Natural Progesterone is the Natural Hormone of Pregnancy

by Peter Eckhart, MD

Who is John Lee, MD

John Lee, MD, a Norwegian, graduated from Harvard University as an undergraduate. He also graduated from University of Minnesota Medical School. He practiced medicine for 30 years in Northern California. He pioneered and popularized the use of Natural Progesterone in patients with estrogen dominant diseases. Estrogen dominant diseases include Breast Cysts, Ovarian Cysts, Endometriosis, 1st trimester miscarriage, uterine fibroids, premenstrual syndrome (PMS), menstrual migraine headaches, and Restless Leg Syndrome.

Does Natural Progesterone prevent Breast Cancer?

John Lee, MD writes in his Medical Letters

"We have clear clinical evidence of a correlation between natural hormone replacement (NHRT-Natural Progesterone) and breast cancer prevention. In ten years of prescribing NHRT, not a single patient of mine on NHRT has developed a new case of breast cancer. In addition, I continually survey doctors who prescribe NHRT as well as my newsletter readers, and out of thousands of those surveyed, I have only found four who had been using NHRT for more than a few months who had breast cancer all of them were using or had used excessively high doses of estrogen."

The normal incidence of breast cancer in the USA, as of 2003, is 1 out of 8 women according to the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia. This translates to 125 women with breast cancer out of 1000. Natural Progesterone is NOT the same as the brand name prescription progestins that your doctor gives you such as Provera or Megestrol. See Progestins for more information. Recent US Government Studies Conclude Synthetic Estrogen may Raise Breast Cancer Rate.

After rising steadily through the 1990s, the breast cancer rate dipped from 2001 to 2002, from 138 cases to 135 cases per 100,000 women. After the federal Women's Health Initiative study reported in July 2002 on the health risks of hormones, use of the pills plunged.

So did the breast cancer rate the following year to 126 cases per 100,000 women. It was the steepest fall since the government started keeping records in the 1970s.

The drop was seen in all of the cancer statistics registries reviewed in the study, and no other cancer rate changed as dramatically, strong signs that hormones were playing a role, specialists said.

The 2004 rate held steady at about 126 cases per 100,000.

Lower synthetic estrogen use tied to lower rates of breast cancer. See the article here.

Teens Taking Birth Control Pills Increases Breast Cancer Risk by 600%!

John Lee, MD writes in his book What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Breast Cancer pg 81

"When teenage girls take birth control pills, it increases their risk of breast cancer. It has been well established that when girls between the ages of 13 and 18 - and to a lesser but still significant effect, women up to the age of 21 - use birth control pills, their risk of breast cancer can increase by as much as 600 percent. The younger a girl begins to use contraceptive hormones, the greater her risk of breast cancer. Because girls are reaching maturity much earlier today than even 10 or 20 years ago, and are more freely using contraceptive hormones, we have to ask whether this scenario is going to lead to a significant increase in breast cancer, particularly premenopausal breast cancer - which tends to be more aggressive."

Lee, MD goes on to write that the synthetic estrogens and synthetic progestins in birth conrol pills do NOT allow breast cells to mature. Instead the birth control pills stop breast tissue maturation, and these immature breast cells are more vulnerable to cancer causing chemicals later in life.

Synthetic Progestins versus Natural Progesterone expose. See Progestins for more information on the difference between Natural Progesterone and Progestins.

Get John Lee, MD's book, What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Breast Cancer for more information on the avoiding breast cancer. 6 hours of reading will save your life.

Does the estrogen that my physician prescribes after menopause increase my chance for breast cancer?

Yes. The question is by how much. A 1995 New England Journal of Medicine(1) article used the group of Nurses in the Nurses' Health Questionnaire's study. They found that women using estrogen for 5 years or more had increased risk of breast cancer of 41%. For women using estrogen for 5 years or more and 60 to 64 years old the increase was a whopping 71%. The breast cancer death rate increased 45% for women taking estrogen replacement 5 years or more. Synthetic Estrogens increase breast cancer and Progestins do not compensate for it. Read the abstract here.

1. New England Journal of Medicine 1995 Jun 15;332(24)1589-93.

I stopped my estrogen and started my progesterone. Now, I have hot flashes.

Suddenly stopping your estrogen,"Cold Turkey", will result in hot flashes one month later as the estrogen washes out of your body. Instead cut your dose to 1/2 of your normal dose and slowly taper off your estrogen over a period of 3-6 months. If you don't want to take the prescription estrogen, you can take estriol 0.3 mg/day to 0.625 mg/day or Maca 4 capsules/day three weeks out of four. Estriol is a natural estrogen that is a weak estrogen. Estriol will block the effects of the more potent Estradiol. You can discontinue the estriol slowly decreasing it over a period of 3-6 months. For more about hot flashes see page 121 of What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Menopause.

I've been taking Progesterone for several months now. My Restless Leg Syndrome is still there. Why?

The most common reason is that xenoestrogens (using plastic wrap in the microwave oven) are not avoided. Women still drink coffee and still use plastic in their microwave oven. The chemicals that you really want to pay attention to is the stuff you put on the skin. This is because whatever you put on the skin is 10 time the oral dose. Laundry detergent, shampoo, soap, and cosmetics are very important. Food is of secondary importance. Usually, women think they have avoided everything on the skin, but do NOT. This is the most common case. Occasionally, we see patients who have avoided the xenoestrogens faithfully. There are several possibilities. One, the xenoestrogen may still be stored in the body fat. It usually takes about 1-2 months to wash out of the body. But who knows? There are 100,000 chemicals in use in the United States and wash out times for fat soluble chemicals are difficult to figure out. Secondly, the patient may be one of the less than 1% of patients who do not absorb progesterone well through the skin. In this case, prescription oral progesterone may be used 200-400 mg/day or Maca 4 capsules per day. Also the progesterone cream that she has used may be improperly formulated with some estrogens. See Failures. We know that Progestelle works - get it here.

Stress/fear/anxiety can impair the body's ability to rid itself of toxins. A women that has fear/stress/anxiety has impaired excretion of all chemicals. These women may have one or more of the following

1. Hypersensitivity to smell
2. Multiple Allergies
3. Sensitive to small amounts of drugs - a cup of coffee at night would keep you up all night.
4. Impaired Rhomburg - put your feet together stand on tip toes and clse your eyes. Abnormal people wobble.

Isn't estrogen good for the heart? Shouldn't I be taking estrogen for my heart?

In a nutshell, physicians were misled into believing that estrogen was good for the heart. The primary article cited is a 1991 New England Journal of Medicine report known as the Nurses' Questionnaire Study. Out of 121,700 female nurses 48,470 were included in the study. Essentially, sick nurses with diabetes (29.6% more), nurse smokers (29.5% more), and heavy nurses (53.1% more- body fat) were put in the control group NOT taking estrogen replacements. The healthy nurses were the ones taking estrogen replacements. In other words, the healthy nurses took the estrogen and the unhealthy nurses did NOT take estrogen. This led to the FALSE conclusion that estrogen is good for the heart. For a more detailed discussion see page 188 of What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Menopause.

The highly regarded Framingham study showed no benefit for the heart with estrogen use. Other studies have found heart risk from estrogen use. The federally funded HERS study showed no benefit of estrogen on the heart.

About xenoestrogens (pretends to be estrogen)

• No Breast cyst .com
• TIME
• Colborn