What You Should Know About Menopause and Bioidentical Hormones

Menopause occurs in middle age and brings along with it horrible symptoms such as hot flashes, difficulty sleeping, and a decreased sex drive. These symptoms vary a lot between women, but the driving force behind menopause is caused by an imbalance of hormones.

These hormones help maintain steady levels of chemicals in a woman's bloodstream. It used to be that hormone replacement therapy, or HRT, was the gold standard for hormone imbalance treatment. Research then started show that females utilizing HRT were at greater risk of stroke, heart disease, breast cancer.

Drs. and patients are now taking a closer look at bio identical hormones. These hormones are generated from plant compounds and are identical to the hormones that are found in the human body. Some studies are showing that BH RT, which is short for bio identical hormone replacement therapy, is good at alleviating the symptoms of menopause with a very low side effect profile.

Until a few years ago, it was very common for women experiencing menopause to utilize hormone replacement therapy. But HRT has been shown to lead to fluid retention, dizziness, and headaches. A recent study by the Women's Health Initiative looked at 16,000 women between ages of 50 to 79. Over the five-year study, females who were utilizing HRT had almost 30% higher risk of breast cancer, up 26% higher risk of heart disease, and the risk of stroke was 41% higher.

Hormones that are bio identical tend to help protect against breast cancer. They also help increase libido, vitality, stamina, mood and energy level along with helping with attention and memory. Women are often able to sleep better and have less anxiety when taking bio identical's.

BHRT is not without controversy. Large-scale studies need to be accomplished in order to decide whether it truly is more effective than traditional HRT.

It used to be thought that menopause was mostly due to estrogen deficiency, however those levels fall only 40 to 60% during menopause whereas the levels of progesterone can drop to virtually nothing. Low progesterone can lead to a higher risk of and or mutual cancer that potentially breast cancer as well.

Low progesterone can also lead to women gaining weight, low bone density, difficulty sleeping and stress. All of these are reasons to incorporate hormone replacement into a menopause regimen, the question remains is whether or not B HR 28 is in fact the best way to go. So far, it looks extremely promising.