One day, some time after publishing my book about women’s hor­mones, Stop the Needless Suffering, I looked around in my own per­sonal life and in the world around me and thought, “What about men?”

What I saw was the fatigue, the hollowness, the secrecy behind sex­ual dysfunction, and the too frequent diagnosis of prostate cancer in my friends. I then launched into the study of male hormones. What I found is that men are suffering too—also needlessly.

It was distressing to see that hormone changes in men, responsible for altered physical, sexual, and cognitive functions, are universally ac­cepted as a natural part of “growing old.” This is absolutely not the case, and it is high time to debunk that myth.

A healthy lifestyle and a natural restoration of hormone balance can change all that. A man’s sex life can improve with age, he can protect his heart, bones, and other body organs, and he doesn’t have to feel depressed or walk around with enlarged breasts or a “beer belly.” I made a mental note to myself, “One day I’ll write a book about men’s hormones.”

Initially, I was totally focused on why, when, and how hormone imbalance occurs in men—from a physical standpoint. Then one day I heard an advertisement for a free online dating membership, and cu­riosity got the best of me. Being single, I signed up for a trial mem­bership. What I learned after reading countless profiles of what mid­dle-aged men are searching for in a relationship has forever changed my life. Read this book, and then give it to the woman who loves you. What you both will learn will change your lives too.

Mid-life men can and do experience physical and hormonal changes—which can be corrected. What I uncovered is another huge component that isn’t openly addressed. This component may be even more signifi­cant than the physical element. Critical to a man’s well being and vi­brancy is an emotional component.

It was at this point of discovery that I decided it was time to write the men’s “hormone” book. There is simply no point in living a life of quiet desperation. Men with Hormones and the Women Who Love Them will openly address both the physical and the emotional compo­nents—in the same book.

As you read the book, you may quickly identify yourself as one of the thousands of men who are suffering in silence. There are nearly six thousand baby boomer men turning fifty every day. A boomer male turns sixty about every fifteen seconds. Here’s the good news—men, you absolutely can return to your natural vibrant, healthy, and sexy state.

Men with Hormones and the Women Who Love Them is designed to be a simple, easy-to-read guide to help you to 1) see that you are not alone, 2) become aware that there is a reason behind the feelings and body changes that you are experiencing, 3) encourage you to seek out a qualified health care practitioner to assess and treat any hormone imbalance, and 4) encourage you to start today implementing a fun, practical solution to transform your life.

Isn’t it about time you get back to feeling sexy, vibrant, and alive?

My mission is to stop the needless suffering . . . one man and one woman at a time. Once you read the information in this book, please reach out to help someone else. We are all on this journey together. Let us empower each other to live a full, blissful, joyful, balanced life.

Outrageous! The KV Pharmaceutical Company has recently been given the right to replace a $10 high risk pregnancy progesterone treatment with a $1500 synthetic injection, a total cost of $30,000 by the end of the pregnancy.

See the entire article in today’s edition of mercola.com, “How to Turn a $10 Treatment into a $30,000 Drug Money-Maker.”

The bottom line is as Dr. Mercola explains: “Using natural progesterone costs 99% less than its clearly inferior synthetic option. If you do need it, using natural progesterone is not only less expensive, it is far more effective and has less side effects.”

At a time when our American public is struggling desperately to cope with exorbitant insurance fees and medical bills, WHY does the FDA allow such a travesty. . .when an inexpensive, effective, natural treatment has been in place for 50 years?

I encourage you to open the article and forward it to your congressmen. Let our voices be heard!

In preparation for my forthcoming book about male hormones, I reviewed Dr. John Lee’s Hormone Balance for Men, What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Prostate Health and Natural Hormone Supplementation.

The following key points are taken from his book:

Hormone imbalance in men, just as in women, can create ill health and disease.

Estradiol (estrogen) dominance and testosterone depletion are important factors in causing prostate cancer.

The metabolic actions of the prostate gland are determined in large part by hormones, especially estradiol, progesterone, and testosterone, which are made by the testes. These in turn are mediated by pituitary hormones, especially FSH and LH, just as ovarian function in women is.

Both the prostate gland and the uterus develop from the same embryonic cells, and both respond to the same hormones – estradiol, progesterone, and testosterone.

It is estimated that benign prostatic disease (BPH) affects over 40 percent of American men by age 50 and over 70 percent by age 60.

In the prostate (and in hair follicles) is an enzyme (5-alpha-reductase) that converts testosterone into dihyrotestosterone (DHT).

Higher DHT levels in hair follicles is a primary cause of male pattern baldness.

DHT stimulates the proliferation of prostate cells. It is speculated that elevated DHT is the cause of prostate cancer.

Inhibiting the conversion of testosterone to DHT is often a treatment goal for men with BPH. While there are pharmaceutical drugs to inhibit 5-alpha-reductase, it is better to use saw palmetto berry extract or progesterone, both of which inhibit 5-alpha-reductase and are safer than the pharmaceutical drugs.

Prostate cancer occurs more often in men with low testosterone than in men with higher testosterone levels.

How does conventional medicine ignore the fact that, at the age of highest testosterone levels (age 18 or so), prostate cancer rarely, if ever, occurs?

Prostate cancer occurs because testosterone and progesterone levels fall with age and estradiol levels rise, leading to estrogen dominance in older men.

Estrogen levels are particularly apt to increase in aging men who are overweight because fat cells convert testosterone and adrostenedione into estrogens, which stimulates prostate growth.  Thus, the more fat a man carries on his body, the higher his estradiol levels are likely to be.

Even if a middle-aged man’s testosterone levels are normal, if his estradiol levels are high he can have estrogen dominance symptoms such as weight gain, larger-than-normal breasts, gall bladder problems, anxiety and insomnia, and prostate enlargement that leads to urinary problems.

All disease comes from metabolic imbalance. When the underlying metabolic imbalance is corrected, the disease goes away.

Hormonally, the best protection involves good physiologic levels of both progesterone and testosterone.

Stress increases cortisol levels, which make the body somewhat resistant to using its other hormones.

Estrogen dominance is responsible for more cancers of the breast, prostate, and endometrium than any other cause. Estrogen dominance has many causes, including insulin resistance, stress, and early (especially embryonic, during early life in the womb) exposure to petrochemical toxins (called xenoestogens) such as pesticides and toxic chemicals that out-gas from certain plastics and adhesives (such as carpeting).

Progesterone maintains testosterone, which is a direct antagonist of estradiol.

Aging men developing breasts is a clear sign of estrogen dominance, a sign that the man is low in progesterone and testosterone.

A man’s prostate gland is very sensitive to the hormonal changes that occur around middle age (e.g., declining testosterone and progesterone, rising estrogen).

From about age 40 on, testosterone levels drop at the rate of about one percent per year.

Although testosterone does play a role in male libido, it isn’t just a sex hormone. Maintaining sufficient levels of the hormone can lower LDL cholesterol, triglycerides and fibrinogen, raise HDL cholesterol and human growth hormone (HGH), lower blood pressure, normalize abnormal heart rhythms and angina, improve insulin resistance, build muscle and decrease body fat.

Testosterone deficiency is associated with a higher risk of heart disease and depression. Testosterone also builds bone, improves wound healing, improves oxygen uptake, and improves immune system function.

Testosterone is a direct antagonist to estradiol. Unopposed estrogen can be lethal. Progesterone is necessary to prevent potent undesirable effects of unopposed estradiol. Progesterone helps maintain normal testosterone levels and inhibits production of DHT.

Hormone Levels and Dosing: the goal is to restablish healthy ratios between estradiol, progesterone, and testosterone.

Saliva testing, which measures bio-active hormones, is recommended over serum testing. (Note: hormone test kits for men are available without prescription on www.CanaryClub.org).

I men over 60, typical saliva hormone levels are:

• Estradiol at 2.0 – 2.7 pg/ml
• Progesterone at 20 – 30 pg/ml
• Testosterone at 20 – 30 pg/ml

(Testosterone levels in men aged 30 – 35 are 200 – 300 pg/ml. This level of testosterone does not hurt these 30 to 35 year old men, and it will not hurt men who are 65 to 70 years old.)

The ratio of saliva testosterone to estradiol should be about 200 to 300 to 1.

General dosages for men deficient in progesterone and/or testosterone:

• Transdermal progesterone. . . . ..5 to 8 mg/day
• Transdermal testosterone. . . . .1 to 2 mg/day

Recently I met a beautiful woman in perimenopause. This woman, whose true nature is one of vibrance and vitality, now appears worn, weary, and fatigued. She has been suffering from heavy menstrual bleeding for so long, that now she is anemic, which further contributes to her exhausted state.

There can be several reasons for heavy menstrual bleeding, termed “menorrhagia.” For someone in perimenopause, a common cause is hormone imbalance.

Curious to see what the internet had to say about heavy menstrual bleeding, I scanned through several articles. It is fascinating that most all the sources list “fibroid tumors” as a cause. Why do fibroid tumors develop in the first place? Hormone imbalance.

I, like thousands of other women around the world, suffered a needless hysterectomy because of fibroid tumors. I was a nurse for 30 years, and I had never heard of natural hormone balancing. The medical community doesn’t talk about it. It is not taught in medical schools. I had no idea that simply balancing my hormones earlier in my life would have prevented that surgery.

Reading further, I was appalled at the commonly recommended “treatment” for heavy menstrual bleeding: birth control pills and endometrial ablation.

Birth control pills contain synthetic hormones, which put a woman at risk for developing breast cancer and stroke, to name a couple. Read the leaflet that accompanies the drug to find the complete list.

Edometrial ablation is a procedure that destroys (ablates) the uterine lining, called the “endometrium.”

Think about it. Why would destroying the inner lining of our uterus be a solution? Is the lining of the uterus the cause of the bleeding? No. The root cause is hormonal imbalance. Removing the part of the uterus that bleeds does not fix the original problem. The body is still in hormonal imbalance. Sooner or later, something else will pop up.

Dr. Schwarzbein tells it all in her statement: “A woman’s death certificate doesn’t say she died of hormone imbalance. A woman’s death certificate says she died of (fill in the blank) degenerative disease.”

How do you get to the root cause of the bleeding? My recommendation is to go to www.canaryclub.org and purchase a hormone home test kit. You do not need a doctor’s order to purchase a kit. This site is one of the least expensive sites I have found, and the laboratory which performs the tests is the highly acclaimed ZRT Laboratory.

Since the thyroid and adrenal glands work in tandem with the sex hormones, I recommend the kit that tests all the sex hormones, the thyroid, the adrenals, and your Vitamin D level. Your test results will be sent directly to you. It is then important to locate a health care practitioner who is knowledgeable about hormones and bioidentical hormone balancing.

If the source of your bleeding is a fibroid tumor(s), please read the recommended therapies listed by Dr. Christiane Northrup in her book The Wisdom of Menopause.

To obtain an easy-to-understand yet indepth explanation of how you get out of balance and what you can do about it, please read my book Stop the Needless Suffering, The Complete Woman’s Guide to Balancing Your Hormones Naturally at www.RosieBrownRN.com.

Vibrance and vitality? They are yours, regardless of your age. You simply need to educate yourself about hormone imbalance. The rest will be history. Allow yourself the opportunity to see how easy it is to feel better. You deserve it.

One week prior to attending the national It Works Convention, I was engaged in a passionate discussion with Dr. Whitney Gabhart, ND, about the need to find a way to give a woman bioidentical hormones in the same amount as produced by the body. That amount varies by hormone, and it varies by day in the woman’s cycle.

(By “bioidential” I mean the same molecular structure as the body’s hormones – not the synthetic hormones that do not follow the body’s normal molecular structure.)

For example, in the first half of a woman’s cycle, estrogen is higher than progesterone. However, in the 2^nd half of the cycle, following ovulation, progesterone is higher and estrogen is lower.

What is the normal protocol? Testing a woman’s hormone levels and then administering hormones to bring the low level hormones back up to their normal level. The problem is, no one has yet to find a way to administer the exact amount that varies according to the day of the month in the woman’s cycle. That is, until now!

Imagine my stunned excitement when just 6 days later I sat in the convention hall and heard directly from the master’s mouth, Dr. Bent Formby,  explain that just such a product was being released – first to market.

At break, I ran outside and sat on the steps calling Dr. Gabhart, blurting out what I had just heard. She immediately became excited because she has studied and followed Dr. Formby’s work for years. Dr. Formby has three PhDs, Bio Chemistry, Bio Physics, and Molecular Biology, and is the author of Sex, Lies, and Menopause and Lights Out.

The newly released product is called Estro Rhythm. It consists of 28 small individualized packets of bioidentical topical cream that mirror the exact requirements for each day of a woman’s cycle. The topical product is accompanied by an oral supplement.

The ingredients in the Estro Rhythm:

Estro-Rhythm Cream

Water, Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride, Ricinus Communis (Caster Seed) Oil, Progesterone, Pentylene Glycol, Hydrogenated Lecithin, Butyrospermum Parkii (Shea Butter) Glycerin, Squalone, Phyto Estrogen, Cermamide 3

Estro-Rhythum Tablets

Vitamin D (as cholecalciferol)    100 IU

Calcium (as calcium carbonate) 250mg

Wild Ram Root Extract  50mg

Kudzu Root Extract  50mg

Black Cohosh root extract (CimiPure)   40mg

Chasteberry Extract  15mg

Dong Quai Root Extract  15mg

Other ingredients:

Microcrystalline cellurose, stearic acid, croscamellose sodium, magnesium stearate, silica and film coating (hydoxypropyl methylcellouse, titanium dioxide, glycerine, caramine and maltodextrin

Finally a product that is both bioidentical and mirrors the body’s normal cycle! It does not require a prescription.

Finally a product to help women stop the needless suffering.

If you suffer from hormone imbalance symptoms you are not alone:

60 million women are in transition.

4,000 women each day hit transition in the USA alone.

This year 74 million will be in menopause.

78% of women in the USA are going through menopause.

Women suffering needlessly? You do not have to be one of them.

To learn more about this product and the company, visit my web site: www.RosieBrown.ItWorks.net and feel free to contact me at rosiebrown@myarbonne.com or (812) 430-5541.

“Ouch!” to this comment. . .”The death certificate never says ‘Hormone Imbalance due to Menopause.’ It says a degenerative disease. It can take years (for sex hormone imbalance) to become evident, often not noticed till it’s too late.”

Thus are the words of Dr. Diana Schwarzbein, MD, in her three part webinar series titled “Menopause Power.” See http://www.schwarzbeinprinciple.com/pgs/home.html.

Per Dr. Schwarzbein: “You can live without them (the sex hormones), but their absence takes its toll over time. However, if you already have damage or compromise to a major hormone system, or have a degenerative disease of aging, losing the sex hormone system can cause immediate harmful consequences.”

When do you begin to manage menopause? Throughout your lifetime by managing your nutrition and lifestyle habits.

Inadequate lifestyle habits lead to metabolic imbalance. Proper nutrition, avoidance/management of stress, avoidance of environmental/ personal care product toxins, and proper exercise all contribute to healthy metabolism.

In my book, Stop the Needless Suffering, you will find tips and suggestions for each of these categories.

What can you do, starting today, to protect yourself from needless degenerative disease and suffering?

Just pick one or two things, and stick with them for 30 days till they become habit. Your metabolism, body organs, and body cells will be so thankful you did.

Hormones are chemicals that tell your cells what to do. According to Dr. Diana Schwarzbein’s program, hormones tell your cells to “rebuild” or to “use.”

The tricky part is you cannot build or use without hormones. Therefore, metabolism is regulated by hormones. An example of “using” hormones are adrenalin and cortisol, the very hormones that are secreted when you are stressed.

According to Dr. Schwarzbein, “As long as all hormone systems are intact, it is your day to day habits that determine which hormones you secrete and when you secrete them.”

Habits that regulate your hormones include:

1)      Nutrition

2)      Stress and sleep

3)      Ingestion and toxins

4)      Exercise

Therefore, your metabolism is determined by your daily habits. As Dr. Schwarzbein teaches, “You determine your own fate.”

The Schwarzbein Principle states:

Degenerative diseases of aging are not genetic; they are acquired due to metabolic imbalances.

Daily lifestyle habits, not genetics, determine metabolic balance and, therefore, you have a high degree of control over your risks for the degenerative diseases of aging.

The exception is when a hormone system is missing. Examples where the hormone is missing include:

Insulin in Type I Diabetes

Thyroid Hormone in Hypothyroidism

Adrenal Gland Hormones in Addison’s Disease

Sex Hormones in Menopause

The Schwarzbein Principle Program includes the following steps:

Step One: Healthy Nutrition

Step Two: Stress Management Emphasizing Sleep

Step Three: Reduce or Completely Avoid Toxins

Step Four: Appropriate Amounts & Types of Exercise

Step Five: Restore Hormone Balance

When you look at steps 1 – 4, it creates convincing evidence that you do control your own fate.

For more information, please go to http://www.schwarzbeinprinciple.com/pgs/home.html.

“Knowing your body gives you the power to change it, maintain it, decorate it and strengthen it.”

—  Dr. Oz and Dr. Michael Roizen

There are many enlightened physicians who are out there helping to educate women on how to maintain a healthy mind, body, and spirit before and after menopause, and Diana Schwarzbein M.D. is one of them.

Dr. Schwarzbein talks about the transfer of power in her three part webinar series “Menopause Power.” Her goal is to enable you to be a more active participant in making decisions about your health so that you can choose the path that is right for you. See http://www.schwarzbeinprinciple.com/pgs/home.html

Why do you need the power? Dr. Schwarzbein emphasizes:

1)      Menopause is the most widely mismanaged health problem in America.

2)      Menopause increases your risk for the degenerative diseases of aging.

What are the degenerative diseases of aging?

Heart disease

Cancer

Type 2 Diabetes

Metabolic Syndrome

Alzheimer’s Dementia

Osteoporosis

Stroke

Hypertension

The “Schwarzbein Principle” is this: “Degenerative Diseases of aging are not genetic; they are acquired due to metabolic unbalances.”

Schwarzbein, who says that metabolism is “the great balancing act,” explaines metabolism as follows:

Metabolism is the set of chemical reactions that happen in living organisms to maintain life – so the organism can grow, reproduce, maintain its cellular structures, and respond to its environment.

In simplest terms, these chemical reactions are of two types – building and using.

Metabolic balance means the body is building at the same rate as it is using.

Metabolic imbalance exists when the building and the using are not balanced. Metabolic imbalance is caused by:

Aging

The loss of any hormone system

Genetic Factors

Lifestyle: stress, being busy, lack of sleep, diet, sugar, exercise, etc.

How does metabolic imbalance relate to menopause? Menopause causes metabolic imbalance. Per Dr. Schwarzbein, the loss of any hormone system causes metabolic imbalance. Metabolic imbalance causes degenerative diseases of aging. Menopause is the permanent loss of your sex hormone system. Therefore, menopause causes degenerative diseases of aging – unless the sex hormone system is restored.

Exogenous factors also cause metabolic imbalance:

Poor nutrition

Stress, including being busy and inefficient sleep

Toxins – alcohol, nicotine, sugar, excessive caffeine, and exposure to environmental chemicals

Improper exercise – too much or too little

How does genetics play a part? Dr. Schwarzbein explains:

Each of us has genetic predispositions for degenerative diseases of aging.

Genetic predisposition is really which of your systems is going to fail first due to metabolic imbalance caused by aging, hormone loss, and poor lifestyle habits.

Knowledge is power. . . please refer to last week’s articles where I explain what Dr. Schwarzbein has to say about the above exogenous factors.

“Menopause is the most widely mismanaged health problem in America.”

I couldn’t agree more with Dr. Diana Schwarzbein’s statement in her Menopause Power Webinar Series. It is ridiculous how women (and men) are suffering needlessly.

Dr. Schwarzbein disagrees with the current misguided standard of care, and she is on a mission to educate women. . .who can then help educate their health care providers.

Here are some points from her series that you might want to take note of:

Menopause is the permanent loss of the sex hormone system.

Improperly treating or ignoring menopause increases a woman’s risk for diseases such as heart attacks, osteoporosis, cancer, and diabetes.

Treat the cause of menopause, not just treat the symptoms.

Restore the missing hormone(s) using bioidentical hormones in a bioequivalent delivery system.

Insulin is restored in type I diabetes. Thyroid hormone is restored in hypothyroidism. Estradiol and progesterone, the sex hormones lost in menopause, need to be restored when treating menopause.

The current misguided standard of care is this: Use hormone drugs in the lowest dosages for the shortest amount of time to treat the symptoms.

The current standard of care fails to:

Acknowledge that menopause is a lifelong condition.

Recognize that menopause increases the risk for degenerative diseases of aging.

Treat both the cause and the symptoms and restore hormone balance.

The principles of Hormone Balancing Therapy (HBTx ^TM) include:

Restore hormone balance with bioidentical hormones.

Give in a bioequivalent manner.

Combine with appropriate lifestyle changes.

Key terms of HBTx:

Bioidentical Hormones – have the same chemical structure as the hormone being restored; they are different than hormone drugs because these drugs do not share the same chemical structure as the hormones they replace.

Bioequivalent Manner – mimics the way the body formerly produced and delivered the missing hormones.

Subsequent articles will cover more information HBTx and the meaning of bioidentical and bioequivalent. To obtain more information on Dr. Schwarzbein’s webinar series, go to http://www.schwarzbeinprinciple.com/pgs/home.html.

Today’s article will focus on Dr. Diana Schwarzbein’s “Step Three” in The Schwarzbein Principle Program: Reduce or Completely Avoid Toxins.

Today’s article is the fourth in a series this week designed to review key concepts discussed by Dr. Schwarzbein in her wonderful “Menopause Power Webinar Series.” The following are notes that I took from her seminar:

All toxic chemicals break you down. (Recall from the previous articles that the goal is to build/rebuild your body, not break it down.)

The following are listed as toxic chemicals: alcohol, tobacco smoke, sugar, artificial sugars, caffeine, and medications.

If you have damaged metabolism, you are likely to use alcohol to self medicate.

Beer contains gluten, a protein found in wheat grain that is hard to digest.

Artificial sugars are more harmful than sugar. The body doesn’t know what to do with artificial sugar – it therefore causes an anti-inflammatory reaction.

Artificial sugars increase the risk for diabetes and obesity.

If you are in adrenal burnout, you actually need caffeine. If you can’t stop caffeine for a day, you have adrenal burnout. When a patient says this to me, that makes the diagnosis right there.

Nobody needs to be on a statin drug for elevated cholesterol, especially a menopausal woman.

Thiazide diuretics increase the triglycerides and blood sugar levels, exacerbating diabetes.

Medications are toxins.

Dr. Schwarzbein repeatedly emphasizes that the cause of menopause must be treated – you cannot just treat the symptoms.

In tomorrow’s article, I will review Dr. Schwarzbein’s theory on hormone balancing therapy, which she has coined HBTx.