The Natural Hormone Makeover: 10 Steps to Rejuvenate Your Health and Rediscover Your Inner Glow

By Phuli Cohan, M.D.

Summarized with permission of Wiley (www.wiley.com). All rights reserved.
All rights reserved.

Skip to Page: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8

Understanding Health Hormones

When we hit our forties (and in some cases even our thirties) things start to change hormonally. Depending on how good our genetics, lifestyle, and environment are, our changes can be graceful or extreme.

When to Start Thinking about Supporting Your Hormones

You should start to think about supporting your hormones when you start noticing that you just aren't feeling as good as you used to. You don't want to wait until your bones are thinning and you've lost your hair, thinned your skin, and deepened your wrinkles. You certainly don't want to wait until your arteries are damaged and your memory is failing.

Hormonal decline is typically a slow, gradual decline in all of our hormones for both women and men. We refer to this phase of life as perimenopause in women and andropause in men. Although hormonal decline is inevitable, it is not irreversible and it needn't be uncomfortable. We can ease it and even delay it.

How hormones decline is individualized. It may be quite noticeable in some but not in others. Most women feel their first symptoms during their forties, when adrenal and sex hormones begin to fall; but some women experience symptoms earlier, as a result of a stressful life event such as illness, divorce, or the death of a loved one.

It is estimated that during both perimenopause and menopause, 80 percent of all women suffer significant life-altering symptoms such as fatigue, depression, low sex drive, hot flashes, vaginal dryness, recurrent urinary or vaginal infections, insomnia, and more.

Hormone Support Therapy

Hormone replacement therapy, or HRT, has been the main form of hormone therapy in the past. But supporting hormones naturally is more effective.

Natural hormones (or bioidentical hormones) are identical to those found in nature. They look and act exactly the same as hormones that are made naturally in our bodies. They are not something new or foreign working in your body. Your own hormones are not replaced by synthetic, stronger-acting hormones.

Support hormones naturally, and then "support the supports" with vitamins, minerals, and amino acids that control and regulate hormones. The final part of this hormone makeover is meant to ensure that your diet and lifestyle are helping you to safely metabolize, or process, your hormones, which can counteract the genetic and environmental risks of cancer and heart disease.

Hormone Fears

Most people refuse to take hormones out of fear of cancer or some other horrible disease. But if estrogen and progesterone caused breast cancer, then pregnant women, adolescents, and young adults would have the very highest breast cancer rates because their bodies have the highest levels of these hormones. To the contrary, cancer rates increase with age, when our estrogen and progesterone levels are at their all-time low.

The fact remains that women who have high hormone levels have little risk of developing cancer or heart disease.

The most widely publicized hormone studies yielding negative results used synthetic hormones. Synthetic hormones cannot and should not be equated with the hormones naturally produced and metabolized in your own body.

In addition to considering the type of hormone used, you have to factor in how the hormones are taken, as well as environment, diet, and lifestyle.

The Natural Hormone Makeover outlines ten steps to improve your health using natural hormones safely. Take a hard look at yourself to decide if your sleep, energy, and sense of well-being are as good as they could be, as good as you want them to be. Don't wait until you are having physical problems from hormone decline.

Skip to Page: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8

This book summary may not be copied or distributed in any form without the permission from HealthBookSummaries.com. HealthBookSummaries.com assumes no responsibility for the use or misuse of this material. Always work with a qualified health professional before making any changes to your diet, prescription drug use, lifestyle or exercise activities.

New Summaries

Browse All »

Spiritual Nutrition: Six Foundations for Spiritual Life and the Awakening of Kundalini By Gabriel Cousens, M.D. Cholesterol & The French Paradox By Frank Cooper The Complete Master Cleanse: A Step-by-Step Guide to Maximizing the Benefits of The Lemonade Diet By Raymond Francis with Kester Cotton Never Be Sick Again: Health is a Choice, Learn How to Choose It By Raymond Francis with Kester Cotton The Lost Language of Plants: The Ecological Importance of Plant Medicines for Life on Earth By Stephen Harrod Buhner The ADD and ADHD Cure: The Natural Way to Treat Hyperactivity and Refocus Your Child By Jay Gordon, M.D. The Amazing Liver and Gallbladder Flush: A Powerful Do-It-Yourself Tool To Optimize Your Health And Wellbeing By Andreas Moritz The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved: Inside America's Underground Food Movements By Sandor Ellix Katz The Natural Hormone Makeover: 10 Steps to Rejuvenate Your Health and Rediscover Your Inner Glow By Phuli Cohan, M.D. The Cure: Heal Your Body, Save Your Life By Dr. Timothy Brantley Cancer is Not a Disease - It's a Survival Mechanism By Andreas Moritz Beyond Medicine: Exploring a New Way of Thinking By Dr. Keith Scott-Mumby Virtual Medicine: A new dimension in energy healing By Dr. Keith Scott-Mumby The Food Mood Solution By Jack Challem Perfect Health: The Natural Way By Mary-Ann Shearer The Anti-Aging Solution: 5 Simple Steps to Looking and Feeling Young By Vincent Giampapa, M.D, Ronald Pero, Ph.D. and Marcia Zimmerman, C.N. The Thrive Diet: The Whole Food Way to Lose Weight, Reduce Stress, and Stay Healthy for Life By Brendan Brazier Health Begins in the Colon: The Ultimate Guide for Cleansing Your Colon, Body, Mind & Home! By Dr. Edward F. Group III, DC, ND, DACBN Keep Your Brain Young: The Complete Guide to Physical and Emotional Health and Longevity By Guy McKhann, M.D., and Marilyn Albert, Ph.D. The Sunfood Diet Success System By David Wolfe Reverse Heart Disease Now: Stop Deadly Cardiovascular Plaque Before it's too Late By Stephen T. Sinatra, M.D. and James C. Roberts, M.D., with Martin Zucker Fight for Your Health: Exposing the FDA's Betrayal of America By Byron J. Richards, CCN JavaTrekker: Dispatches from the World of Fair Trade Coffee By Dean Cycon, Founder & Owner, Dean's Beans Organic Coffee The Vitamin D Cure By James E. Dowd, M.D. and Diane Stafford Shrink Yourself: Break Free from Emotional Eating Forever! By Roger Gould, M.D. Astaxantin - Natural Astaxanthin: King of the Carotenoids By Bob Capelli with Dr. Gerald Cysewski Green for Life By Victoria Boutenko The Genie in Your Genes:Epigenetic Medicine and the New Biology of Intention By Dawson Church Appetite for Profit: How the Food Industry Undermines our Health and How to Fight Back By Michele Simon Selling Sickness: How the World's Biggest Pharmaceutical Companies Are Turning Us All into Patients By Ray Moynihan and Alan Cassels The Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter and Miracles By Bruce H. Lipton, PH.D Natural Health Solutions: And the Conspiracy to Keep You From Knowing About Them By Mike Adams