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.

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.

“The Menopause Power Webinar Series” by Diana Schwarzbein, M.D., is a true testimony of her stated mission to educate women. Listen to her series, and your life will change for the better.

Schwarzbein is the author of The Schwarzbein Principle and The Schwarzbein Principle II – The Transition.

Schwarzbein’s endocrinology perspective is a follows:

1. Menopause is the permanent loss of the sex hormone system.
2. Improperly treating or ignoring menopause increases a woman’s risk for diseases such as heart attacks, osteoporosis, cancer, and diabetes.
3. Treat the cause of menopause, not just treat the symptoms.
4. Menopause can be effectively and safely treated with Hormone Balancing Therapy^TM (HBTx).

The Schwarzbein Principle Program consists of:

Step One: Healthy Nutrition

Step Two: Stress Management Emphasizing Sleep

Step Three: Reduce or Completely Avoid Toxins

Step Four: Appropriate Amounts and Types of Exercise

Step Five: Restore Hormone Balance – HBTx

Last week’s articles discussed stress, which is demonstrated by both high and low cortisol. See http://rosiebrownrn.com/low-cortisol-also-indicates-stress/ and http://rosiebrownrn.com/this-anti-stress-formula-works/.

Schwarzbein’s Stress Management Program emphasizes:

1. Sleep—goal is 8 to 10 hours of uninterrupted sleep (not even to get up once to go to the bathroom).
2. Slow down your busy life.
3. Learn how to handle stresses better.

Notes that I took during this section of her webinar included:

• Emphasize sleep! Sleep is the time that your body rebuilds itself. Aging is all about allowing the body to rebuild.
• Sleep allows your body to lower adrenalin and cortisol.
• Melatonin is a hormone. Don’t take melatonin. The levels in the melatonin purchased over the counter are too high and has to be processed through the liver.
• Melatonin will down-regulate your body’s own production of serotonin. It can cause depression if you take it too long.
• Get your body to produce melatonin. If you must supplement with something, try tryptophan or 5-Hydroxytryptophan (5-HTP), which is a precursor to serotonin, which then converts to melatonin.
• The number one reason for insomnia in menopausal women is estradiol/progesterone balance.
• Just being busy is a stress and will break you down.
• Honor aging—slow down. Slow down the “using” process.

In the next upcoming articles, I will continue to share Dr. Schwarzbein’s gems of wisdom from her webinar series. We will all have a more wonderful life if we tune into the information she is teaching us.

Following yesterday’s article, http://rosiebrownrn.com/this-anti-stress-formula-works/, a friend wrote to me:

“Wow—you are right. . . I can see why you are excited. . . what if your Cortisol is low?????”

Low cortisol may signify that the adrenal glands are exhausted, again stress being the major player.

Per Dr. David Zava:

Stress is what both high and low cortisol have in common. Stress hits the adrenals and, in response, they either collapse in fatigue and do not produce enough stress hormones, resulting in a functional thyroid deficiency, or they can go in the other direction where they’re pouring out cortisol and it’s causing overall hormone resistance, including thyroid resistance. Either way, low or high cortisol, and thyroid hormones become inefficient.

When cortisol levels are low, caused by adrenal exhaustion, thyroid is less efficient at doing its job of increasing energy and metabolic activity.

David Zava, Ph.D. is a biochemist, breast cancer researcher, published author of multiple professional research papers, and the laboratory director of ZRT Laboratory in Portland, OR, which does state-of-the-art saliva hormone assay and blood spot testing.

This may be a good time to review the interconnectedness of the adrenal glands (which secrete cortisol in response to stress) to all the other body hormones.

Per Dr. Zava:

“A physiologic amount of cortisol—not too high and not too low—is very important for normal thyroid function, which is why a lot of people who have an imbalance in adrenal cortisol levels usually have thyroid-like symptoms but normal thyroid hormone levels.

Too much cortisol, again caused by the adrenal glands’ response to excessive stressors, causes the tissues to no longer respond to the thyroid hormone signal. It creates a condition of thyroid resistance, meaning that thyroid hormone levels can be normal, but tissues fail to respond as efficiently to the thyroid signal. This resistance to the thyroid hormone signal caused by high cortisol is not just restricted to thyroid hormone but applies to all other hormones such as insulin, progesterone, estrogens, testosterone, and even cortisol itself. When cortisol gets too high, you start getting resistance from the hormone receptors, and it requires more hormones to create the same effect. That’s why chronic stress, which elevates cortisol levels, makes you feel so rotten—none of the hormones are allowed to work at optimal levels.

When cortisol is high, the brain also is less sensitive to estrogens. That’s why you can have a postmenopausal woman with reasonable amounts of estrogen, but when you put her under a stressor and her cortisol rises, she’ll get hot flashes, which are a symptom of estrogen deficiency. She really doesn’t have an estrogen deficiency, the brain sensors have just been altered. If you then drive the estrogen levels up with supplementation to treat the hot flashes, she’ll start getting symptoms of estrogen dominance like weight gain in the hips, water retention, and moodiness. And the hot flashes usually don’t go away.

This is why you often can’t effectively treat someone with hormonal imbalance symptoms such as hot flashes by simply adding what seems to be the missing hormone, be it thyroid, progesterone, estrogen or testosterone. If your cortisol is chronically high, you’ll have overall resistance to your hormones.”

The bottom line is this: stress is often the root cause of hormone imbalance. One of the very most effective things you can do to keep your hormones in balance is to manage your stress. For me, one of the best aids I have found is a product called Confianza produced by a company called It Works. It really does work – see my web site www.beautyandfreedom.itworks.net for more information.

What do you do when you just received your results back from the lab, and your morning cortisol is elevated? The explanation on the ZRT Laboratory report read as follows:

“Morning cortisol is high, but levels drop to normal the remainder of the day. The high morning cortisol seen in these test results may indicate a situational stressor (emotional, physical) or low blood sugar level (hypoglycemia), which often occurs in the morning after overnight fasting.

Acute situational stressors (e.g., anxiety over unresolved situations, travel, work-related problems, wedding, holiday season, etc.) can raise cortisol levels, which is a normal response to the stressor.

Symptoms commonly associated with high cortisol include sugar craving, fatigue, sleep disturbances, anxiety, and depression.

If cortisol remains elevated throughout the day (usually associated with high night cortisol) and over a prolonged period of time (months/years), excessive breakdown of normal tissues (muscle wasting, thinning of skin, bone loss) and immune suppression can eventually result.

For additional information about strategies for supporting adrenal health and reducing stress(ors), the following books are worth reading: Adrenal Fatigue by James L. Wilson, N.D., D.C., Ph.D.; The Cortisol Connection by Shawn Talbott, Ph.D.; The End of Stress As We Know It by Bruce McEwen; and Awakening Athena by Kenna Stephenson. M.D.”

Who today cannot relate to “Acute situational stressors (e.g., anxiety over unresolved situations, travel, work-related problems, wedding, holiday season, etc.)”?

Perhaps a series of articles summarizing strategies to support adrenal health and decrease stressors would be of benefit. If you have any tips to share, please feel free to do so. Together we can help each other!

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!

“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.

How do you judge success or failure of an event? By the number of products sold? Or by the one life that you touch?

That was the question I asked myself after participating in a Women’s Expo in a small town this weekend. I sold six of my books, Stop the Needless Suffering, The Complete Woman’s Guide to Balancing Your Hormones Naturally, with promises of selling two more. It was a two hour drive and seven hours of my time. Six ladies were in my first breakout session, and one man and one woman were in my afternoon session.

One of the ladies in my morning session asked me if I would talk with her daughter who was working a booth across the hall from me at the Expo…for breast cancer prevention. The irony of that fact was soon to be revealed.

The mother had had a mastectomy for breast cancer. The cancer was estrogen receptor-positive. Please understand the significance of this fact prior to hearing the rest of the story regarding her daughter.

Unlike normal breast cells, cancer cells arising in the breast do not always have receptors for estrogen.

Breast cancers that DO have estrogen receptors are said to be “estrogen receptor-positive,” while those breast cancers that DO NOT possess estrogen receptors are called “estrogen receptor-negative.” In women with estrogen receptor-positive cancers, cancer cell growth is under the control of estrogen.

This woman’s daughter was 40 years old and had recently had a complete hysterectomy. The doctor ordered no saliva testing to assess her baseline hormone levels following surgery. He simply ordered triest for her to use daily postoperatively. Triest is the combination of the three main estrogens: estrone, estradiol, and estriol.

It is well established that there is a significant hereditary tendency for breast cancer. The mother was estrogen receptor-positive for breast cancer. The daughter is taking three different kinds of estrogen – “unopposed” by progesterone.

The doctor told the daughter she “didn’t need progesterone” because she had had a hysterectomy – a common misunderstanding among the traditional medical community. In fact, if you read the work of Dr. John Lee, M.D., you will see that he believed prescribing women “unopposed estrogen” to be a case of medical malpractice.

This lady was grossly overweight. Obesity is a risk factor for breast cancer. The commonly held theory is that fat cells are estrogen producing. Estrogen makes fat cells bigger. It is a vicious cycle. All this going on in a daughter whose mother is estrogen receptor-positive.

Let’s summarize what is going on here:

1. The mother has a history of breast cancer, estrogen receptor-positive.
2. Breast cancer is hereditary.
3. The daughter is taking triest, a combination of three estrogens following her hysterectomy.
4. The daughter has had no baseline testing to determine her hormone levels.
5. The daughter is receiving no progesterone.
6. The daughter is grossly overweight.
7. The daughter is working a booth for breast cancer prevention, totally unaware of her own significant risk factors.

All of the above constitutes a train wreck just waiting to happen.

Education is the key. Please help me to increase awareness. Please become your own health care advocate so that you can protect yourself as well as help to educate the lay and medical community.

Your life and the lives of those you love depend upon it.

“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.