How Does Endometriosis Affect Menopause?
While going through the drastic changes of menopause is something that no woman enjoys, it’s not uncommon for women of all ages to look forward to one aspect of menopause with happiness– the end of their period. Perhaps no one in the world is more eager to no longer have to deal with menstruation than women who suffer from endometriosis. This condition, which causes the endometrium, or uterine lining, to grow in places other than the inside of the uterus, can be debilitating, causing heavy, painful periods, infertility, pain with activity in the pelvic area, including sex and bowel movements, and many other unpleasant symptoms.
For some women, menopause is the end of their story with endometriosis. However, this is not the case for everyone, and this condition makes life difficult during a woman’s younger years, it can also continue to affect her long after her period has ended. If you or someone you love has endometriosis, it’s important to know about the way it affects menopause going in, so that you can prepare with your doctor and be ready with treatment options as needed to help maintain your comfort and health!
Menopause and Endometriosis Remission
In some cases, the beginning of menopause marks the end of endometriosis, and a woman can be considered fully in remission once the process of perimenopause (the length of time before menstruation has officially ended) is over. The main contributing factor in both the start of menopause and the end of endometriosis is estrogen.
Estrogen is the main heavy lifter in terms of the female reproductive system, and most of the symptoms associated with menopause (hot flashes, night sweats, body changes, mood swings, etc.) are due to estrogen levels in the body falling as a woman ages. This drop in estrogen also causes a reduction in the presence of endometrium, which relies on this hormone to grow. Because of this, many women experience relief from their endometriosis symptoms once menopause sets in!
Postmenopausal Endometriosis
The role of estrogen in endometriosis as a condition means that how a woman manages menopause has to be different when she has had it. For many women, hormone replacement therapy that adds estrogen back into their system is a safe and effective way to relieve the unpleasant symptoms of menopause. For women with endometriosis, however, estrogen hormonal treatments carry the risk of “reactivating” the condition, stimulating the growth of endometrium again and bringing back the pain and other issues that go along with it. Women who are struggling with the symptoms of menopause that can’t undergo hormone treatment for this reason should discuss alternate ways of finding relief with their doctor.
Endometriosis that continues after menopause is referred to as postmenopausal endometriosis. In almost all cases, it’s found in women who had endometriosis before they entered menopause. While it’s extremely rare, it is possible for a woman to develop endometriosis for the first time after menopause. The most common symptoms are increased pelvic pain, especially during urination, bowel movements, or sex. If you develop these symptoms, discuss them with your doctor immediately. They can be signs of postmenopausal endometriosis, or signs of other conditions like pelvic cancers.
Endometriosis Treatment and Menopause
Sometimes, endometriosis has to be treated with radical options like a hysterectomy or removal of the ovaries. In these situations, a woman experiences what is known as medically induced menopause, or menopause that comes on as a result of a medical intervention, not natural hormonal changes. This treatment route can often (though not always) result in symptom relief for people with endometriosis, but it does come with the sudden onset of menopause symptoms, which can be difficult to manage, especially for younger women. While hormone replacement therapy is often an invaluable option for women who have had a hysterectomy, it’s best avoided for women with a history of endometriosis, as it can encourage the condition to continue even after medically induced menopause.
Endometriosis is a condition that can affect every aspect of your life, including how you experience menopause. While it’s not yet completely understood, the medical field is working hard to develop treatments and methods to help people cope with it, both in their youth and during menopause! If you are struggling with endometriosis, know that there are many options out there that can help you take back control of your life. If you have further questions, contact our team today! We’ll be happy to help you.
There are certain aspects of getting older that everyone dislikes, but for many women, there’s one looming specter of dread on the horizon– menopause. It’s something that you hear horror stories about from your female friends and relatives from your youth, and by the time menopause is drawing closer for you, it’s enough stress to make anyone start sweating!
In spite of the way we all often talk about menopause, it’s a very natural and normal part of a woman’s life, even if it has its unpleasant moments. Many women consider it a mark of age and wisdom that deserves to be celebrated! However, no matter what your opinions about menopause are, when you’re staring into the face of a major change to both your body and your life, it can still be intimidating. The solution? Information, and as much of it as possible! Learning what you can expect to experience throughout menopause, especially in the early stages, can do a lot to alleviate your fears and make everything more bearable. This quick guide is an excellent place to start!
Menstrual Changes
Significant changes to your menstrual cycle are the hallmark sign of menopause, but unfortunately, this doesn’t mean that your period will just conveniently drop off and never start again. While this can happen for some women, most women experience about a year’s worth of changes to their cycle before it stops for good, like skipping periods for a few months before starting them again, much heavier or lighter flows, different symptoms than you’re used to, or any number of unexpected changes. Once you’ve been without your period for an entire year, you’re officially medically considered to be in menopause.
Hot Flashes
Every woman fears them as she starts to get older– the dreaded hot flash. It’s not 100% clear what about menopause triggers hot flashes to happen, although research seems to suggest that falling estrogen levels in your body can cause the parts of your brain that regulate body temperature to go haywire. While every woman’s experience with menopause is different, hot flashes are very common to experience, and extremely irritating and uncomfortable. Taking precautions like dressing in loose, light layers and avoiding triggers like warm rooms and spicy foods can help, but if your hot flashes become a serious problem during menopause, your doctor might recommend a treatment like hormone replacement therapy to help get them under control.
Sleep Problems
The rising and falling hormone levels of menopause can affect just about every process in your body. After all, hormones are the chemical messengers that control everything your body does! Sleep is one of the places that many women struggle with the changes of menopause. Hot flashes and night sweats can disrupt your rest, and you might find yourself feeling sleepy or wide awake at hours you’re not used to, or feeling inexplicably tired and needing more rest. If your sleep problems are causing you distress, they can and should be talked about with a medical professional, but don’t stress too much over minor changes to the way you sleep. With such a big shift in your body, it’s to be expected!
Mood Changes
In many ways, menopause is similar to puberty. Both of them are times of significant physical and hormonal changes in the human body, and they can come with similar issues. One of those issues is mood changes. If you thought that hormonally-triggered mood swings were only limited to pregnancy and your teenage years, think again! Menopause can trigger the same unpredictable shifts in how you’re feeling from moment to moment, which can be just as tough to handle. Try to approach these unexpected moments of anger, irritability, sadness, or other emotions with patience and compassion for yourself, and keep an eye on how often you feel down and how drastically your moods fluctuate. If you become concerned, don’t hesitate to discuss the issue with your doctor to ensure that nothing more serious is going on, and to talk about ways to feel better!
Body Changes
Shifts and transitions in the way your body looks and feels are a normal part of aging, even if they’re a part that isn’t always the most fun. The onset of menopause and the dropping off of your estrogen levels can lead to a lot of new things in this department. You might notice your skin becoming drier and less elastic, and your breasts losing volume. You may struggle with vaginal dryness that causes sex to become less enjoyable or even painful, and it’s very common for women to gain weight during menopause as well. Again, these are all normal changes and not any cause for alarm, but that doesn’t make them any less frustrating! Like many of the tough-to-manage symptoms of menopause, seeking out treatments like hormone replacement therapy can help to ease you through this transition more comfortably.
Entering menopause can certainly be a stressful time in a woman’s life, but with the right mindset and a little help, it doesn’t have to be! If you’re interested in learning more about how hormone replacement therapy can help to make menopause easier for you to manage, contact our team here at Renewed Vitality. We’ll be happy to answer any questions you might have!
There are dozens of different hormones in the human body. These so-called “chemical messengers” are responsible for triggering the various processes and rhythms throughout your body over the course of your life, from your circadian rhythm to your hunger levels to a woman’s menstrual cycle. These small little chemicals play a vital role in the way your body functions because of this!
Of the many different types of hormones, one of the most talked-about ones is estrogen. Most people know that it’s a hormone that has to do with the female reproductive system, but how much do you actually know about estrogen beyond that? At Renewed Vitality, we’re the hormone experts, and so we’re giving you a crash course in what you need to know about estrogen!
What is Estrogen?
Estrogen is one of the sex hormones, meaning it’s involved in your sexual and reproductive systems. It’s commonly thought of as a specifically female hormone, but that’s not entirely true! While women have estrogen in much higher levels in their bodies, men have it as well, and not having it can cause problems to their health. While it performs more functions in a woman’s body, estrogen can be found in the endocrine systems of all healthy humans.
What Does Estrogen Do?
Estrogen is a vital component in female sexual maturity. Levels of this hormone begin to rise as a young girl enters puberty, and it causes the changes associated with that point in development, such as breast growth and the start of the period.
In adult women, estrogen plays a major role in the menstrual cycle. Rising levels of the hormone stimulate the ovaries to produce the egg, and the uterus to thicken its lining. Estrogen also works to increase a woman’s chances of getting pregnant during the height of her fertile period. It thins out her cervical mucus to make it easier for sperm to enter her uterus, and it keeps the vaginal walls lubricated and elastic to facilitate sex.
Estrogen plays roles in other processes in the body as well, like inflammation, blood sugar cholesterol levels, collagen production, bone density, and mood.
Where is Estrogen Made?
The majority of the estrogen in a woman’s body at any time is produced by her ovaries. A small amount is made by other organs, like the liver or the adrenal glands, but mostly the ovaries serve this function. In men, the amount of estrogen they need is produced in the testes, the male equivalent of the ovaries.
What Happens if You Have Low Estrogen?
Low estrogen can have major effects on the entire body, not just on your reproductive system. However, not every person with low estrogen is undergoing something abnormal. Menopause is a natural process that every woman goes through, and during it, estrogen levels will drop significantly. This is associated with the common symptoms of menopause, like vaginal dryness, mood changes, fatigue, hot flashes, and breast tenderness. It’s also the reason many women suffer from brittle bones and bone density loss as they age– less estrogen means your bones get weaker. Menopause is not the only cause of low estrogen levels. They might also occur with fertility problems, nutritional deficiencies, or conditions like Turner syndrome.
What Happens if You Have High Estrogen?
High estrogen levels can be caused by anything from the medications you’re taking to conditions like fibroids, ovarian tumors, or PCOS. Its symptoms can include decreased sex drive, weight gain, worsening premenstrual symptoms, or irregular or missing periods.
What to Do About Estrogen Imbalances?
An imbalance in your estrogen levels can throw the functions of your entire body out of whack, making it a difficult and upsetting condition to deal with. Luckily, things aren’t completely out of your control! There are lots of treatments available to help you deal with estrogen imbalances, like the bioidentical hormone replacement therapy (HRT) available at Renewed Vitality! You can contact us today to learn more about how we can help you with your estrogen levels.
Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) has become a widely-debated topic and technique, usually used for treating symptoms of menopause. With ongoing medical research, it’s become clear that HRT can help many women and men with safe, effective hormone imbalance treatment options across all stages of life.
While HRT can reduce or eliminate hormonal imbalance issues, many people don’t take advantage of HRT due to a decades-old study that warned of serious health risks. Although the medical research and opinions on hormones have changed for the better, many men and women are understandably still cautious and hesitant. Let’s take a closer look at what HRT is and the benefits it can provide toward bolstering your or a loved one’s quality of life.
What Is HRT?
Hormone replacement therapy is often used to relieve the common symptoms of menopause, but more generally can treat hormone imbalances for both men and women. HRT treatments provide hormones that replace those your body either doesn’t produce or only does so in more limited quantities.
HRT is often a good treatment option for hot flashes, bone loss, vaginal dryness, and low estrogen levels. Importantly, the kind of hormone therapy a given person needs, the right dosage, and the risks will vary. Be sure to talk to your doctor before choosing hormone therapy to consider if the benefits outweigh any potential risks for you.
For women, HRT is used to provide the estrogen your body no longer makes after menopause. There are two primary types of estrogen therapy:
- Systemic HRT: Systemic estrogen — which arrives in the form of a pill, skin patch, ring, gel, cream, or spray form — usually offers a higher dose of estrogen that gets absorbed throughout the body.
- Low-dose products: Products with low-dose vaginal estrogen benefits usually come in tablet, ring, or cream form. They minimize how much of the hormone gets absorbed by the body. As a result, these low-dose vaginal preparations are usually used only to treat the vaginal and urinary symptoms of menopause.
HRT Benefits & Options
The last few decades have provided hundreds of clinical studies with outcomes that support using HRT to effectively help conditions like hot flashes, vaginal dryness, night sweats, and bone loss. These benefits can lead to improved sleep, and sexual relations, and quality of life.
Authors of Estrogen Matters, Oncologist Avrum Bluming and social psychologist Carol Tavris have helped clarify some of the misunderstandings surrounding hormone therapy and the important advantages it can provide men and women. “Our goal in writing the book and subsequently answering the dozens of emails we receive from around the world is to [educate about] the role of estrogen in ameliorating symptoms and prolonging women’s lives,” Bluming says.
At Renewed Vitality, we strive to give HRT patients the most natural results possible with the least amount of side effects. That’s why every hormone replacement treatment technique we offer uses bioidentical hormones.
Different from lab-produced synthetic hormones, bioidentical hormones are created from plant-based sources that are biologically identical to what our human bodies produce. This makes them easier for your body to use, providing fewer and less severe side effects than the synthetic versions. If you do decide that HRT may be a good treatment for you, be sure to call your doctor first to make sure you’re a good candidate.
We offer a wide range of methods for replacing your body’s previous hormone production with bioidentical hormone options. A hormone replacement therapy center like Renewed Vitality can help you feel better with bioidentical hormone treatments to get your body producing the levels it needs. Don’t hesitate to discover your options by contacting us to get started! To stay up to date with the latest HRT research and treatments, keep reading out blog here at Renewed Vitality!
Almost every person will experience hormonal changes during their lifetimes. It’s also common for both men and women to start experiencing symptoms of hormone changes and deficiencies as they age. But how do you know for certain if you’re experiencing a hormonal imbalance?
First, it’s crucial to evaluate your symptoms. In women especially, hormones are a critical aspect of every phase of life—from the beginning of menarche through childbearing age and into menopause. These hormones change over time to meet our body’s changing needs.
But sometimes hormone levels become unbalanced, creating uncomfortable or painful symptoms. At Renewed Vitality, our symptom checker services help people address hormonal problems and feel their best through each stage of life.
Common symptoms of hormone imbalances often include:
Hair Loss
The health and growth of your hair is also specifically related to your hormones. Thyroid abnormalities, for instance, can cause a person’s dry hair or skin, thinning hair, or fragile nails. Hypothyroidism, hyperthyroidism, and parathyroid disorder are also known to cause hair loss.
Anxiety or Depression
Nearly 20% of Americans suffer from an anxiety-related disorder, and 7% from a major depressive disorder every year. Women may be at a higher risk due to changes in estrogen levels during menstrual cycles, pregnancy, or menopause that are correlated to worsening depression. In terms of hormones specifically, research on the impact of estrogen receptors in the brain concluded that estrogen reduces the fear response and anxiety levels for both humans and rodents. Higher amounts of estrogen were also correlated with less fearful responses when stimulated by fearful situations.
Heightened Moodiness or Irritability
The hormone estrogen induces an important effect on neurotransmitters in the brain, including serotonin (a chemical that improves mood). For women, fluctuating estrogen levels can cause premenstrual syndrome (PMS) or depressed mood during the perimenopause (the phase before periods stop completely) and the menopause. Men with low levels of testosterone have a higher chance of developing anxiety or major depressive disorder when compared to those with normal levels.
Weight Gain or Loss of Muscle Mass
A wide range of hormone-related conditions can result in weight gain, including an underactive thyroid (when it does not produce enough thyroid hormones that help regulate your metabolism). Hormone-related weight gain or loss of muscle may also result from polycystic ovary syndrome, a problem causing small cysts on the ovaries, and menopause, which creates hormonal changes that can make you more likely to gain fat near your abdomen.
Low Energy, Stamina, or Motivation
While experiencing perimenopause and menopause, a woman’s ovaries gradually produce less estrogen and progesterone, which promotes sleep. Decreasing estrogen levels could also make night sweats worse, which disturb your sleep, contributing to greater fatigue and low energy levels.
Low Sex Drive
Low libido is a common symptom for women going through perimenopause or menopause because of falling levels of estrogen and testosterone. Additional menopausal symptoms include night sweats, fatigue, low mood, and greater anxiety, all of which can also negatively impact your sex life.
Still uncertain whether you’re suffering from hormone imbalances? Take our quick quiz that helps you evaluate hormonal imbalance symptoms. To get started, click here for women and here for men. Truly, the more information you have about your specific hormonal imbalances (triggers, causes, etc.) the better you can heal them moving forward.
If you and your healthcare provider think you may be experiencing hormone imbalances, contact Renewed Vitality today! We are the Reading area’s hormone therapy resource and can help you start feeling healthy and more like yourself again.
The changes of pregnancy and the postpartum period are some of the most intense hormonal changes that a woman’s body will ever go through, and even though they’re normal, they can be difficult to manage. Right after birth, some hormone levels fall dramatically while others rise, and this is what leads to the postpartum issues that so many women experience– depression, extreme fatigue, hair loss, and more.
Knowing what to expect and some ways to cope with these changes can really help to make it easier for you to get through this stressful time! Here are some of the things you should know.
How do your hormones change postpartum?
Estrogen and Progesterone
Over the course of a pregnancy, estrogen and progesterone are at very high levels. Right after delivery, whether you deliver vaginally or via C-section, these two hormones drop very fast. This is a natural change– your body doesn’t need the high levels anymore and there are other hormones that need to get to work.
However, the sharp drop is often part of the reason (combined with the stress of labor and a new baby) that many women feel low or just “off” physically and emotionally right after the birth, and it’s a large contributor to postpartum depression in the following weeks and months. This change is also what leads to postpartum hair loss, and can contribute to some additional sleep disturbances on top of your new baby.
Around three months after your baby is born, your estrogen and progesterone levels will begin to return to normal.
Prolactin and Oxytocin
At the same time that your estrogen and progesterone levels are falling, your prolactin and oxytocin levels are rising. Oxytocin plays a role in labor– it’s the hormone that stimulates uterine contractions. It also plays a major role in early mother-child bonding. Prolactin, on the other hand, is the hormone involved in milk production.
If you choose not to breastfeed, these hormone levels will drop off fairly quickly, but if you do nurse your baby, they will stay elevated until the baby is about six months old. Around this time they start to eat solid foods, so their demand for breast milk will slowly start to taper off, which is why this hormonal change happens.
What can I do to manage postpartum hormonal changes?
Focus on Your Diet
One of the most effective ways to get through rising and falling hormones during the postpartum period is to focus on eating a nutritious diet. Adding in plenty of healthy fats and proteins as well as fruits and vegetables will not only help your energy and mood, but can set your body up as well as possible to produce the hormones you need.
Accept Any Help You Can
As much as hearing it is probably exasperating, reducing your stress levels and getting plenty of sleep and gentle exercise will do wonders for how you feel as you recover from birth. Obviously, with a new baby, that’s much, much easier said than done! As a result, one of the best things you can do for your physical and mental health is to get help.
From your partner to friends and family members to professional services if you can afford them, there are plenty of ways for you to get the assistance you need so that you can care for yourself and your baby as efficiently as possible. Let loved ones cook you meals or come clean the house and do laundry! Split nighttime feedings and diaper changes as evenly as possible with your partner, and enlist them to hold the baby while you take a shower and have some time to yourself. Any way you can find to focus on your own wellbeing in addition to your baby’s will help you to feel better as you ride out these hormonal changes.
Speak to Your Doctor
When all else fails, difficulty with hormone levels during your postpartum period is definitely something you should speak to your doctor about. They can help you with any concerns about your health, so make sure to prioritize yourself and make an appointment if you feel like you need it!
Whether you’re treating a hormone imbalance, dealing with the issues of menopause, or addressing problems with your thyroid, hormone replacement therapy can completely change how you feel and your outlook on life. Hormones affect many vital processes that happen in the body, and choosing to use HRT to put your levels back on track can have powerful effects on almost every aspect of your physical wellbeing.
Once you’ve settled on HRT, though, you have more decisions to make, and one of the biggest decisions is what form of hormone you’re going to use. There are many different ways that replacement hormones can be delivered into your system, and no one way is better than the others. You’ll have to decide which form is going to be the best fit for you, and to do that, you’ll need to know about your options! Here are the most common forms of hormones used in HRT and the benefits and drawbacks of each one.
Pills
Of the forms of hormone therapy, pills taken orally are the most common. Most are taken once a day, although some pills have different or more complex dosing schedules, and they are one of the most researched forms of hormone therapy since they’ve been around for the longest.
The benefits of pills is that they are easy to use and an effective way to deliver hormones to your system. Some of the downsides of pills, however, is that they can carry side effects. With estrogen therapy, for instance, side effects could include headaches and nausea, and pills can sometimes carry risks of aggravating other health conditions, like liver damage or increased risk of strokes or blood clots. Your doctor can discuss with you if these potential side effects are likely to cause an issue in your case.
Patches
Patches attach to your skin with an adhesive and secrete hormones into your system through the skin. Usually you wear patches somewhere out of the way, like on your stomach below your waistband, and you change them out regularly according to the instructions, typically once a week. If you frequently forget to take pills or other medications, patches can be a good option for you since they’re more of a “set it and forget it” kind of treatment.
Skin patches can be a good choice for people who can’t take pills– for instance, if you have a liver condition and can’t take oral estrogen, which is hard on the liver, an estrogen patch completely bypasses the liver and would be a great option. Side effects like headaches or nausea from patches can also sometimes be less intense than those from pills, although this does vary from person to person. Hormone patches usually need to be kept away from high heat or direct sunlight, though, because it can make them release their doses too quickly. This makes them difficult to wear for people who spend a lot of time outdoors in hot climates or who frequently use tanning beds or saunas. If these things apply to you, a different option might be better.
Topical Treatments
Topical hormone treatments cover any type of treatment that is applied to the skin, such as gels, creams, and sprays. They work similarly to patches by allowing the hormone to be absorbed into the bloodstream through the skin. They may be applied to different places on the body depending on the specific medication, like the arm or the leg.
Like patches, hormone creams, gels, and sprays are good for anyone who can’t take hormone pills orally because they bypass the digestive system and go straight to the bloodstream. Unlike patches, however, they do need to be applied regularly, often daily, which can make them difficult for people who have trouble remembering to take medication. Additionally, there is a risk of them being rubbed or washed off before they have a chance to absorb. Because of this, topical treatments always need to be applied after bathing or showering, and you should let them fully dry before dressing.
Vaginal Treatments
Vaginal suppositories, rings, and creams are most often used to deliver estrogen, and they are commonly used by women whose hormone imbalances lead to them having vaginal dryness, itching, burning, or pain during sex. This is one of the most effective ways to treat the vaginal symptoms of menopause. The schedules for these treatments can vary depending on what kind you’re using, from needing to be changed daily or a few times a week to only needing to be changed or reapplied every few months.
These treatments, like patches, are convenient because you don’t need to take them every day, and if the only real problems you’re having with a hormone imbalance are related to dryness and discomfort, they can be great to target that symptom directly. They also typically have a low dosage, reducing the risk of side effects like headaches or nausea. On the downside, they often don’t do much to help other symptoms such as hot flashes, so if you have symptoms besides vaginal discomfort, another type of therapy would be a better choice for you. It’s also not recommended to use vaginal treatments long term unless you’ve had a hysterectomy, because extended use can increase your risk of endometrial cancer.
While other types of hormone replacement treatments are available, these are the most common ones that you’ll run across. As you can see, each one has pros and cons, and your doctor can help you decide which will work best for you. If you’re interested in learning more about HRT, contact Renewed Vitality to schedule an appointment today!
Your hormones are the chemical messengers of your body, and they affect just about every process that goes on inside your body, not just your reproductive system. Weight, sleep, appetite, growth, even body temperature– all of these things are affected by changing levels of hormones in your system. You might’ve known this fact already, and maybe you’re familiar with other bodily processes that your hormones affect, but did you know that your hormones also play a role in your cardiac health? The different levels of estrogen, testosterone, and progesterone in your system can change how your heart functions and can even raise or lower your risk of cardiovascular disease. Let’s take a look at how your hormones can affect your heart health.
Estrogen
While estrogen’s primary function is as the female sex hormone, it has a surpisingly strong effect on cardiovascular health. Studies show that leading cause of death in postmenopausal women is heart disease. Although this connection is still being studied, the evidence suggests a correlation between the increased risk of heart disease following menopause and the dropping estrogen levels that occur at the same time, which seems to line up with the various functions of the hormone. Estrogen can improve the ability of your blood vessels to dilate and respond to changes in blood pressure, and they also help you to avoid clots.
There have been some studies that would seem to disprove the theory that dropping estrogen levels are bad for your heart, where postmenopausal women who were undergoing hormone replacement therapy didn’t see any benefits from increased estrogen. However, in these studies, the women were taking orally-dosed estrogen that affects cardiovascular health in different ways and can sometimes cause more harm than good. Naturally derived estrogen that is delivered percutaneously (under the skin) like the kind offered by Renewed Vitality has been shown to have more positive effects on heart health.
Testosterone
Lower levels of testosterone are not only associated with cardiovascular disease, they’re associated with other conditions that can eventually lead to cardiovascular disease, such as insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome and diabetes. Between 27 and 36 percent of men who experience heart failure are also testosterone deficient, so much like estrogen, the connection is still being studied, but a correlation between testosterone levels and heart health is certainly present.
Testosterone has some vasodilatory effects (the dilation of veins) just like estrogen, and also plays a role in fighting inflammation and influencing muscular strength. Because of all of these things, testosterone replacement therapy has been shown to have positive effects for heart failure patients, including female patients, increasing functional capacity and decreasing other heart failure symptoms without major side effects.
Progesterone
Progesterone’s relationship to heart health is a little complicated. Part of this is due to the role progesterone plays in the production of cortisol, the body’s stress hormone that also acts as an anti-inflammatory agent. Heart disease means lots of inflammation, so cortisol is one of the tools the body uses to fight back The body uses progesterone to make cortisol, and in times of stress where lots of cortisol is needed, your body could become deficient in progesterone and experience a hormonal imbalance.
The other part of progesterone’s relationship to heart health has to do with a confusion in terms between natural and synthetic progesterone. The naturally occurring hormone has no negative effects on the cardiovascular system, but synthetic progesterone, or progestin, can be detrimental to the blood vessel walls and may increase clotting. This poses a problem, especially when a heart issue creates a progesterone imbalance due to high cortisol production. However, it’s been found that bioidentical progesterone hormone replacement treatment, like the kind offered by Renewed Vitality, doesn’t share the same risks as progestin and can be a useful treatment to help these imbalances.
As you can see, the relationship between your hormones and your heart is complicated and interconnected, with lots of studies still being conducted today. However, reliable bioidentical hormone replacement therapy has been well-established as helpful in cases of cardiovascular disease, so if you’re interested in learning more about how Renewed Vitality can help you, don’t hesitate to contact us.
