Today I read about about a famous person who has had Diabetes for several years. It got me to thinking why Diabetics are treated with the meds they are. There is a class of medicines which works the most naturally of any of the medicines, i.e., like bioidentical hormones do. One, in rats, has been shown to reverse the disease even. The major side effect is weight loss. It makes you wonder why it’s not the first and only drug used, and the earlier the better. The only reason is because it is expensive. The person being quoted in the article said they had lost weight without trying and was on a medicine in this class. So the patient feels better and lost weight, but is exercising more. If the hormones are balanced, including testosterone, the person might be more motivated to exercise, and with adequate testosterone, make or maintain more muscle. So ask your physician and don’t just do what they say. Try to understand what you are taking and why. Be proactive about your health.
Diabetes is a problem that is increasing in America, especially as we age. There are many factors involved in this problem including diet, lack of exercise and increasing weight, among other reasons. The big question is what can we do about this problem. We know as we age and the sex hormones change in our bodies that we have a tendency to gain fat, especially in the waist and hip areas. Poor dietary and exercise habits are not the only reason this is occurring. Balancing the hormones can help prevent or stop this. Most women are estrogen dominant and this can increase the weight gain. Too much Testosterone in women can increase the weight gain. So balancing the hormones is very important. Just taking hormonal therapy which relives the Menopausal or PMS symptoms is therefore not the best way to treat to obtain the best results. Checking the hormones and making sure that the hormone levels are proper is very important. Balancing the hormones does not melt away the weight gain but can help the body lose weight when combined with a proper diet and exercise. Many of the diets people go on cause excess muscle as the weight loss so still have the fat. Fat causes the Insulin in the body to be less effective. Thyroid also is often not adequately treated. If it is not treated with attention to the T3 then a person is not getting the optimal results.
A study recently presented at the Endocrine Society annual meeting was about how testosterone helped with memory in postmenopausal women. In the study they took postmenopausal women and gave one group testosterone and the other group did not get testosterone. At the end of 26 weeks the group which got the testosterone had significantly better memory on tests which measured visual and verbal learning and memory and another test which measured delayed recall. Sonia Davison, MD, PhD, said ” this is exciting”. These were women with no apparent memory problems. The idea is to study it further to see if can prevent dementia. But for a postmenopausal woman, taking testosterone may help you memory be better than it would if you did not take it.
The FDA is considering placing limits on the length of time that patients may take bisphosphanates, such as Fosamax and Actonel. These medications are commonly used to treat osteoporosis and osteopenia in postmenopausal and perimenopausal women who are at risk for fractures. They are also used in men but much less frequently. A recent study has shown bone deterioration at the five year mark after taking one of these drugs commonly used to treat osteoporosis. Medications used to treat and/or prevent osteoporosis have also been associated with unusual bone fractures, jaw fractures, and esophageal cancer.
There are many supplements and vitamins, in addition to Bioidentical hormones, which have been shown to stabilize and even prevent bone loss. These therapies can be customized to the individual patient.
