Recently, a government panel recommended that women forgo regular mammograms in their 40s. That day, I found my hairdresser wielding a pair of scissors like a Samurai ready to decapitate any doctor in sight. As it happened, three of her friends, ages 35 and under, were diagnosed with breast cancer. What is a woman to do?
A few days after the mammogram controversy, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologist recommended that women of all ages skip regular Pap smears, and women under age 21 forgo the test. Was it the same panel that issued a formal statement last year opposing home births and by so doing instigating a retort from the "American Sorority of Midwifes"--for the record no such association exists--that certain procedures in hospitals to keep babies safe carry their own risks?
Remember the Mother of all studies? The hormone therapy controversy several years back?
I happened to turn CNN on to learn that according to one of the largest studies of hormone replacement therapy, women on estrogen and progestin were at greater risk of developing breast cancer, heart disease, stroke, and other horrific diseases.
I have been raised by parents who instilled the advantages of all things natural in me--no painkillers, no fat free foods, no decaffeinated coffee, and certainly no hormones. But as luck had it, my gynecologist managed to convince me, nothing less than a miracle, that a certain hormone patch would make me as young and beautiful as the Queen of Sheba. Vanity prevailed, and I agreed to try the patch. A month after, the CNN reporter aimed a fatherly I-told-you-so-finger my way. What is a woman to do?
This woman made a beeline to the bathroom and yanked that patch right off her menopausal belly. I was done with hormones. Done with horse urine, or any other urine from which estrogen was derived. But was I?
In my endless quest for youth, I decided to visit a Beverly Hills authority in bio identical hormones. His promises of frolicking in greener pastures convinced me to try his prescribed capsules. They made me lethargic. He suggested I break them open and rub the oils on my upper arm. When that didn't help, he recommended rubbing the oils on my breasts. When that didn't work, I flushed a wealth of pills down the drain. The next suggestion might ... well I rather not know.
Then Suzanne Somers proclaimed the advantages of bio identical. She did not look a year younger than her age on Oprah but seemed fit enough, so I decided to reach out to an authority in anti aging.
Here's the scoop. Natural human hormones cannot be patented; so there's no money in them. But synthetic or animal products, such as horse hormones, can be. Actually as far as hormones go, dog or camel urine would be adequate enough, except it's easier to use horse estrogens. In the PDR, the bible for doctors, conjugated horse estrogen is a known carcinogen. At this information, my father's castigating finger appeared anew. Bio identical hormones are derived from the Mexican wild yam and are identical in structure and function to our natural hormones. Now, I like this idea of all things natural. Yam is of the earth, isn't it? Identical to our natural hormones sounds excellent. To tell you truth, I am tempted to give the yam a try. But what if in the future, another major study determines that the yam has a tendency to hibernate for years before mutating into carcinogenic terrorist in our body. So what is a woman to do?