Using a more specific definition also has the down side that we could miss the big picture. This big picture is complex, though utterly important to quality of life. Our experience has been that patients are usually treated from a too focused point of view and other imbalances and sometimes the cause of the problem is missed.
The hormone problems we commonly address are insulin, vitamin D, thyroid, DHEA, testosterone, estrogen, and progesterone. Less frequently we see cortisol and prolactin problems. There are many other important hormones including growth hormone, heparin, DHT, digestive, pituitary and associated cytokines, but they are usually addressed much more effectively indirectly. It is our view that insulin is singularly the most important, overlooked and under treated of all hormones.
In general hormones have control over all the tissues and likely all the processes of the body. They all decrease or deplete with age and abuse, except for cortisol production which increases, likely to our long term detriment. In our clinic, we do not see where nutrients or herbs are the only or even the best way to treat most of this process. What is often the most effective is improving your health with bio-identical hormone replacement. Bio-identical hormones are identical to the hormones your body produces. We replace them at generally very low, effective doses to help you maintain a great quality of life. In our view this is naturally supportive since they are the same hormones your body produced for all the years prior to decline.
Hormone balance is an area of focus in our clinic since it produces such impressive results in quality of life that can not be obtained with drugs or herbs alone. This is also a focus of our future research, specifically in relation to how maintaining hormone balance applies to the process of healing and aging. Clinical application of hormone related medicine is not much more mature than 25 years and most of this has been focused on a single hormone at a time, not the balancing of hormones, and generally not bio-identical hormones. This is truly where quality alternative doctors lead the way.
This is such a complex subject and it gives it injustice to address in such a short space. We encourage you to do internet searches for peer reviewed published review articles on the specific hormones commonly addressed if you want more meaningful information.
