Over the past few years, popularity of bioidentical therapy has surged particularly among women who have safety concerns about different hormone therapies during or after their menopause.
However, many women are not aware that very little research is done at present about various products used and their safety, purity, effectiveness, quality or strength.
Is “natural” or “bioidentical” hormone therapy safe and effective than the hormones used in various traditional hormone therapies to treat menopause symptoms?
According to “Food and Drug Administration” known as FDA and many other medical specialty groups, various hormones marketed as natural or bioidentical hormone therapy are not safe.
FDA still considers that hormones used in certain traditional hormone therapy are a better option and so far, no evidence has been found that all these new therapies can be more effective.
If you look at the term “bioidentical”, it means hormones in this product are chemically almost identical to those that our body can produce.
In fact, all these hormones offered in bioidentical medications will not be much different from all those prescribed in the traditional hormone therapy.
Many hormone therapy products have been approved by FDA and also prescribed by many health care providers that contain bioidentical hormones.
Products termed as “natural” will mean that hormones in this product will come from either plant or certain animal sources and they are not synthesized in any lab.
However, many such products still have to be processed commercially to become bioidentical. All traditional hormone therapies do not necessarily exclude all-natural hormones.
Few FDA-approved products like Climar, Estrace and Vivelle-Dot contains estrogens and also Prometrium, natural progesterone that is derived from plants.
However, marketers of these bioidentical hormones say that their products will have few advantages over any traditional hormone therapy:
However, their doses and also forms differ from what is approved by FDA. Therefore, you may have to go through many nonstandard combinations, during the treatment where few pharmacies who are specialized in making these medications may prepare customized medication for individual needs.
However, all these products are not subjected to same type of rigorous quality assurance procedures that standard commercially produced hormonal preparations will have to meet.
These are custom-made medicines just for you, as per the test done on you for your special and unique hormonal needs.
Few women however may benefit from such nonstandard dosage and find such bioidentical hormone therapy helpful but there is presently no scientific data available to support this kind of individual therapy based on customized medication.
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