Osteoporosis 8 – A Far More Effective Hormone Than Estrogen

Another big “secret” that everyone really should know (but somehow they don’t)!

Osteoporosis responds well to hormones, but there’s more to the hormone story than estrogen alone.

Bone building and remodeling involves other hormones in a dance, a biofeedback with one another. Estrogen modulates the breakdown of bone, preventing it from breaking down too fast. So the conventional approach uses estrogen to try to slow down the breakdown of bone in the development or progression of osteoporosis.

But using estrogen alone to deal with osteoporosis leads to the commonly held conclusion of many doctors, that bone degeneration can be slowed but not reversed.

Haven’t they ever heard of progesterone? Well of course they have. Unfortunately they may not have studied its effect on building bone. And they have come to rely on synthetic progesterone like Provera, Norlutate and Norlutin which are more accurately called progestins because they are not really progesterone.

Natural progesterone retains the same three-dimensional molecular configuration as the progesterone that the human body produces. In other words if you could look at a molecule of natural progesterone beside the human-body-produced progesterone they would look identical. You could super impose them and they would fit together.

But legally the drug companies cannot patent a natural substance, so they tweak the molecule a bit to make it “unnatural” but it still retains some of the effects of the natural substance. Now they have a patented synthetic drug that they can market. And they are good at marketing.

In fact they are so good at marketing, sending drug reps to the doctors’ offices, that doctors usually do not become educated about the more natural approaches.

Let’s compare the progestins (synthetic drugs promoted as progesterone) to real progesterone:

First, let’s review the way hormones work in our bodies. Special endocrine glands produce the hormones. We’re familiar with some of them. The thyroid gland produces the thyroid hormone; ovaries produce estrogen and progesterone, testicles produce testosterone; adrenals produce adrenaline, cortisol, and the sex hormones. The pancreas produces insulin and glucagon.

Once secreted from the gland the hormones enter the blood stream to be transported to another organ or tissue for specific purposes and responses.

At the target site their function is dependent on three determinants:

1. The hormone has to bind to an appropriate receptor on the receiving cell.
2. The hormone must have a specific message for that cell.
3. The receiving cell must be capable of an action in response to the message.

Amazingly, the same hormone can trigger different biological actions at different receiving cell sites. But these different actions depend on precise molecular configuration. Therefore, the slightest alteration in the configuration of the hormone molecule can cause tremendously different biologic responses.

Take a look at how the natural progesterone molecule looks compared to the synthetic progestin Provera (medroxyprogesterone) molecule:

The differences are amazingly obvious aren’t they? Even a pre-school child could recognize the difference.

With this information we can easily understand why progestins (synthetic drugs) cannot possibly function as well as the progesterone that looks just like human produced progesterone, known as bio-identical progesterone or natural progesterone.

Furthermore the synthetic hormones may cause undesirable or toxic biologic responses. And indeed they do as evidenced by the long list of warnings, precautions and side-effects of the progestins and other synthetic hormones.

But why do doctors assume that the progestins function the same as natural progesterone?

They only look at one function of progesterone. Can it build up the lining of the uterus? Well, yes, the progestins can do that. But does the progestin also have the bone-building effect of natural progesterone?

An excellent question that we will pursue in the next article on osteoporosis and hormones.

Blessings,

Dr. Jo