Petty Medical Clinic 

Bioidentical Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) is the replacement of physiological levels of hormones that decline as a result of a specific disease state.

 

The American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine (A4M; www.worldhealth.net), an international medical society of 18,500 physicians and scientists from 87 countries, is composed of physician members who are responsible for the daily medical care of millions of patients worldwide. It is the position of the A4M that the use of hormones in aging patients to replenish these levels to a youthful physiologic state, when conducted by qualified physicians trained in the practice of treating age-related hormonal declines, constitutes a legitimate and important life-enhancing, life-extending medical application.

The debate and discussion over the safety of hormone replacement therapy continues to remain a focal issue in anti-aging medicine. In 2002 in the United States, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), a government agency, stopped the large-scale, multi-center trial of combined estrogen and progestin therapy, administered as part of the group's Women's Health Initiative (WHI) study of healthy menopausal women. The researchers terminated this study element because they found an increased risk of invasive breast cancer and coronary heart disease that outweighed the benefits from the hormone replacement therapy. However, NHLBI failed to disclose that their researchers did not use bioidentical hormones in the treatment. Bioidentical hormones have the same chemical structure as hormones that are made in the human body. The term "bioidentical" indicates that the chemical structure of the replacement hormone is identical to that of the hormone naturally found in the human body. In order for a replacement hormone to fully replicate the function of hormones which were originally naturally produced and present in the human body, the chemical structure must exactly match the original. Thus, bioidentical replacement therapy (BHRT) is a method by which replaced hormones follow normal metabolic pathways so that the essential active metabolites are formed in response to the treatment. The molecular differences between bioidentical and non-bioidentical may prove to be the defining aspect in terms of hormone replacement therapy safety, and failure to make this differentiation and thereby alarm the public could be construed as misleading. Furthermore, natural - rather than synthetic - forms of hormones are associated with greater bio-availability, that is they are taken up by the body more readily and utilized more effectively.

Regrettably, a number of articles recently appearing in various newspapers and magazines have falsely suggested that BHRT is unsafe and ineffective.

Experienced anti-aging physicians have been prescribing BHRT for more than 20 years. For women, benefits may include: