The Natural Hormone Makeover

Phuli Cohan

Description

A female doctor who has spent more than two decades studying the relationship between hormones and menopause presents a safe, effective program for using natural and bioidentical hormones to combat hot flashes, insomnia, mood swings, and many other symptoms linked to menopause-related hormone imbalances. Combining traditions of Chinese medicine with the latest Western developments and discoveries, this easy-to-follow ten-step program helps you create a personalized course of treatment using supplements, herbs, natural and bio-identical hormones, and diet to enhance both safety and hormone effectiveness.
Acknowledgments.

Introduction.

Chapter 1. Understanding Health and Hormones.

Chapter 2. The Steps to Bring Back Balance.

Chapter 3. Safety Concerns.

Chapter 4. A Healthy Lifestyle.

Chapter 5. Know Your Symptoms.

Chapter 6. Recommended Tests.

Chapter 7. How to Find the Right Doctor and Support Team.

Chapter 8. Sex Hormones Part I: Perimenopause and More.

Chapter 9. Sex Hormones Part II: Menopause and More.

Chapter 10. Adrenal and Thyroid Hormones.

Chapter 11. Sleep Hormones.

Chapter 12. Growth Hormone.

Conclusion.

Appendix 1.

Appendix 2.

References.

Sujets

• Santé et bien-être
• Santé du quotidien
• Santé au quotidien
• Santé au quotidien
• Fitness
• Health
• Women's Health

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 11 avril 2008
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780470185780
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Natural Hormone Makeover
10 Steps to Rejuvenate Your Health and Rediscover Your Inner Glow
Phuli Cohan, M.D.

John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Copyright © 2008 by Phuli Cohan. All rights reserved
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey
Published simultaneously in Canada
Illustrations by Robert Romano; copyright © 2008 by Phuli Cohan
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, [phone], fax [phone], or on the web at www.copyright.com . Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, [phone], fax [phone], or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions .
The information contained in this book is not intended to serve as a replacement for professional medical advice. Any use of the information in this book is at the reader’s discretion. The author and the publisher specifically disclaim any and all liability arising directly or indirectly from the use or application of any information contained in this book. A health care professional should be consulted regarding your specific situation.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Cohan, Phuli, date.
The natural hormone makeover : 10 steps to rejuvenate your health and rediscover your inner glow / Phuli Cohan.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-471-74484-9 (cloth)
1. Hormone therapy—Popular works. 2. Women—Health and hygiene. 3. Endocrinegynecology—Popular works. 4. Rejuvenation. I. Title.
RM286.C64 2008
615'.36—dc22
2007044824
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To my teachers in Asia, Australasia, Europe, and the United States who taught me to bring common sense and balance to medicine
To my patients, whose success using natural hormones compelled me to write this book
To the healthcare professionals responsible for the Women’s Health Initiative Study, which helped bring an end to the “one pill for all” treatment of women. Much of the debate about the safe use of hormones started with their efforts.
To my husband: this book could not have been written without your unwavering support and love. You make it all possible.
Contents
Introduction
1 Understanding Health and Hormones
2 The Ten-Step Hormone Makeover
3 Hormone Safety and Metabolism
4 Hormones and a Healthy Lifestyle
5 Know Your Symptoms
6 Recommended Tests
7 How to Find the Right Doctor and Support Team
8 Sex Hormones Part 1: Perimenopause and Progesterone
9 Sex Hormones Part 2: Using NaturalBioidentical Estrogen and Testosterone
10 Adrenal and Thyroid Hormones
11 Sleep Hormones
12 Growth Hormone
Conclusion
Appendix A: Symptoms of Low Hormones
Appendix B: Symptoms of Hormone Excess
References
Suggested Readings
Index
Introduction
I have been described as a “naturalist” physician, and that’s probably as close as you can get to explaining what I do. After graduating from Brown University Medical School in 1982, I was excited but also somewhat dismayed. Despite top-notch medical training, something was missing. Medicine seemed impersonal, overly technical, and disjointed. Systems and specialties were taught separately; pieces weren’t fully connected. The cardiovascular system was never linked to moods, yet I noticed that most people who had suffered a heart attack often had upsetting dreams or felt depressed, more so than with other illnesses. No one seemed to notice how the menstrual cycle affected a woman’s bowels, yet most women, when asked, will tell you that they do often change. Nutrition was discussed in terms of calories or “exchanges” without any connection to hormones or neurotransmitters, which are made from proteins and are carefully regulated by our vitamins and minerals. Physical signs that people noticed about themselves, such as their tongue coating or the quality of their skin, nails, and hair, were largely overlooked.
So after leaving medical school, I deferred my internship for a year and traveled to India and Sri Lanka, where I worked alongside Ayurvedic doctors, herbalists, and homeopaths. In the East, it is not uncommon for such alternative doctors to work alongside physicians. I watched as pulses and tongues were examined and dreams and fears were carefully discussed. I came to appreciate a larger picture of health and disease. Sure, medications are important, but in the East attention to symptoms is most important. I never heard a homeopath or Ayurvedic doctor say, “You’re fine, there is nothing wrong with you, these symptoms are just in your mind,” or “You are simply depressed or overworked.” Each symptom, no matter how minute, was noted and considered as a powerful clue to the patient’s problem.
I returned to the United States in 1983 to begin an exciting internship in family medicine. I delivered more than a hundred babies and performed dozens of C-sections and thoroughly loved my work, but I was still restless. I had a professor in medical school from New Zealand, and I remembered how he had meticulously listened to the heart only after carefully considering the shape of the fingers and the quality of the hair and skin, all signs of how the blood from the heart was truly acting. That particular piece of my medical school training left a lasting impression. So after my first internship I signed on for a second one—another year of sleepless nights, this time halfway around the world in New Zealand, where my professor had come from and where there were but two CAT scans for the entire population of over 3.5 million people. You had no hope of getting your patient to a scan unless you could precisely determine, from your astute physical exam, where exactly in the brain the suspected lesion lay. It was training that emphasized physical signs and symptoms, in lieu of the latest diagnostic machine.
After a year in rural New Zealand, I continued my training at Auckland University studying geriatrics, the medicine of aging, the inevitable condition we all face. It was in this setting in 1984 that I met a professor of rheumatology. Dr. Gerald Gibb had been one of a handful of noted physicians selected by the World Health Organization to visit China when foreigners were first permitted inside the Great Wall. He initiated me into the practice of acupuncture and gave me a taste of Chinese medical theory. For the first time, I began to understand the connection between emotions, symptoms, diet, and the environment. For the Chinese, there was no such thing as disease, there was simply balance and imbalance. You were either in balance or out of balance.
At last, Chinese medicine satisfied my medical curiosity and opened me to a world that drew together all aspects of the human experience. The Chinese system of diagnosis is symptom-based, not system-based. A system is normally in balance; symptoms signal an imbalance, either a deficiency or an excess, either too much cold or too much heat, for example. Symptoms hold the key to restoring balance. How a person sleeps, thinks, speaks, menstruates, and dreams provides the clues to the underlying problem. There is no separation between emotional and physical symptoms. Symptoms are seen as a continuum from healthy to unwell. Disease as we see it is merely the end product of prolonged imbalance and deficiency of nutrients and energy. In Chinese medicine, age is seen as a gradual decline in kidney qi (pronounced “chee”) and, though inevitable, this decline can actually be made more gradual and much more comfortable.
With great enthusiasm I began using acupuncture on my geriatric patients. I noticed that my stroke patients could move more freely and that their moods and bowels improved. I began treating patients who had heart problems and saw that by inserting an acupuncture needle in their arm (which at one time was embryologically linked to their heart), I could ease their heart palpitations and even calm their racing minds. This fascinated me because I remembered the Chinese saying “The heart rules the mind.”
After three years in New Zealand, I left to complete the U.S. acupuncture training for physicians at UCLA in 1989, and then worked for three years at a clinic in Hawaii. I used acupuncture and herbs, as well as traditional Western medicine, to treat whatever ailments walked through the door. The local Hawaiian kahunas, or healers, were similar to the Chinese—always considering the emotional and spiritual beliefs of their patients, using deep massage and herbs to bring people into balance. This experience drove me to want more traditional training in Chinese medicine, not just the rote map of acupuncture points that Western doctors had given me.
So I traveled to Australia to complete my training in emergency medicine and, more important to me, to study Chinese gynecology with Dr. Steven Clavey. Each week I worked alongside him in conjunction with leading gynecologists in Melbourne, to treat and study women with pelvic pain caused by endometriosis. I saw that after their surgery, if her