It seems that it wasn't taken into account in the article that there is an important difference between natural or chemically identical estrogen to the one produced by the body, and the other types of estrogen! Please correct me if I'm wrong...the article was very technical and written in too scientific jargon for my taste. I've been taking a chemically identical estrogen combined with quality progesterone for many years without any problems!
Dr. Katharina Dalton made a huge contribution to the understanding of hormonal disorders, and she is also the one who named the syndrome PMS. Dalton took her observations to Dr. Raymond Greene, an endocrinologist, and speculated that progesterone, which is abundant during pregnancy and should also be abundant during the luteal phase (the second half of the menstrual cycle), might be the key. She and Dr. Greene first published their clinical experiences and theory in British medical journals in 1958 and proposed the term premenstrual syndrome. By then, Dr. Dalton had successfully treated premenstrual asthma, epilepsy, and migraines with progesterone.
One of Dr. Dalton's observations was that some of the symptoms of PMS (including edema, hypertension, and albumin in the urine) also seemed to present as early signs of toxemia in pregnancy. She initiated intervention trials with progesterone, in collaboration with a maternity hospital. Hospital records showed an average incidence of toxemia of 9%. After the first patients receiving treatment gave birth in 1955, the incidence dropped to a low of 1.0%.
Dr. Dalton noted that progesterone has a very positive effect on hair growth in women. After childbirth, many women experience significant hair loss due to the sudden drop in progesterone. When supplemented with progesterone for such women, hair grows back luxuriantly. Progesterone also causes a decrease in night sweats and better quality of sleep; decreased the interference in life related to perimenopause.
Progesterone has also been shown to be effective for brain trauma due to its protective effect on the myelin sheath, which covers nervous tissue. Additionally, progesterone can reduce inflammation in the brain and has even been used by neurosurgeons before surgery. Progesterone may be associated with a lower risk of thromboembolism.
Vitamin D deficiency, a widespread problem that is increasing worldwide, has been implicated in a variety of diseases, including metabolic syndrome. Metabolic syndrome is a set of risk factors that together increase the predisposition to suffer from major chronic diseases, including diabetes mellitus and cardiovascular diseases. The high prevalence of vitamin D deficiency in apparently healthy premenopausal women in certain populations is quite alarming. Vitamin D deficiency is associated with metabolic syndrome and osteoporosis in postmenopausal women.
This article is very interesting “Katharina Dorothea Dalton (1916–2004)”. because it reveals the fight between prescribing estrogen and pregesterone. In 1931, physician Robert T. Frank published his article "The Hormonal Causes of Premenstrual Tension," where he hypothesized that fluid retention caused by excess estrogen, the female sex hormone, caused symptoms such as headache. intense and swelling in women. Dalton referenced Frank's work while she was researching PMS and found no evidence to support the effectiveness of estrogen removal as a treatment for the condition.
Dalton proposed that PMS symptoms were due to a lack of progesterone and not an excess of estrogen. To test her hypothesis, Dalton treated patients who complained of monthly physical and psychological symptoms with natural progesterone. Dalton and Greene published their results in 1953. Dalton and Greene treated mild to moderate symptoms with oral doses of ethisterone, a synthetic progesterone, one week before symptoms were expected to begin. Dalton contradicted Frank's estrogen-centered theory of premenstrual condition. Dalton argued that PMS symptoms included more than just the tensions and migraines that Frank had documented, but also included asthma, irritability, fatigue, and depression. Noticing the increased number of possible symptoms, Dalton proposed that the term syndrome be used instead of tension to describe the condition and she officially coined the term premenstrual syndrome. In 1970, Dalton was the first woman president of the general practitioners' section of the Royal College of Medicine and she received the Royal College of Practitioners' Migraine Prize in 1972, for her work linking migraines with premenstrual syndrome. In 1978, she published her book Once a Month: The Original PMS Manual, where she explained the connection between hormones and health.
A meta-analysis of 3 studies involving 86,881 postmenopausal women reported that use of natural progesterone was associated with a significantly lower risk of breast cancer. Anovulation and low serum progesterone levels have been associated with a significantly increased risk of breast cancer in premenopausal women. Progesterone use has been linked to lower rates of uterine and colon cancers and may also be useful in the treatment of other cancers such as ovarian, melanoma, mesothelioma, and prostate. Progesterone may also be useful in preventing cardiovascular disease and preventing and treating neurodegenerative conditions such as stroke and traumatic brain injury. Conclusions • Doctors should not hesitate to prescribe natural progesterone. The evidence is clear that progesterone does not cause breast cancer. In fact, progesterone protects and prevents breast cancer.
In this EPIC study with a 14-year follow-up, body shape was evaluated with the allometric “body shape index” (ABSI) and the hip index (HI), which compare the waist and hip circumferences, respectively, between individuals with the same weight and height. We examined the associations of ABSI, HI, and BMI (per one standard deviation increment) with breast cancer overall and by menopausal status at baseline, age at diagnosis, and estrogen receptor status. progesterone (ER+/-PR+/-) in multivariable variables
BMI was strongly positively associated with breast cancer overall for postmenopausal women, for cancers diagnosed at age ≥ 55 years, and for ER+PR+ subtypes.
Several traumatic brain injury (TBI) studies have demonstrated increased release of proinflammatory cytokines and increased oxidative stress reactions in peripheral tissues after isolated brain injury. Progesterone is a steroid hormone well known for its role in the menstrual cycle. It is produced not only by the ovaries and placenta in women, but also by the adrenal glands and brain of both sexes. Its production in the brain, by oligodendrocytes and other cell types, provides clues to its fundamental role in neuronal homeostasis. 3 In fact, some experts believe that the 10-fold increase in progesterone during fetal growth is primarily due to neuronal development. Over the past 20 years, preclinical research has repeatedly shown that progesterone has potent neuroprotective properties. There is evidence that it also plays a much broader role in correcting and maintaining homeostasis after physiological stress and injury beyond the central nervous system. 4 Most significantly, it exerts its effects through multiple proteomic and receptor-mediated systems, making it more robust than other previously attempted therapies.
Two clinical trials promise to provide the critical link between comprehensive preclinical data and rigorous clinical experience on the efficacy of pregosterone in traumatic brain injury (TBI). If the results of the phase II trials are confirmed, progesterone will be the first successful treatment modality for moderate to severe TBI. Additionally, due to its pleiotropic effects, progesterone shows promise for other neurological disorders such as spinal cord injury, penetrating brain injury, stroke, and degenerative neurological diseases.
The enteric nervous system (ENS) is an intrinsic network of neuronal ganglia in the intestinal tract with about 100 million neurons located in the myenteric plexus and submucosal plexus. It is currently a matter of debate whether these neurons are affected in neurodegenerative diseases, such as Parkinson's disease, before pathological changes in the central nervous system (CNS) are detectable. Therefore, understanding how to protect these neurons is particularly important. Since the neurosteroid progesterone has already been shown to mediate neuroprotective effects in the CNS and PNS, it is now equally important to see whether progesterone has similar effects in the SNE. Treatment of cultured ENS neurons with progesterone reduced cell death by 45%. %, which underlines the tremendous neuroprotective potential of progesterone in the ENS.
In this article “PROGESTERONE AND LOW-DOSE VITAMIN D HORMONE TREATMENT ENHANCES SPARING OF MEMORY FOLLOWING TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY”:
Progesterone (PROG) has been shown to protect the brain from traumatic injury and is now in Phase III clinical trials. Our work shows that the beneficial effects of PROG may be reduced in subjects with vitamin D hormone (VDH) deficiency. VDH can modulate neuronal apoptosis, trophic factors, inflammation, oxidative stress, excitotoxicity, and myelin and axon repair. We investigated whether VDH combined with PROG could improve behavioral outcomes more than PROG alone in VDH-sufficient rats that received bilateral medial frontal cortex contusions. Our data indicate that the combination of PROG and VDH is more effective than PROG alone in preserving spatial and reference memory, and that PROG plus VDH at low doses can activate glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) reactions up to 21 days after injury. This effect may be one of the mechanisms underlying the neuroprotective effects of PROG in combination with VDH.
I’m weaning off synthetic estrogen/progestin after many years of us and wondering if it’s safe to substitute natural progesterone in the progestin’s place along with synthetic estrogen. My Dr says it will take 5-6 months to safely wean off completely.
It seems that it wasn't taken into account in the article that there is an important difference between natural or chemically identical estrogen to the one produced by the body, and the other types of estrogen! Please correct me if I'm wrong...the article was very technical and written in too scientific jargon for my taste. I've been taking a chemically identical estrogen combined with quality progesterone for many years without any problems!
I agree. Been on bioidentical estrogen, progesterone and a tiny bit of testosterone for years (post menopause). Love it.
Dr. Katharina Dalton made a huge contribution to the understanding of hormonal disorders, and she is also the one who named the syndrome PMS. Dalton took her observations to Dr. Raymond Greene, an endocrinologist, and speculated that progesterone, which is abundant during pregnancy and should also be abundant during the luteal phase (the second half of the menstrual cycle), might be the key. She and Dr. Greene first published their clinical experiences and theory in British medical journals in 1958 and proposed the term premenstrual syndrome. By then, Dr. Dalton had successfully treated premenstrual asthma, epilepsy, and migraines with progesterone.
One of Dr. Dalton's observations was that some of the symptoms of PMS (including edema, hypertension, and albumin in the urine) also seemed to present as early signs of toxemia in pregnancy. She initiated intervention trials with progesterone, in collaboration with a maternity hospital. Hospital records showed an average incidence of toxemia of 9%. After the first patients receiving treatment gave birth in 1955, the incidence dropped to a low of 1.0%.
Dr. Dalton noted that progesterone has a very positive effect on hair growth in women. After childbirth, many women experience significant hair loss due to the sudden drop in progesterone. When supplemented with progesterone for such women, hair grows back luxuriantly. Progesterone also causes a decrease in night sweats and better quality of sleep; decreased the interference in life related to perimenopause.
Progesterone has also been shown to be effective for brain trauma due to its protective effect on the myelin sheath, which covers nervous tissue. Additionally, progesterone can reduce inflammation in the brain and has even been used by neurosurgeons before surgery. Progesterone may be associated with a lower risk of thromboembolism.
Vitamin D deficiency, a widespread problem that is increasing worldwide, has been implicated in a variety of diseases, including metabolic syndrome. Metabolic syndrome is a set of risk factors that together increase the predisposition to suffer from major chronic diseases, including diabetes mellitus and cardiovascular diseases. The high prevalence of vitamin D deficiency in apparently healthy premenopausal women in certain populations is quite alarming. Vitamin D deficiency is associated with metabolic syndrome and osteoporosis in postmenopausal women.
https://www.womensinternational.com/blog/tribute-to-dr-katharina-dalton/ (2021)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1962072/.---
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1962072/pdf/brmedj03116-0018.pdf .------
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S037851222300066X (2023).-----
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-35826-w (2023).----
https://www.journals.vu.lt/AML/article/view/21378 (2015).----
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S037851221730628X (2018).----
https://journals.ekb.eg/article_276357.html (2023).----
THE HEALTH BENEFITS OF PREGNENOLONE.
Table of Contents
1) Benefits
2) Side Effects
3) Warnings and Interactions
4) Dosage and Preparation
5) Alternatives
https://www.verywellmind.com/the-lowdown-on-pregnenolone-89502
This article is very interesting “Katharina Dorothea Dalton (1916–2004)”. because it reveals the fight between prescribing estrogen and pregesterone. In 1931, physician Robert T. Frank published his article "The Hormonal Causes of Premenstrual Tension," where he hypothesized that fluid retention caused by excess estrogen, the female sex hormone, caused symptoms such as headache. intense and swelling in women. Dalton referenced Frank's work while she was researching PMS and found no evidence to support the effectiveness of estrogen removal as a treatment for the condition.
Dalton proposed that PMS symptoms were due to a lack of progesterone and not an excess of estrogen. To test her hypothesis, Dalton treated patients who complained of monthly physical and psychological symptoms with natural progesterone. Dalton and Greene published their results in 1953. Dalton and Greene treated mild to moderate symptoms with oral doses of ethisterone, a synthetic progesterone, one week before symptoms were expected to begin. Dalton contradicted Frank's estrogen-centered theory of premenstrual condition. Dalton argued that PMS symptoms included more than just the tensions and migraines that Frank had documented, but also included asthma, irritability, fatigue, and depression. Noticing the increased number of possible symptoms, Dalton proposed that the term syndrome be used instead of tension to describe the condition and she officially coined the term premenstrual syndrome. In 1970, Dalton was the first woman president of the general practitioners' section of the Royal College of Medicine and she received the Royal College of Practitioners' Migraine Prize in 1972, for her work linking migraines with premenstrual syndrome. In 1978, she published her book Once a Month: The Original PMS Manual, where she explained the connection between hormones and health.
https://embryo.asu.edu/pages/katharina-dorothea-dalton-1916-2004 (2017)
A meta-analysis of 3 studies involving 86,881 postmenopausal women reported that use of natural progesterone was associated with a significantly lower risk of breast cancer. Anovulation and low serum progesterone levels have been associated with a significantly increased risk of breast cancer in premenopausal women. Progesterone use has been linked to lower rates of uterine and colon cancers and may also be useful in the treatment of other cancers such as ovarian, melanoma, mesothelioma, and prostate. Progesterone may also be useful in preventing cardiovascular disease and preventing and treating neurodegenerative conditions such as stroke and traumatic brain injury. Conclusions • Doctors should not hesitate to prescribe natural progesterone. The evidence is clear that progesterone does not cause breast cancer. In fact, progesterone protects and prevents breast cancer.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29055286/ (2017)
In this EPIC study with a 14-year follow-up, body shape was evaluated with the allometric “body shape index” (ABSI) and the hip index (HI), which compare the waist and hip circumferences, respectively, between individuals with the same weight and height. We examined the associations of ABSI, HI, and BMI (per one standard deviation increment) with breast cancer overall and by menopausal status at baseline, age at diagnosis, and estrogen receptor status. progesterone (ER+/-PR+/-) in multivariable variables
BMI was strongly positively associated with breast cancer overall for postmenopausal women, for cancers diagnosed at age ≥ 55 years, and for ER+PR+ subtypes.
https://bmccancer.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12885-023-11056-1 (2023)
.
Several traumatic brain injury (TBI) studies have demonstrated increased release of proinflammatory cytokines and increased oxidative stress reactions in peripheral tissues after isolated brain injury. Progesterone is a steroid hormone well known for its role in the menstrual cycle. It is produced not only by the ovaries and placenta in women, but also by the adrenal glands and brain of both sexes. Its production in the brain, by oligodendrocytes and other cell types, provides clues to its fundamental role in neuronal homeostasis. 3 In fact, some experts believe that the 10-fold increase in progesterone during fetal growth is primarily due to neuronal development. Over the past 20 years, preclinical research has repeatedly shown that progesterone has potent neuroprotective properties. There is evidence that it also plays a much broader role in correcting and maintaining homeostasis after physiological stress and injury beyond the central nervous system. 4 Most significantly, it exerts its effects through multiple proteomic and receptor-mediated systems, making it more robust than other previously attempted therapies.
Two clinical trials promise to provide the critical link between comprehensive preclinical data and rigorous clinical experience on the efficacy of pregosterone in traumatic brain injury (TBI). If the results of the phase II trials are confirmed, progesterone will be the first successful treatment modality for moderate to severe TBI. Additionally, due to its pleiotropic effects, progesterone shows promise for other neurological disorders such as spinal cord injury, penetrating brain injury, stroke, and degenerative neurological diseases.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6025750/ (2018)
The enteric nervous system (ENS) is an intrinsic network of neuronal ganglia in the intestinal tract with about 100 million neurons located in the myenteric plexus and submucosal plexus. It is currently a matter of debate whether these neurons are affected in neurodegenerative diseases, such as Parkinson's disease, before pathological changes in the central nervous system (CNS) are detectable. Therefore, understanding how to protect these neurons is particularly important. Since the neurosteroid progesterone has already been shown to mediate neuroprotective effects in the CNS and PNS, it is now equally important to see whether progesterone has similar effects in the SNE. Treatment of cultured ENS neurons with progesterone reduced cell death by 45%. %, which underlines the tremendous neuroprotective potential of progesterone in the ENS.
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4409/12/8/1206 (2023)
In this article “PROGESTERONE AND LOW-DOSE VITAMIN D HORMONE TREATMENT ENHANCES SPARING OF MEMORY FOLLOWING TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY”:
Progesterone (PROG) has been shown to protect the brain from traumatic injury and is now in Phase III clinical trials. Our work shows that the beneficial effects of PROG may be reduced in subjects with vitamin D hormone (VDH) deficiency. VDH can modulate neuronal apoptosis, trophic factors, inflammation, oxidative stress, excitotoxicity, and myelin and axon repair. We investigated whether VDH combined with PROG could improve behavioral outcomes more than PROG alone in VDH-sufficient rats that received bilateral medial frontal cortex contusions. Our data indicate that the combination of PROG and VDH is more effective than PROG alone in preserving spatial and reference memory, and that PROG plus VDH at low doses can activate glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) reactions up to 21 days after injury. This effect may be one of the mechanisms underlying the neuroprotective effects of PROG in combination with VDH.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3517217/ (2012)
Did you say that taking nitric oxide is a metabolic inhibitor or it’s bad anyway? Lots of good ideas there but it’s going very fast. Thank you.
Is there any other recommendation for progesterone? The one listed here is on back order.
I’m weaning off synthetic estrogen/progestin after many years of us and wondering if it’s safe to substitute natural progesterone in the progestin’s place along with synthetic estrogen. My Dr says it will take 5-6 months to safely wean off completely.