The hormone balance of the body is a complex, interactive symphony of different regulating compounds. These hormones are internal messengers, which are necessary to control and regulate the body’s processes.
Bioidentical Hormone Replacement Therapy
Your body produces more than sixty different hormones and, without them, you couldn’t live. Hormones are chemical messengers that circulate in your bloodstream and orchestrate the continuous activity in the cells and organs in your body.
From the regulation of your heartbeat and breathing, to the control of your blood pressure and metabolism, hormones are involved. They also help fight stress, soothe pain, calm anxiety, and stimulate your immune system.
Sex hormones such as estrogens, progesterone, and testosterone play important roles in controlling sex drive, regulating the menstrual cycle, and allowing for pregnancy and birth. Sex hormones are also potent “neurosteroids” that help maintain the central and nervous system tissue.
Proper hormone balance is critical to your health, and hormones are the most delicately balanced system in your body. Given the number of hormones that make up this system, and the continual communication between hormones that is necessary to maintain a healthy balance, the literature on hormones is vast. Unfortunately, much of the information available today is inconsistent, and at times misleading, especially with respect to hormone therapy.
What does “Bioidentical” mean?
Although many bioidentical hormones are created in a lab, they have the exact same molecular structure as the hormones produced by the human body. In other words, they are chemically indistinguishable from one another. Because their chemical structures are identical, bioidentical hormones generate the same physiologic responses in the body as do the hormones already produced by the body. When making choices about hormone therapies, choosing bioidentical hormones makes good sense because they simply replace and replenish the balance your own hormones naturally provide. One well-known example of a bioidentical hormone therapy is the use of injectable human insulin in the treatment of diabetes.
With bioidentical hormone therapies, each individual’s hormone deficiencies or excesses must be evaluated. In determining the optimal hormone therapy for an individual, our Nurse Practitioner takes into consideration the interactions among the different hormones, as well as other potential effects of each hormone throughout the body. For example, bioidentical progesterone protects the uterus and, at the same time, has positive effects on mood, memory, and sleep.
