Progesterone vs. Progestin: Vive La Différence!

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Progesterone vs. Progestin: Vive La Différence!

JoAnn Guest

Oct 28, 2004 20:15 PDT

 

Progesterone vs. Progestin: Vive La Différence!

Clara Felix

Reprinted with permission from

The Felix Letter: A Commentary on Nutrition

http://www.vitaminsinamerica.com/news/progest.htm

 

(The following article about Dr. John Lee's use of Pro-Gest refers

to his book,

" Natural Progesterone: The Multiple Roles of a Remarkable Hormone " .

See also: " What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Menopause " .)

 

In simpler times, 'female complaints' were treated with special

foods, herbs and tonics. Nowdays, powerful synthetic hormones are

dispensed freely if not cheaply to women all over the globe.

 

Medical and popular media wage a phenomenally successful campaign to

make these products appear as benign as sunlight. (Don't bother

reading the fine print on the package inserts, ladies, it's just a

silly legal requirement.)

 

The hormone era came into its own with The Pill. Taken on a cyclical

schedule monthly, synthetic estrogen plus synthetic progesterone, or

synthetic progesterone alone, send signals to the master controller -

the

pituitary and hypothalamus - to shut down ovulation.

 

If no egg is release from the ovary, there's no pregnancy. Presto! -

sexual freedom without paying the piper! Fantastically convenient

and safe.

 

Try telling that to Mother Nature.

 

Ask epidemiologists who chart the steady rise of breast cancer rates

in the U.S. while other cancers, except lung cancer in women, have

decreased. Look up the manufacturers' product information for any

well-known oral contraceptive in the Physicians' Desk Reference.

 

Pages of tiny print list Cautions, Contraindications, and Adverse

Reactions that include life-threatening pulmonary embolism, cerebral

thrombosis, and cerebral hemorrhage.

 

Never mind the 'milder' patient complaints such as nausea and

vomiting, migraine, mental depression, gallbladder disease,

enlargement of uterine fibroid tumors, and loss of scalp hair! (Just

a sample, believe me.)

 

First, the young women were snookered on a grand scale into

accepting without a fuss the havoc The Pill makes of their natural

functions.

The Pill's success ($$) and safety record (hah!) helped launch the

next campaign, Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) for the disease of

aging in women - medical salvation for a tragic medical condition!

 

The goal appears to be pharmaceutical control over every woman's

'female' functions, beginning with puberty and stopping only with

her obituary.

 

Besides generating monumental windfalls for the drug firms, it makes

steady work for journalists, ad-makers, medical experts, etc. whose

job it is to terrify women (and physicians) about the horrors of

menopause, decrepitude, bone loss, etc. - avoidable, they say, only

through HRT.

 

Skeptical doctors, slow to prescribe it, risk an exodus of patients

who turn to more caring physicians. Scan the magnificent HRT ads in

any medical journal, or read standard medical texts on menopausal

symptoms and treatment, if you think I'm overstating the case.

 

Each of the scores of synthetics developed for oral contraceptives

and HRT is patentable, unlike real hormones, creating the profit

incentive. Most important in terms of convenience, they work when

taken orally.

 

Natural hormones are commercially extracted easily from plants but

lose some effectiveness when swallowed. So, what's wrong with making

powerful hormones that work by mouth?

 

The answer lies in the story of progesterone.

 

In John R. Lee M.D.'s Natural Progesterone: The Multiple Roles of a

Remarkable Hormone (1993), the good doctor from Sebastopol tells

what happens to women who use the true hormone.

 

The contrast between its benign effects and the hair-raising ones

caused by synthetics was a revelation to me. Like most people,

clinicians included, I didn't know about the difference*.

 

The synthetic analogues of progesterone are call progestins - a term

designed to blur the distinction. Another term is " progestogens " .

 

No wonder doctors, patients, journalists - everyone but the drug

makers

- seldom know the difference. Dr. Lee writes: " Gail Sheehy, in her

popular 1991 book The Silent Passage, for instance, admits to being

so confused about the names that she decided to call all of them

'progesterone' throughout the book even though she is generally

writing about the synthetic progestins. "

 

The lists in Physicians' Desk Reference of 'adverse reactions' for

Provera and the other progestins are very long and very scary. For

starters, they're known to increase the risk of birth defects, of

breast cancer, and of runaway blood clots (embolisms) that lodge in

the lungs or the brain.

 

Natural progesterone doesn't have any harmful side effects even

during pregnancy, and actually protects against breast cancer and

abnormal clotting.

 

Swallowed as a pill, however, it goes through metabolic passes by

the liver, losing some of its effectiveness. Earlier preparations of

natural progesterone needed to be injected, or were made for vaginal

or rectal insertion - not very convenient. (More recently, good

absorption has been achieved from oral preparations that deliver the

desired doses.) Also, as we observed, the natural is not patentable.

 

The drug makers got busy. Starting with the real hormone, they did a

little snipping here, a bit of tailoring there - creative organic

chemistry stuff!

 

The reformulated molecules were powerful inhibitors of ovulation,

making them the drug of choice (along with synthetic estrogens) for

contraception.

 

The other beckoning market was the menopausal woman on estrogen

replacement therapy (ERT). Alas, these ladies were getting too many

cancers of the uterus.

 

Back to the drawing board! Progestins saved the day. Taken

cyclically,

they tend to cause bleeding that sheds the cancer-promoting buildup

(stimulated by ERT) of tissues lining the uterus. Wunderbar! Mostly

male doctors now have restored to us older females the privilege of

having monthly periods till we totter to the grave. Thanks a heap.

 

Question: Why is true progesterone good for us and the synthetic

analogs not so good?

 

Progesterone is the master 'starter' hormone from which the other

great

steroid hormones are made, i.e., testosterone, estrogens, and the

adrenal corticosteroids. We're talking basic.** For example, Dr. Lee

explains how cortisone's unique anti-arthritic, anti-inflammatory

effects can take place only if enough progesterone is available as

precursor to cortisone synthesis by the body.

 

Progesterone's second indispensable function is the survival and

development of the fertilized ovum. Ample amounts made by the

placenta and ovary are essential for a full-term pregnancy.

 

Far and beyond its role in pregnancy, Lee explains, are

progesterone's multiple systemic functions, including these:

 

protects against breast fibrocysts

 

is a natural diuretic

 

helps use fat for energy

 

is a natural antidepressant

 

helps thyroid hormone action

 

normalizes blood clotting

 

restores libido

 

helps normalize blood sugar levels

 

normalizes zinc and copper levels

 

restores proper cell oxygen levels

 

protects against endometrial cancer

 

helps protect against breast cancer

 

stimulates bone building

 

The fakes - progestogens, progestins, etc. - do two things well:

they prevent ovulation and they stop ERT-induced buildup of uterine

lining (endometrium)

to cancer-promoting levels.

 

The following fatal flaws, however, make it impossible for them to

take on most of progesterone's functions:

 

1) They can't be converted in the body into sex hormones and

corticosteroids.

 

2) All progestins have powerful effects when taken orally because

they're not readily metabolized (broken down) by the liver for

excretion

in bile and urine - unlike progesterone.

 

Not only do they persist in the body abnormally long, they occupy

progesterone receptor sites in tissues, taking over for the true

hormone but not capable of doing most of its jobs.

 

Many of progestins' adverse effects are believed to arise from just

this interference with highly complex natural processes.

 

Reminds me of trans-fatty acids that get into our system after we

eat foods prepared with margarine and other artificially

hydrogenated oils.

 

Trans fats displace vitally needed w3 and w6 fatty acids in the cell

membrane, but then can't fish or cut bait!

 

Question: Why are so many women beset after menopause with stiff,

aching joints, and loss of springiness and muscular strength, while

men generally retain not just male virility but physical power and

vitality?

 

 

Adrenal glands make progesterone for women and men both; but women

depend on their ovaries for the main supply of progesterone (also

estrogen).

 

When at menopause the ovary's output of both drastically drops (but

doesn't cease), the adrenal glands try harder but don't make up the

difference. In contrast, older men maintain their usual progesterone

levels, which in the U.S. tend to be much higher than in menopausal

women!***

 

For women, progesterone loss means a big drop in corticosteroids,

which protect against stiffness, soreness, and weakness in joints

and muscles. Men, on the other hand, continue to maintain their

corticosteroid levels.

 

Low progesterone also may lead to loss of bone density and ready

fractures from physical exertions, so that many women fear to

exercise

or engage in sports, which only reinforces the stiffness, weakness,

etc.

 

 

Question: Why do many pre-and postmenopausal women develop excess

facial hair and male-pattern hair loss?

 

When a woman has too little progesterone with which to make the

other steroids, the process has to proceed via an 'emergency'

rerouting.

 

This bypass relies more on " androgenic " (male type) hormones than

the route where progesterone is the key precursor.

 

Dr. Lee writes: " When this happens, the androgenic steroids along

this pathway will become more dominant... " The good news is that

with a number of patients " replacement of natural progesterone leads,

in time, to disappearance of the facial hairs and the restoration of

scalp hair. "

 

 

Question: Can young women also experience low progesterone levels?

What are the effects?

 

" ...a good proportion of women in their 30's (and some even earlier)

and long before actual menopause, will, on occasion, not ovulate

during their menstrual month.

 

Without ovulation, no corpus luteum results and no progesterone is

made, " Dr. Lee writes. Stress, poor nutrition, smoking, and toxic

chemicals in the environment probably contribute to anovulatory

periods.

As these women approach the decade before menopause, " they are

producing much less progesterone than expected but still producing

normal (or more) estrogen. "

 

Estrogen without progesterone's balancing effects are not as benign

as we're led to believe.

 

As a matter of fact, he's convinced the discomforts young women are

most familiar with arise from " unopposed " estrogen in the face of a

relative progesterone deficiency.

 

For example, " they retain water and salt, breasts swell and become

fibrocystic, they gain weight (especially around the hips and

torso), become depressed and lose libido, their bones suffer mineral

loss, and they develop fibroids. "

 

Natural progesterone, he and other doctors find, gives young and

premenopausal patients relief from any or all of these symptoms. It

also tones down sweets cravings!

 

Go to Part Two

The Felix Letter, P.O.B. 7094, Berkeley, CA 94707

is published independently by Clara Felix and supported solely by

subscription.

Subscription $12/yr (6 issues), $22/2yrs (12 issues).

 

* I'm angry because I too was snookered long ago, when my doctor at

the time prescribed Provera, a synthetic, that she called

a " natural " progesterone.

 

I stopped taking it after some years, and since menopause I've

relied on

good nutrition and plenty of omega-3 flax oil and fish oil to get me

over the humps.

(See my chapter in Women of the 14th Moon: Writings on Menopause,

edited by Dena Taylor and Amber Coverdale Sumrall, 1991, preface by

Grace Paley. The Crossing Press, Freedom ,CA, 95019). I wish I'd

known about natural progesterone sooner as well! (back to where you

were)

 

** The body makes progesterone and all steroids from its

cholesterol, a small molecule with important stabilizing functions

in every cell.

 

The process can take place in the adrenal glands of both sexes and

the testes in males. In women during their fertile years the ovaries

are the major production site for progesterone.

 

During the early phase of monthly preparation for ovulation, about 2

milligrams daily of progesterone are secreted. Starting around

ovulation, progesterone increases to 25mg a day during the latter

stage,

then drops sharply unless the egg is fertilized. If fertilization

occurs, ovaries and the placenta rapidly increase progesterone

biosynthesis to 300 to 400 milligrams a day in order to maintain a

healthy pregnancy.

 

The androgenic (male) hormones, testosterone and androstenedione,

are

made from progesterone.

 

In turn, they can form the three estrogens: estrone, estradiol, and

estriol. (D'you suppose that's where the story of Eve arising from

Adam's rib came from???)

 

All the sex hormones and corticosteroids are small molecules shaped

very

much like one another and the parent molecule, cholesterol.

 

Highly specific variation, created by natural enzymatic action, are

responsible for their different roles in the body. (back to where

you

were)

 

*** Yes, men have female hormones and women have male ones! It's the

balance that counts. By the way, a woman continues to produce

estrogen after menopause not just in her ovaries but in her fat

cells, from the male hormone androstenedione. (back to where you

were)

 

http://www.vitaminsinamerica.com/news/progest.htm

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