The Hormone Solution

- Roger Mason

     

At the Anti-Aging Show in Las Vegas this month there was one booth with a man named Thierry Hertoghe selling his book, "The Hormone Solution- Stay Younger Longer". Hertoghe is a medical doctor (which warns you immediately) and a member of that idiotic "A4M" association. This, at first, was very exciting to see someone else write about natural hormone replacement. Upon examination of his book a rather different story appeared however. First of all, the Forward was by Barry Sears, the author of all those moronic "Zone" books. Sears has been exposed for what he is in this column and you can read about him in the ARCHIVES. You find that Hertoghe believes in the Paleolithic Diet which has a lot in common with the Atkins Diet (see the ARCHIVES on Atkins and the ketogenic diet). As for whole grains- the very staff of life- he says, "They are second rate food for us", and that, "few people really tolerate them well". He further says that eating whole grains causes weight gain and hormone imbalance! He hates beans as well and says not to eat more than two servings a week and preferably none at all. What does he recommend instead of healthy whole grains and beans? Lots of beef, pork, poultry and eggs. Now, there's a guaranteed road to cancer, diabetes, heart disease, obesity, arthritis, osteoporosis, and every other disease you can name. He says we "need some cholesterol" and that "we need fats in our diet, including saturated fats." It is obvious almost everyone on earth eats too much fat, and we have no need at all for either cholesterol or saturated fats. Fats and sugars of all kinds are the worst things we can eat.

Instead of blood and saliva testing to find out your hormone levels, he suggests various questionnaires. He actually says blood and saliva testing is somehow inaccurate! He also thinks urinary testosterone analysis has some kind of value. He doesn't even seem to understand that only free testosterone has any analytical value and that bound testosterone is useless because it is not bioavailable. Obviously your urine carries off waste products and cannot be used to reflect hormone levels. You answer questions such as, "I feel exhausted, my breasts are droopy, I'm always thirsty, I crave salty foods, I sunburn easily, I'm stressed out and my back hurts." He says answering questions like this is more accurate than blood and saliva testing.

Folks, you think I take cheap drugs and stay up all night making up things like this just to be mean don't you? Well, that's not how it's done. If these people didn't give me so much ammunition I couldn't shoot them apart so easily. He actually wants you to determine your hormone levels with silly questions, rather than state of the art, high technology blood and saliva analysis done by the most sophisticated labs in the world with state of the art equipment. It gets even weirder from here. The top fifteen hormones (not in any order) you should be concerned with are testosterone, pregnenolone, DHEA, melatonin, estradiol, estrone, estriol, T3, T4, progesterone, growth hormone, insulin, cortisol and androstenedione. If you wanted to go further than this (and your dear author did years ago) you can do LH, FSH and prolactin. For some unknown and unexplained reason he wants you to test your aldosterone, and if it is low, take the dangerous drug fludrocortisone! Aldosterone is almost never mentioned in the medical literature it is so obscure. He then wants you to test your calcitonin and take expensive calcitonin drugs if that is low. He wants you to test your erythropoetin but doesn't tell you what to do if that is low. He wants you to test your vasopressin and take the dangerous synthetic desmopressin if that is low since you cannot take vasopressin per Se. Where on earth does he get this stuff? He thinks IGF-1 (aka Somatomedin-C) is an accurate measure of growth hormone. It is not and never has been and never will be. He actually thinks those over-the-counter GH secretagogues really work and you just don't need to bother injecting real rhGH at $4,000 a year minimum. This column (see the ARCHIVES) has explained endlessly how NONE of the OTC secretagogues work. Please read that again- NONE of them work. You know, this guy is actually dangerous.

Something that really shows he's out of his league is that he has synthetic progestins confused with real natural progesterone. He says to take the "oral progesterone" instead of the transdermal cream because it is better absorbed. This guy is really, really confused when he doesn't know the difference between a synthetic, unnatural, toxic prescription progestin like Provera and natural, bioidentical transdermal beneficial progesterone.

It gets worse. To him "estrogen" means only estradiol. Seriously, he actually spells this out very clearly. He has no idea there are three main estrogens including estrone and estriol that all work very differently. You must test estrone and estriol separately and treat them separately. Even men should test these.

He tells you to take "5-100 mg" of pregnenolone if you are low, but not to use a blood or saliva test to determine this. I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP! He really says all these things. Women over 40 need at least 25 mg and men over 40 need at least 50 mg of pregnenolone to do any good. Any less in useless and any more only in very rare cases where a severely low level can be proven.

He personally takes Propecia (finasteride) and is deluded into believing it grows hair. When anything on this earth grows hair you'll hear about it in this column. Nothing grows hair after you've lost it and there is really no hope anytime soon of that situation changing. Cell cloning of your own scalp will be the answer to that problem within the next ten years thankfully.

He generalizes that, "almost all hormone levels drop, across the board, in men as well as women". Gosh, it would be nice if life were this simple. Men over 50 have more estradiol and estrone than their postmenopausal wives which cause them to grow breasts, get prostate cancer and gain weight. Many women have excessive estradiol, estrone, DHEA, testosterone, androstenedione, FSH and LH. Excessive levels of any hormone are dangerous and very hard to lower except thru total diet and lifestyle changes.

He pontificates (what else can you expect from a medical doctor?) about supplements but seems to be unaware of such powerful supplements as lipoic acid, beta glucan, vanadium, quercitin, flax oil, phosphatidyl serine (PS), beta-sitosterol, lecithin, acidophilus, FOS, silicon, ipriflavone, acetyl-L-carnitine and other such proven, effective substances.

At least he admits that all milk and dairy are bad and we should avoid them.

Soy isoflavones are wonderful (yes, see the ARCHIVES please) but he thinks they are actually plant estrogens (only animals make hormones) and recommends 250 mg when you should be taking more like 40 mg. I've never even seen a 250 mg soy isoflavone supplement anywhere. Have you? He thinks oral SOD is effective (only injected or a prescription nasal spray can be absorbed). If only pigs had wings and could fly.

You've seen by now this is not a recommended book for you to read. If you want to know about natural hormone balance please read my "The Natural Prostate Cure", "No More Horse Estrogen", or "Zen Macrobiotics for Americans". And read the ARCHIVES.

God love you dear readers, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.