Ironically, most of the studies relating to HRT products have gone very far to show what an important role your own naturally produced estrogen plays in the functioning of your body. But in its rush to give women the benefits of estrogen, the medical/pharmaceutical establishment has simply continued to promote the standard hormone products now available from the major drug companies without looking for better and safer alternatives that also don't have the negative side effects of the standard drugs.

Does "Estrogen" Cause Cancer?
Almost all the studies that link estrogen to an increased risk of cancer have been related to taking Premarin or other common drug products. Premarin is extracted from horse urine. While it contains helpful estrogens like estrone and estradiol, it also contains equilin and equilenin (horse estrogens) and synthetic additives. It is the taking of unbalanced and foreign estrogenic elements and additives that we believe is dangerous and potentially cancer producing, not estrogen itself. When used appropriately, the estrogen from natural plant sources, which matches your own hormones exactly, does not produce harmful side effects.

Standard medical practice prescribes drugs using the so-called risk/benefit factor. The side effects of a drug are medically accepted hazards of treatment: The judgment is made that the benefits outweigh the risks, and doctors are willing to accept the fact that you may suffer serious consequences. But are you willing to accept it?

A major link between raised estrogen levels and breast cancer is primarily a ratio problem--the ratio between estrogen and progesterone in your body, which can be brought on by poor diet, poor digestion, lifestyle habits, stress, or environmental factors. In the simplest terms, unbalanced estrogen-to-progesterone levels can cause a relative or absolute "estrogen dominance," which can lead to the proliferation of cancer cells. When the first hormone replacement drugs were put on the market, the symptoms of menopause were understood primarily in terms of "estrogen deficiency," but this has since proved to be a narrow vision. This erroneous medical model takes one hormone, estrogen, out of context in the body's functioning, and neglects the importance of progesterone. Just by correcting diet and digestion, you can decrease your environmental exposure and improve your body's ability to balance estrogen and progesterone and eliminate estrogen dominance. A plant-rich diet helps eliminate estrogen dominance and is actively anticarcinogenic.

But I Love My Premarin
On the other side of the aisle from those women who have an undifferentiated fear of estrogen are those women who simply continue to take Premarin or Premarin/Provera or the other commonly prescribed HRT drugs and shut their ears to all controversy.

Let us say right up front that we are not against "hormone replacement" per se, although what we are advocating could more accurately be called hormone balancing or replenishment. When it comes to dealing with temporary symptoms, such as hot flashes, night sweats, and vaginal dryness, Premarin has been shown to be effective. But we do think it is a crude product--crude in the sense that it was developed during the early stages of hormone investigation and contains estrogens foreign to a woman's body. We think this lack of conformity to a woman's body is what contributes to its side effects.