balanced hormones

seaotter

Very interesting! Thanks Fairy.

Patty

mathteacher

Thank you for the great link. Got any more good ones?

Is there a place on this program where you all have saved good links?

fairy49

check out www.hormonerestoration.com

L

ox

Luna5

Fairy is my hero too!  Thanks for all you do for so many!

KorynH

Are there any other books supporting this theory?  I have read both Sommers and Lees books. I would also be interested in finding any actual scientific studies to support my embracing this practice. I am tired of being told that it is nilly willy hippy science.  The only study I have been able to stand by thus far is the Zebra study which supports me NOT taking Tamoxifen.

http://annonc.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/16/8/1283

but it was done in Europe and so far not supported by ACS.

I do natural progestrone cream for the hot flashes and IT WORKS! which tells me that there is something to it.

Argh!  Help please!

mathteacher

Same questions here. 

My OB-GYN doctor says that this article was sent to him as a review of the research done on breast cancer patients taking hrt.

http://www.obgmanagement.com/pdf/1406/1406OBGM_Article1.pdf

You could check out his footnotes to verify. Could you let us know what you find?

*edited for grammar

thenewme

Hi mathteacher,

The article you refer to was written in 2002, almost 9 years ago, so it's extremely outdated.  So much research has been done since then, including the WHI studies and many others.

It can be so hard to keep up with the "latest and greatest" research, but given the current controversy surrounding hormone replacement therapy, I'd definitely look to some of the more recent research before making any decisions.

mathteacher

Hi thenewme,

Actually, since I'm a math teacher, I can vouch for the fact that data is data. Data doesn't change. Data doesn't become outdated. The results of the findings remain the same.

The WHI study you mention didn't study women diagnosed with breast cancer.

The author of the link I passed on, Dr. Creasman, is only reviewing studies of women with breast cancer taking hrt. All drew the same conclusion. Did you look at the footnotes? Are saying you can refute all those studies? I'm all ears.

http://www.obgmanagement.com/pdf/1406/1406OBGM_Article1.pdf

thenewme

Hi mathteacher,

Yes, data is data, but we'll have to agree to disagree about whether it becomes outdated.  

Are you familiar with the HABITS study, for example?  It's even mentioned in the link you posted .  You can read more about it on the link below, but the summarized version is "Conclusion: After extended follow-up, there was a clinically and statistically significant increased risk of a new breast cancer event in survivors who took HT."

http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/100/7/475 

mathteacher

Thenewme, with all due respect, if you think data becomes dated then you don't know the definition of data. 

The HABITS study participants were allowed to combine HRT with Tamoxifen. Can you imagine?So that discredited the entire study. Every other study found the opposite results.

Did you read the studies in the Creasman footnotes? The ones that found the opposite of HABITS?

thenewme

mathteacher,

You said:  "Thenewme, with all due respect, if you think data becomes dated then you don't know the definition of data. "

Seriously?  Why do we continue to do any research, then, if we already know everything and data is incontestable?  Scientific data is constantly being reviewed, updated, refined, corrected, and superceded. Not to mention that some "data" is based on flawed reasoning or faulty assumptions.

I'm not quite sure I'm clear on your point.  Are you saying that research supports Creasman's conclusion that  "The data to date suggest that HRT in the patient who has had breast cancer is not detrimental. In fact, some of the larger studies note significantly fewer recurrences and breast cancer deaths, and less total mortality in HRT users, compared with matched controls."

Is there a specific footnote you can link to from the Creasman article?  I'm having trouble finding one that would support the conclusion, especially in consideration of newer research.

Edited to remove snarky knee-jerk reaction (apologies!)

mathteacher

We're going to continue to go in circles here. Data doesn't have anything to do with reasoning. You're confusing data with explanations. Data is separate from interpretations which is why hrt findings in 2000 or 2010 are evaluated the same way.

If somebody takes 1 mg of drug X in 2000 or 2010, it doesn't make the results different or less relevant. From your post about "later studies" I see you still are not comprehending that fact.

If you are sincerely interested in this subject and in understanding data, I recommend taking a course in statistics where the teacher will spend at least two weeks on data.

dlb823

mathteacher, thenewme ~ I've been following this discussion because I'm interested in hormones, and I want to throw out to mathteacher a totally hypothetical scenario I've come up with, to help me understand her contention that data doesn't become outdated.

Assume for a moment that x number of patients are tested via bloodwork every year after being given a certain chemo drug.  No lasting ill effects are observed, and at 15 years the drug is declared to be totally safe.  But @ 20 years, half of the patients develop leukemia.  At that point, newer testing methods are used, and it's discovered that as early as one year out there were subtle signs of irregularities in the blood of those who'd taken this drug. 

So... is the original data still accurate, or is it outdated?  I'm really curious to understand this.  When thinking about it, in many cases it's clear that what's actually flawed or outdated is the original hypothesis or the conclusion.  But because of scientific advances, it seems to me that old data can become outdated when examined with newer technology.  Does that make sense?     Deanna

crazy4carrots

Adding my 2 cents' here.

Data* are data -- no getting around that.  The question should be (as per Deanna's example) does the info contained in the data continue to be of value, or not?  Perhaps for comparison purposes only?

*plural of datum (yes, I used to be a Latin geek)

thenewme

mathteacher,

It's interesting that you presume to know my educational background.  In any case, I'm sincerely asking your help in understanding.  I'll ask again,

I'm not quite sure I'm clear on your point. Are you saying that research supports Creasman's conclusion that "The data to date suggest that HRT in the patient who has had breast cancer is not detrimental. In fact, some of the larger studies note significantly fewer recurrences and breast cancer deaths, and less total mortality in HRT users, compared with matched controls" ?

Is there a specific footnote you can link to from the Creasman article? I'm having trouble finding one that would support the conclusion, especially in consideration of newer research.  I did look at the footnotes, but found most of them to be outdated/disproven or simply in support of other conclusions.  

Deanna gave a perfect example of updating data with newer research, tools, or simply a longer study period. The whole basis of scientific research is to continue the search for answers, which requires re-examination of old data and assumptions. Data are subject to verification and correction in light of new research, no? (LOL @ Lindasa -that's one that gets me every time... "data ARE" - it just sounds so awkward!)

Anonymous

Oh, mathteacher, this discussion brings me back to college. My statistics professor wrote that exact thing on the board: DATA IS DATA

Then he wrote DON'T CONFUSE THE POT WITH THE PUDDING--- which meant don't confuse data with conclusions.

He would ask us questions and if we referred to the conclusions rather than the data he would yell, PUDDING! Pretty soon, everybody in the class got in the habit of yelling, PUDDING when somebody was trying to take a shortcut and sound smart by talking about conclusions or generalizations.

Part of having breast cancer is trying to sort out the pot from the pudding.

mathteacher

Deanna, the original data is still valid--that would be the measurements researchers originally got by adding X to Y.

But additional data (like your example, the ability to test blood for abnormalities earlier to track potential leukemia) would add to original findings and alter the thinking on this treatment. I imagine researchers would ask, why was the drug beneficial to breast cancer and can we alter the drug to eliminate the leukemia problem?

When the original findings, "people lived longer from breast cancer" are supplemented with more data ""but they die sooner from leukemia," only the original hypothesis changes.

The goal is to look at as much data as possible and sort it out over the longest period of time. But this is hugely expensive and often impractical. It is often hard to follow study participants for 20 years.

With the hormone studies, the researchers are mostly looking back at records to figure out how the women taking hormones did as compared with those who didn't. It's clear researchers were looking at this data way before Suzanne Somers came along. That's why I was wondering someone could offer any specifics to refute the Creasman article. But that hasn't happened.

Nan56143

Bumping this forward

hlth4513

I found this article last night. I thought it gave a lot of very pro-active steps on  SAFE ESTROGEN METABOLISM. The author is the director of Provider Education at ZRT labs.

http://je-paoletti.blogspot.com/2009_11_01_archive.html

Beth

Safe Estrogen Metabolism In my opinion we often overlook the best ways, both physiologically and economically, of ensuring safe metabolism of estrogens to decrease the risk of cancer. The majority of a woman's estrogens are normally conjugated in the liver and eliminated in the stool. To ensure that this natural method of safely metabolizing estrogens is optimized, the first thing I strongly suggest before initiation of any estrogen therapy is liver detoxification. Make sure the bowels are moving regularly before detoxifying. In addition, if the normal flora in the lower intestine has been disrupted, the result can be an increase in the enzyme activity of beta-glucuronidase. This enzyme cleaves the conjugated estrogen and re-circulates the estrogen that was conjugated and meant to be eliminated from the body. Therefore, I also strongly recommend at least a month or two of good probiotic therapy supporting Bifobacterium bifidium to restore the normal flora of the lower intestine.

Any form of estrogen other than estriol increases the amount of estrogen that is metabolized down the pathway to form catechol quinones, the metabolites that form DNA adjuncts that cause DNA mutations which can lead to cancer. Any estrogen therapy other than E3 in any amount increases dangerous metabolites. Therefore, I recommend to never give women more estrogen than absolutely needed. This can only be accomplished by addressing progesterone deficiencies, as well as insulin resistance, adrenal, and thyroid issues to eliminate their participation as a possible cause of supposed "estrogen deficiency" symptoms, as well as by measuring estrogen levels, the only true way to determine if estrogen itself is actually needed. Symptoms alone can never guarantee the need for estrogen.

Metabolism to the unsafe 4-OH metabolites can be inhibited by reducing lipid peroxidase activity. This is best accomplished by avoiding trans-fats and taking an antioxidant combination. Avoidance of pesticides also decreases the amount of unsafe metabolites produced.

Of the estrogen that is not conjugated, the vast majority should be normally methylated, producing safe estrogen metabolites. Methylation is dependent on the COMT enzyme, which is dependent on Vitamins B1, B6, B12 and folic acid. I strongly recommend these vitamins and a methyl donor such as MSM or TMG. At this point over 99% of any estrogens produced by the body or given (as long as not excessive) should be going down the normal pathways to safe metabolites. That leaves very little going down the remaining pathways, forming cancer causing depurinating adducts.

Additional safe metabolites can be encouraged by glutathione activity, which can be increased by NAC, Cysteine, aged garlic or MSM (to provide sulfur) or by administration of glutathione itself. Sulforaphane, an organosulfur compound found in cruciferous vegetables, can convert the estrogen glutathione conjugate metabolite formed just prior to the formation of the dangerous depurinating adducts back to the 4-OH metabolite, where it can then be acted on by COMT or glutathione. In other words, it takes the metabolite about to form the dangerous structure back to one where you have at least 3 more shots at metabolizing it safely.

With so many natural ways to ensure normal safe metabolism, concentrating on the ratio of the 2-OH and 16-OH ratios seems an inefficient way to address safe estrogen metabolism. Although many believe the 16-OH metabolite to be carcinogenic, I am not convinced of it. In vivo work by Cavalieri and associates has concluded that the 16-OH metabolites cause no further damage. This work also shows that the dangerous catechol quinones are formed from both estradiol and estrone, so both have the potential for forming the metabolites which initiate cancer. Although I do suggest the use of I3C or DIM in patients of either sex to increase the overall metabolism of estrogens and help reduce the burden of excess estrogens, I do not feel that increasing the proportion of 2-OH metabolites compared to 16-OH metabolites necessarily reduces the risk of breast cancer.

In my opinion, those that push for testing of these substances are not using patient's money most efficiently and are concentrating on a controversial downstream effect, instead of optimizing the system that is already in place to protect against dangerous estrogen metabolites.

To summarize, here is how I approach safe estrogen metabolism:
Ensure proper liver and bowel function to conjugate and eliminate the conjugated estrogenso Liver Detox
o Fiber to help optimize bowel movements, increase SHBG, and eliminate bile toxins
o Probiotic therapy
Balance estrogen with progesterone which has been shown to reduce the estradiol-induced proliferation of breast tissue and cause natural cell deathAvoid pesticides and trans-fats Never give any more estrogen than absolutely necessary. Address need for progesterone first, as well as any adrenal, insulin resistance, or thyroid issues. Always dose estrogen low initially and increase dose slowlyEnsure proper methylation with active B1, B6, B12, folic acid and a methyl donorSupport immune function, including restoring DHEAs levels to normalTake an antioxidant combination of at least Vitamin C and Vitamin E
Optional additional considerations:
Glutathione supportSulforaphaneI3C or DIM to increase estrogen metabolismCalcium-D-Glucorate to inhibit beta-glucuronidase
Two excellent references I would recommend are:
"What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Breast Cancer" by John Lee, MD and David Zava, PHD
And
E.L. Cavalieri, E.G. Rogan and D. Chakravarti. Initiation of cancer and other diseases by catechol ortho-quinones: A unifying mechanism. CMLS 59 (2002), 665-681.

Jim Paoletti, RPh, FAARFM Nov. 2009