Women's Hormone Health

Bioidentical Hormone Replacement Therapy (BHRT)

The First Step Back to "You"
We recognize that you may not have heard of bioidentical hormones before now, or you may be confused about the differences between natural bioidentical hormones, herbal treatments for menopausal symptoms and dangerous synthetic hormones, such as the popularly prescribed Premarin and Prempro. At the Natural Hormone Institute we cut through the confusion to translate complex medical terms into easily understood, everyday language. We also include the most current medical research and clinical studies conducted by the foremost medical authorities.

Dr. Randolph has used BHRT for over a decade for thousands of women and men suffering from symptoms of hormone imbalance – such as hot flashes, night sweats, weight gain, brain fog, moodiness, worsened PMS, bloating, headaches and migraines, depression, low libido and decreased sexual pleasure, decreased bone density and increase in fibrocystic breasts - but he did not always prescribe BHRT.

Like most physicians in America, Dr. Randolph was trained in medical school to prescribe synthetic hormones. He stopped because of the high percentage of patients who came back complaining of side effects, some very troublesome, like low libido and weight gain, others of greater health significance, like tender or fibrocystic breasts and low thyroid disorders. Years before the landmark National Institutes of Health (NIH) Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) study tagged synthetic hormones as a serious health risk, Dr. Randolph had researched and developed a safer alternative. His expertise as a compounding pharmacist, combined with intensive studies in the biochemistry of plant-based medicine helped him recognize bioidentical hormones as a scientific method for restoring hormone balance at a cellular level.
Here’s why:

Understanding BHRT
Bioidentical hormones are derived from a plant molecule called diosgenin that is found in wild yam and soy, and then synthesized in a laboratory to be identical to naturally produced hormones. The lab process ensures that these hormones have the exact molecular structure and duplicate the exact same function as the hormones made by your body.  What that means to you is that when you use bioidentical hormones, the cells of your body recognize them as familiar and know how to put them to best use.

To put it in simple science terms, bioidenticals are safe because, like your own hormones, they fit perfectly into the hormone receptor “locks” of the cells in the body where they do their work. And because they have a 100 percent relative binding affinity (RBA) for your internal hormone receptor sites, they do not trigger side effects.   So, just as the key to your car fits perfectly into the ignition and, when turned, sparks the engine, bioidentical hormones fit into your body’s hormone receptor locks and spark exactly the same response as that previously fostered by the hormones produced in the ovaries, testes, adrenal gland or hypothalamus.

Medical research has proven that when BHRT is used to re-establish the body’s optimum hormone levels, good things happen at a cellular level. Which bioidentical hormone and how much of it you need will depend on your individual body chemistry or physiology. The objective of BHRT is to replace or rebalance hormones that are deficient or in excess, in order to restore optimum hormone balance.