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Suzanne Somers Bioidentical hormones review

Hi, I am Natalie, a blogger and product reviewer at MedReviews. I’ve been doing research on HGH and anti-aging products for like 8 years now, I’ve reviewed most of them, especially the better known ones and I do know a thing or two about HGH and why it’s real for anti aging. YES. HGH is great for better and a younger skin and overall fitness.

In this article, I discuss why I chose HGH as a better option than “Bioidentical hormones“, when it comes to treating various aging symptoms, without having to deal any side effects.

About Suzanne Somers

Things have been very good for Suzanne Somers. The self-proclaimed health guru has been busy writing books which are featured on countless morning talk shows. At 70, Somers feels and looks great as she says in her TV interviews.

In one of her appearances in a TV show, Somers confessed that she and her husband have sex twice a day. Helped along by the support she has received from Oprah and other heavy-hitters in the talk show industry, Somers has turned herself into an expert on all matters to do with aging as well as a women’s health advocate.

However, of concern to many professionals in the health industry is how almost every piece of health advice that Somers gives is incorrect. Somers’ advice on important matters about women’s health is mostly dangerously inaccurate.

One of the most important things that women should know is that the hormone therapy that Somers frequently promotes is potentially harmful, regardless of how strongly she backs the safety of bioidentical hormones.

Among the reasons why women should take all advice that comes out of Somers’ mouth with a dash of salt is her lack of scientific knowledge.

In a 2013 interview hosted by Carol Alt, the opening question asked to Somers was, “How did you go from being a comedic genius to health guru?”

It sounds a bit ominous but it is a question that fills any listener with follow-up questions about why Somers think she knows anything about women’s health.

In the discussion, Somers gave several insights including a contentious one about evolution.

She said that when your brain perceives that you are no longer capable of reproducing because of hormonal imbalance, it “tries to get rid of you” and usually activates cancer in perimenopause?

Taking a step back and looking at what Somers said about evolution and reproductive health, we expose the inaccuracy of her utterances.

The truth is that evolution doesn’t affect much about how we age after our reproductive years.

There is no scientific evidence to show that evolution makes any attempt to eliminate infertile women.

In fact, there is evidence to the contrary – evolution values older non-reproductive people. They have an important role of taking care of young ones, providing guidance, and performing mundane tasks like gathering and preparing food.

Next, Somers was asked to explain why perimenopause symptoms are not so severe in women living in developing nations. Somers had nothing to say than joke about how women in developed countries are affected by stress and toxicity.

She said that women in developed countries experience higher stress levels daily than women in Elizabethan times did in a whole year. She was quick to add that those women used to be chased by tigers.

Somers reiterated that even walking on the street today is stressful, not to mention the mold and other toxic materials that we are exposed to.

Somers’ comparison of stress in developed and developing countries was grossly inaccurate. She didn’t mention the intense stress that people in sub-Saharan Africa have to struggle with every day.

People in developing countries are almost always worried about civil wars, rape, forced migration, food insecurity, and AIDS.

Somers should also have thought about the numerous toxins that affect people as a result of indoor cooking. People in developing countries frequently cook with firewood, charcoal, and other fuels that produce many toxic substances.

Lastly, Somers was asked to chime in on how cancer and diet are related. Her response started with, “When I didn’t take chemotherapy, and decided to go another way….” Her breast cancer was actually treated successfully by a lumpectomy then radiation therapy which is the standard practice for treating breast cancer.

The only part of the treatment that Somers decided to not go through is chemotherapy sessions which doctors just prescribe for assurance even when they know that the cancer is gone.

All along, Somers implies that she was healed by a yet publicly unknown “all-natural” food and vitamin cure.

In Somers book titled “I’m Too Young for This,” she gives numerous basic pieces of advice about living healthy such as eating more fruits and vegetables. The frequency with which she mentions such basic facts is alarming.

Somers is yet to divulge any “unique” information about her so-called natural hormone solution.

One thing that is, unforgivably, rarely mentioned is the controversy that hit her shortly after she released her book titled, “Ageless: The Naked Truth About Bioidentical Hormones.”

Bioidentical hormones are the next frontier of anti-aging science and woefully little is known about them.

Doctors that prescribe these hormones wrote a public letter to her and her publishers expressing their concern about how most of what she said in her book is “scientifically unproven and dangerous.” All doctors that Somers had mentioned in her book were mentioned in the letter.

The hormone therapy touted by Somers, dubbed the Wiley Protocol, was developed by Teresa S. Wiley – an author who had been claiming to have a degree from 1975 which didn’t actually exist. Wiley had no proper scientific training. In fact, she recently graduated with a B.A. in anthropology.

Hormone therapy is a very complicated topic. Somers’ recommended therapy of estrogen with progestin, which are aimed to counter the natural decrease of the respective hormones with age, was revealed by proper studies to increase the risk of cardiovascular disease, heart attacks, stroke, and, wait for it… breast cancer.

Conventional synthetic estrogen and progestin therapy caused these side effects and “Bioidentical hormones” (which are identical to natural hormones present in the body) are therefore touted as providing the same benefits without side effects.

But according to the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), there have been no large long-term clinical trials that have studied the safety and effectiveness of Bioidentical hormones.

According to Robert S. Wool, MD, an ob-gyn at Noble Hospital, Mercy Medical Center, and Baystate Medical Center :-

“In my honest opinion, I believe bio-identical hormones (filled at a compounding pharmacy) are a marketing ploy,” he says. “They are the same hormones, estrogen and progesterone, but are ‘custom made’ for each patient that requests them.”

BHRT vs conventional hormone therapy

The menopausal symptoms that women were struggling with prior to starting on Somers’ wonder cure didn’t go away after following her advice. Prior to the introduction of bioidentical hormones, women had turned to natural products to relieve their symptoms.

Bioidentical hormones, as the name suggests are chemically and biologically identical to hormones produced by the body. They are made primarily from plants. Conventional hormones closely resemble those produced by the body but they are not exact copies.

Despite Somers’ obsession with bioidentical hormones, there is no evidence that they act differently than those used in conventional hormone therapy. Both hormones are natural since they come from plants and mare urine but they are also unnatural because they are made in a factory.

This is a more detailed article on why bioidentical or non-bioidentical hormones are essentially the same.

Several bioidentical hormones have been approved by the FDA. However, Somers’ books do not talk about pure bioidentical hormones. Instead, she talks about substances made by mixing various bioidentical hormones.

This mixing makes their purity and potency questionable and puts the substances beyond the reach of FDA regulation.

Mixing naturally derived hormones does not only increase the risk of cancer and cardiac diseases. In 2003, the FDA studied 29 unregulated pharmaceutical compounds made by mixing various regulated substances.

Here is a consumers advisory by the FDA.

One third failed standard quality testing and nine had more active ingredients listed than they actually contained. According to the CDC, almost a thousand people got fungal meningitis in 2012 because of taking mixed corticosteroids – 64 of them died.

Conclusion

Women who follow Somers’ advice make a grave logical error – they assume that lack of evidence that a product is harmful can be taken as proof of its safety.

Somers’ prescribed hormone therapy doesn’t get tested by the FDA but Dr. Nanette Santoro, a professor of ob/gyn says that under-dosage and over-dosage can be common.

According to Santoro, there really isn’t any need for people to take compounded hormones because they can get their FDA approved constituent hormones.

Every woman who takes a leap of faith by following self-proclaimed health expert Suzanne Somers is terribly wrong. She is going against sound advice from all trained medical practitioners as well as all United States’ medical authorities.

The reason why Somers looks a little younger than most sixty-eight year olds is her combination of natural hair dye, botox, collagen fillers, and, possibly a stem-cell face-lift according to blogger Tony Youn.

In essence, bioidentical hormones can be beneficial but are a highly unregulated industry with lot of overnight antiaging experts promoting them.  And they are definitely NOT without side effects.

In my opinion, HGH supplements can deliver the same benefits without side effects.

References

Benefits & Risks of Bioidentical Hormone Replacement Therapy

https://www.bodylogicmd.com/bioidentical-hormone-therapy/benefits-of-hrt

Unwanted side effects of (bioidentical) hormone replacement therapy

http://www.everydayhealth.com/menopause/bio-identical-hormone-treatment.aspx

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._S._Wiley

http://www.livescience.com/40677-suzanne-somers-health-advice-wrong.html