Aesthetics as feminine health

"Suzanne Somers has brought bioidentical hormones onto center stage. In her new book, The Sexy Years, and in media appearances to promote it, she eloquently describes how bioidentical hormones relieved her menopause symptoms. She also makes it clear that she intends to stay" on them for the rest of her life."

"Most women who receive hormone replacement therapy are prescribed drugs like Premarin or Prempro, which come from the urine of pregnant mares. Bioidenticals, which are also prescribed, are derived from soy, wild yam and other plant extracts. Advocates say their molecular structure is similar to that of the hormones they are replacing and can serve the same purpose.But hormone replacement therapy, in general, is controversial. The National Institutes of Health reported in 2002 that it posed more health risks than benefits for women in a clinical trial, yet that conclusion hardly appears to be the last word. Little research has been done on the bioidentical alternatives, and it is not even known how or if they work, nor whether they carry the same risks as the drugs, like for breast cancer.“We just don’t have the information, and I think it would be irresponsible to promise that for women without the information,” said Dr. Isaac Schiff, the chief of obstetrics and gynecology at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. “No one has proven that the bioidentical is any safer or any more harmful than Premarin.” Ms. Wiley, 54, said she came upon bioidenticals about a decade ago after suffering from an ovarian cyst, fibroid tumor and lump on her chest. “I got tired of being scared,” she said, and started to work with a molecular biologist to refine what has since become the Wiley Protocol, which consists of a bioidentical estradiol and progesterone preparation in a topical cream (she holds the patent) that is “dosed to mimic the natural hormones produced by your body when you were 20 years old,” she said." Ms. Wiley shrugged this off. “Does it have to come from a pedigreed source?” Instead, she maintains that the debate is really a “fight over women’s bodies and how much money those women are worth to doctors, who gets to prescribe and sell hormones to these women,” she said. “Suzanne is giving women enough ammunition and information to ask the right questions when they go to the doctors. They’re not happy she’s thinking on their own and they don’t want women to do that, either.”
NYtimes
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