroying the prostate cancer cells it stimulates.

There appears to be some confusion about the role of testosterone. Testosterone does not cause prostate cancer. If this were the case, young males would be stricken with cancer as they have the highest testosterone levels.

Embryologically, the prostate is similar to the female uterus. When we think of “hormone imbalance, we tend to think of women. However, hormone balance in the male is just as important as in females. In the males, the prostate gland is affected by hormone imbalance.

How does hormone balance work in the male? Per Dr. Mercola’s explanation:

“As a male ages, his progesterone level decreases just like it does in women. In women this decease occurs about the age of 35 and men about ten years later. When progesterone levels decrease, the male’s 5 alpha reductase converts the testosterone to di-hydro testosterone which is useless at removing the prostate cancer cells that estradiol stimulates. Estradiol also stimulates the enlargement of the prostate. This allows the prostate gland to swell and enlarge and in many cases transform into prostate cancer.”

More simply stated, estradiol “turns on the cancer gene” and progesterone “turns on the anti-cancer gene.” In women, studies have demonstrated that breast cancer cells do not multiply when women are on progesterone.

Dr. Mercola further states, “I now believe that nearly all men should seriously consider natural progesterone replacement sometime in their 40s, or even earlier if they have a family history of prostate cancer. There is also a reasonable likelihood that this will decrease male balding. So, all the men who wish to retain what is left of their hair, I would start this immediately.”

My personal thought is that both men and women would be well served to have hormone testing prior to use of any hormones. In order to hit a target, one has to see what they are aiming for.

Progesterone can be purchased over the counter. It is important to recognize that progesterone is a hormone, and its indiscriminate use is not a wise or safe choice.

Home hormone test kits can be obtained from compounding pharmacies, some doctors’ offices, and various internet sites. The kits do not require a doctor’s order. I have found the most cost effec tive hormone test kit can be purchased from www.canaryclub.org.

For women, the usual dose of natural progesterone is about 20 mg per day from day 12 to 26. The dose of natural progesterone for men is about half that, or 10 to 12 mg per day. Unlike women, men can use progesterone without taking any days off.

Even though the above are customary doses, care needs to be individualized since people vary in the amount their body requires for effective treatment. Seek the advice of a health care practitioner knowledgeable in the field of bioidentical hormone balance.

I invite you to share the information in this article with all the men you know… and the women who love them.

Why do some females recover from brain injury much faster and more completely than males?

It seems the answer may be related to the neuroprotective effects of the hormone progesterone.

The benefits of maintaining a normal level of bioidentical progesterone (identical to what the body produces) is now well established in the care and treatment of women suffering the effects of hormone imbalance, most commonly seen around the time of menopause.

The research of neuroscientist Dr. Donald G. Stein and his colleagues provides a new dimension for the benefits of progesterone. Their research demonstrates  that neuroprotective effects of progesterone improve outcomes and reduce mortality following brain injuries.

Steins’ findings could also have far-reaching implications for the treatment of other neurological conditions such as central nervous system damage, stroke, spinal cord injury, and multiple sclerosis.

Per www.mercola.com in the December 26 issue:

“Progesterone provides powerful neuroprotection to the fetus, particularly in late pregnancy, when it helps suppress neuronal excitation that can damage delicate new brain tissue. Dr. Stein and his colleagues have found that in addition to protecting the fetal brain, progesterone also protects and heals injured brain tissue.”

The most significant progesterone effect appears to be the reduction in cerebral edema, or swelling of the brain.

Some additional benefits appear to be an anti-inflammatory response, the draining of excess fluid from the region of the injury, the prevention of the death of injured brain cells, protective and regenerative effects on myelin, the protective coating on nerve fibers, and decreasing the likelihood of seizures that accompany brain injury.

The bottom line of Stein’s research? Progesterone, the hormone responsible for the  neuroprotection of the fetus as well as the natural treatment for menopausal issues, has now been identified to potentially positively impact brain injury recovery. This finding opens the door to research potential benefits for other neurological conditions.

The effects of this remarkable hormone continue to get better and better.

I have scanned through many articles this week on Vitamin D. The following all-inclusive article is among the very best I found: http://blogs.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2002/02/23/vitamin-d-deficiency-part-one.aspx.

For your own health, please read the entire 7 page article. Here are some snipits to give you a flavor of the significance of the article:

1)      Before considering supplementation with vitamin D, it would be wise to have your vitamin D level tested.

2)      Don’t Be Fooled — Order the Correct Test. There are two vitamin D tests — 1,25(OH)D and 25(OH)D. 25(OH)D is the better marker of overall D status. It is this marker that is most strongly associated with overall health. The correct test is 25(OH)D, also called 25-hydroxyvitamin D.

3)      Recommended ranges:

4)      Make Sure Your Lab Uses the Correct Assay. There are a number of different companies that have FDA approval to perform vitamin D testing, but the gold standard is DiaSorin. It’s imperative that you find out if your lab has performed the appropriate recalibrations against DiaSorin’s assays. Otherwise your vitamin D levels may be vastly overstated, in some cases by as much as 40 percent, meaning you may get the green light that your levels are fine, when in fact you are deficient, or perhaps even dangerously low.

5)      Vitamin D is a fat soluble vitamin and can be quite toxic. Once you have vitamin D toxicity you can’t easily turn it around. While vitamin D has enormous potential for improving your health, it has significant potential to worsen it, if you use it improperly.

6)      Overdosing on vitamin D from sun exposure however, is highly unlikely as your body has a built-in “failsafe” feedback loop, which will tend to shut down production when your levels are healthy.

7)      Sunlight Is Your Ideal Source of Vitamin D. Vitamin D from sunlight acts as a pro-hormone, rapidly converting into 25-hydroxyvitamin D, or vitamin D3.

8)      Window glass allows only 5 percent of the UV-B light range that produces vitamin D to get through your home or car. Sunblock can block UV-B penetration drastically or entirely.

9)      An equilibrium occurs in white skin within 20 min of ultraviolet exposure, at which point further increases in vitamin D is not possible, because the ultraviolet light will actually start to degrade the vitamin D.

10)   It can take 3-6 times longer for darker pigmented skin to reach the equilibrium concentration of skin pre vitamin D.

11)   Major Caution: Avoid Sunburn. It is important to stress that you should never get burned and should only implement sun exposure very gradually. While we all benefit from regular exposure to the sun, it is important to recognize that you should always limit your exposure so that you avoid getting burnt. Sunburn has been clearly related to an increased risk of skin cancer.

12)   Interestingly, if you avoid getting sunburned yet have regular sun exposure, you will have a decreased risk of the dangerous form of skin cancer, melanoma. Optimizing your sun exposure in this way also reduces your risk of 16 other common cancers!

13)   It is important to know that if you have sub-tropical or summer sun exposure on your skin it will be wise to avoid any oral vitamin D supplementation unless you regularly monitor your vitamin D blood level.

14)   What to Do in the Winter:  An alternative would be to frequent tanning salons that use safe equipment.

15)   If relocating in the winter or using tanning beds does not appeal to you, then you will want to consider an oral form of vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol). You should stay away from the synthetic D2 as it has been shown to be toxic at the higher dose ranges. 

16)   There are additional reasons why vitamin D2 has a greater potential for harm. First, vitamin D binding protein has a weaker affinity for the vitamin D2 metabolites than vitamin D3. Second, unique, biologically active metabolites are produced in your body from vitamin D2, but there are no analogous metabolites derived from vitamin D3.

Continuing with the Vitamin D series of articles this week, the following warning by Dr. Mercola really got my attention:

“By far, the vast majority of people reading this right now have far too little vitamin D in their blood. Over 85 percent of people have levels below 32, which is considered deficient. In my practice we don’t like to see patient levels go much above 50, but 55 is probably a perfect level and anything above 60 is likely to be toxic. This study found cancer started to occur at 80. So, be smart and get your vitamin D level tested.

It is important to understand that it is not easy to get high levels of vitamin D without taking very large doses for long periods of time.

Researchers found that the normal levels (40-60) of vitamin D are linked with the lowest risk of prostate cancer.”

Many places are popping up, offering Vitamin D testing. Certainly you can obtain the testing through Dr. Mercola.

In March of this year I had my very first Vitamin D testing done. I obtained my home test kit from www.canaryclub.org. In researching overall hormone kit costs, I found that site to be the most reasonable in terms of cost compared to any other I found.

More info later, gotta run for now!  :  )

A scan of numerous articles found on Dr. Mercola’s web site indicate the following concerns regarding Vitamin D supplementation:

• Many of the Vitamin D supplements are synthetic, which should be avoided.

• The most important thing to keep in mind if you opt for oral supplementation is that you only want to supplement with natural vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol), which is human vitamin D. Do NOT use the synthetic and highly inferior vitamin D2.

• Vitamin D2 is more expensive than the real vitamin D3.

• More importantly, Vitamin D2 does not work nearly as well as D3 and can actually block the real D3 from working properly.

• Bottom line: ONLY use vitamin D3 when supplementing.

• For those in the winter with no or very limited exposure to sunshine, 4,000-5,000 units per day is appropriate for most adults. If you are very heavy, you may need to double that dose, and for children the dose can be half that.

• The key is to make sure you monitor your vitamin D levels by blood testing, to make sure your levels are therapeutic and not toxic.

• Excess vitamin D will cause, not prevent, osteoporosis and hardening of your arteries.

• If a person totally avoided the sun and regularly took two standard multivitamins a day for several years, each containing 400 IU of ergocalciferol, as his sole source of Vitamin D, he would inexorably become vitamin D deficient. Two standard multivitamins contain 800 IU of ergocalciferol, equivalent to about 500 IU of cholecalciferol.

• If you totally avoided the sun, as many dermatologists routinely recommend, one would have enough vitamin D to prevent rickets and osteomalacia but would still have a suboptimal 25-hydroxyvitamin D and thus be at risk to develop numerous other chronic inflammatory diseases, not just osteoporosis.

• The multivitamin that Dr. Mercola sells has no Vitamin D in it. The reason he made it that way is that “the dose of vitamin D is simply too variable to be accurate for a large group of people. Some may need 10,000 units of vitamin D a day and even up to 50,000 units a day for short periods, while others may do fine on none if they have adequate sun exposure.”

• Most people get 90 percent of their vitamin D requirement from very casual sun exposure, like the sunlight that strikes the uncovered and unsunblocked face, arms and hands when you walk to your car.

• Vitamin D is an oil-soluble vitamin and in large doses may be toxic.

• Studies in the literature indicate that extremely high levels of vitamin D actually cause prostate cancer, just as very low levels can.

• Vitamin D can have a reverse effect, and when one has very high levels, it will actually cause osteoporosis, heart disease, autoimmune problems and cancers.

• Researchers conducting a study on men from Norway, Finland and Sweden found that both low and high vitamin D serum concentrations are linked with an increased risk of prostate cancer.

• Some of the health problems associated with vitamin D deficiency include certain types of cancer, high blood pressure, depression and immune system disorders.

 In tomorrow’s article, I will review recommendations regarding Vitamin D testing.

I have been intrigued by the headline I have been seeing these past couple of weeks in the www.mercola.com newsletter: “What You Don’t Know about Vitamin D Can Hurt You… 
Although vitamin D is essential to promote your healthy immune system, heart, and many other body organs and systems, too much or too little can have serious unintended health consequences…”

I made a mental note to poke around in this topic a little bit when I got the time. Today I decided to take the time….

First a little review about why Vitamin D is important – and why there is such a flurry of info surrounding it today.

The Role of Vitamin D in Your Body

The following information is provided by Dr. Mercola:

“There are only 30,000 genes in your body and vitamin D has been shown to influence over 2,000 of them. That is one of the primary reasons it influences so many diseases, from cancer and autism to heart disease and rheumatoid arthritis.

Vitamin D has a protective effect against cancer in several ways, including:

• Increasing the self-destruction of mutated cells (which, if allowed to replicate, could lead to cancer)
• Reducing the spread and reproduction of cancer cells
• Causing cells to become differentiated (cancer cells often lack differentiation)
• Reducing the growth of new blood vessels from pre-existing ones, which is a step in the transition of dormant tumors turning cancerous

Beyond cancer, the researchers pointed out that increasing levels of vitamin D3 could prevent diseases that claim nearly 1 million lives throughout the world each year! And other studies showed that you can decrease your risk of cancer by MORE THAN HALF simply by optimizing your vitamin D levels with sun exposure.

Vitamin D even fights colds and the flu, as it regulates the expression of genes that influence your immune system to attack and destroy bacteria and viruses. In fact, it is very rare for someone with optimized vitamin D levels to come down with the flu.”

The problem is your body doesn’t produce vitamin D on its own. You need exposure to ultraviolet rays to stimulate the production of vitamin D in your body.

Despite all the Vitamin D supplements that are available on the market, the literature is pretty consistent that the sun is the best source of Vitamin D. Dr. Mercola explains: “Exposure to sunlight supplies us the majority of our vitamin D our bodies require. Darkly pigmented skinned people are the exception because they require 10 to 15 times exposure to the sun to get the same effect as lighter skinned people.”

When the sun is not accessible, Dr. Mercola promotes the use of a tanning bed system that provides the same beneficial UVA and UVB rays that you’d get from the sun, but with the potentially harmful emissions eliminated. Visit his web site to see the tanning bed that he recommends and sells.

The least desirable way to obtain Vitamin D is via supplements. Tomorrow’s article will focus on the problems associated with Vitamin D supplementation.