Based on life expectancy trends, women face the prospect of spending the last one-third to one-half of their lives in a state of hormonal imbalance. The quality and quantity of life for these women will be determined by how well they (and their doctors) manage their hormone replacement.

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Why Do I Need a
Progesterone Supplement?

If you’re approaching menopause, you may have begun to experience a variety of symptoms like hot flashes, sleeplessness, more intense PMS, irregular periods, heavy bleeding. And you may even feel and act like a bear! All these symptoms are due to a decline in progesterone. Eventually, with the onset of menopause, although estrogen continues to be stored and steadily secreted by fat cells, progesterone generation comes to a halt—which means you may have additional or different symptoms.

Progesterone depletion is now believed to be the cause of many of the symptoms that women suffer in perimenopause and menopause.

Lucky for us, researchers like Dr. John Lee have discovered that most women in our society suffer from a hormonal imbalance called estrogen dominance. That means estrogen is unopposed or unbalanced by the diminished level of progesterone. In fact, Dr. Lee says, "I would propose that a new syndrome be recognized: that of estrogen dominance." (What Your Doctor My Not Tell You About Menopause. NY, Warner Books, 1996.)4-6

In addition to the unpleasantries that most woman in our culture experience during this period of their lives, estrogen unopposed by progesterone also decreases sex drive, increases the likelihod of fibrocystic breasts, uterine fibroids, uterine (endometrial) cancer, and breast cancer. That’s why it’s so important to replenish your progesterone levels with a natural progesterone supplement.

Progesterone depletion is now believed to be the cause of many of the symptoms that women suffer in perimenopause and menopause.

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Progesterone and Bone Health

If you’re a woman who is over 35 years old, your bone mass has already peaked. If you’re between 45 and 50 years old, your bone mass is already decreasing. And if you’ve already reached menopause, you may lose 5 to 10 percent of your total bone mass during the first five years that you don’t menstruate!

Osteoporosis affects more than 50 percent of women between 45 and 75. But the good news is that progesterone can help prevent, halt, and reverse bone loss. We now know that the bone-building cells, or osteoblasts, contain progesterone receptors, which directly encourage the building of bone.

Research scientists have shown that even in women who have not reached menopause, there’s a subtle gain and loss of bone during every menstrual cycle. These scientists were able to show that there is actually slightly more bone being built during the high-progesterone part of the monthly cycle and a slight loss during the lower-progesterone part of the cycle. They also showed that progesterone actually did help rebuild bone at the time of the month when it was the strongest. Dr. Jonathan V. Wright, co-author of Natural Hormone Replacement (Smart Publications, Petaluma, CA, 1997) says that "If you can do that during the woman’s cycling years, then the overwhelming likelihood is that progesterone is a bone rebuilder after menopause, too."7

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Progesterone Builds Bone With or Without Estrogen Therapy

For the past 20 years, Dr. John Lee has successfully been using natural progesterone supplements for reversing excessive bone loss and preventing new fractures in women with osteoporosis. Interestingly, Lee says that natural progesterone builds bone with or without estrogen therapy.

In cases of severe osteoporosis Dr. Lee found bone density increases of 10 to 15 percent in six months, and an average 15 percent in three years with little occurrence of new fractures. Many of the women in his study added natural progesterone to their estrogen therapy, but others dropped the estrogen all together. Both groups gained bone mass while on the progesterone. 8

While replacement of all missing or deficient hormones is always best, Dr. Lee’s research suggests that progesterone is more important in combating osteoporosis than are estrogens. While replacement estrogen may prevent bone loss, replacement progesterone leads to new bone formation, actively increasing bone mass and density. Progesterone can even help reverse osteoporosis, which estrogens can’t do alone. 9

In another study, Dr. Jerilynn Prior linked osteoporosis to progesterone deficiency in young women athletes. Prior discovered that these supposedly healthy women had abnormal menstrual periods, an absence of ovulation and progesterone deficiency. She then linked their excessive bone loss to their progesterone deficiency. Progesterone supplementation resolved the women’s menstrual irregularities and corrected their bone loss. 10

Whether you’ve already reached menopause or are in perimenopause, now is the time to protect your bones with TransMist Natural Progesterone Spray.

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Natural versus Synthetic Hormones

The hormones your body normally produces—estrone, estradiol, estriol, progesterone, and testosterone—are all natural hormones. The drugs usually prescribed by doctors are synthetic analogs (slightly altered versions) of the natural hormone. They have been altered to allow patent protection, not to make them work better.

Natural hormones used in hormone replacement used to come from human beings. According to Joseph Needham (Science and Civilization in China, Volume 5, part 5, Cambridge University Press, 1983.), Taoist physicians made and used preparations of human urine solids containing sex steroids from at least the 11th century onward, and possibly as long as 2,000 years ago. 11

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The Next Best Thing

Today natural hormones used for hormone replacement originate from the wild yam (Diascorea composita), which is rich in precursor molecules (the source of another substance). Biochemists are able to easily convert these precursor molecules into other molecules that are identical in every way to natural hormones.

How can a hormone that got its start in a vegetable and was converted in a test tube be considered "natural" in a human female? The word natural actually refers to the structure of the hormone molecule, not its source. For TransMist Natural Progesterone Spray, chemists extract the hormone called cholesterol in the lab, and then convert that hormonal raw material into progesterone—natural progesterone identical to what your body produces.

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What’s "Yams" Got To Do With It?

The Mexican wild yam has a long history of medicinal and food use. It is rich in diosgenin, a precursor of progesterone, DHEA, testosterone, and the three human estrogens—estriol, estrone, and estradiol. The plant has been used traditionally for thousands of years to nourish the female reproductive system and reduce the symptoms of PMS and menopause. In 1943, wild yam attracted the attention of mainstream medicine when scientists extracted the female hormone progesterone from this plant. In fact, until 1970 this plant was the sole source of progesterone used in birth control pills.

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Beware of the "Yam Scam"

But please be aware that you can’t get progesterone from eating yams! The yams we eat are not even true yams and have little to no plant steroid activity. And the human body cannot make progesterone from wild yam. You can get the benefits of natural progesterone by using TransMist Natural Progesterone Spray made from the Mexican wild yam – Dioscorea Villosa.

You cannot get a significant amount of hormones from using creams based directly on wild yam or even by eating Mexican wild yam. Your body doesn’t have the chemical cofactors required to convert them into useful hormones. This has to be done in a laboratory. This hasn’t stopped entrepreneurs, though, from marketing yam creams as sources of various steroid hormones. Make sure the product you use is not just unprocessed Mexican yam.

You can feel confident and self assured that when you use TransMist Natural Progesterone Spray you’re getting a scientifically produced product using the highest pharmaceutical-grade USP progesterone.

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Frequently Asked Questions:

1.  Why Hasn’t My Doctor Told Me About Natural Hormones?
2.  What’s the Difference Between Natural Progesterone and Synthetic Progesterone?
3.  What’s the Difference Between Natural Progesterone Cream and Natural Progesterone Spray?
4.  Where Should I Apply the Spray?
5.  What is the Recommended Dosage of Natural Progesterone?
6.  What If I’ve Had Cancer?
7.  How will TransMist™ Progesterone Spray Make Me Feel?
8.  Caution!
9.  References

Why Hasn’t My Doctor Told Me
About Natural Hormones?

Your doctor probably doesn’t know about natural hormones simply because their use isn’t taught in medical school or promoted by pharmaceutical companies. Because natural hormones cannot be patented for the same reasons you can’t patent natural air, water or vitamins, there’s little or no incentive for the pharmaceutical industry to spend the $200 million or more necessary to run all the clinical trials and do all the paperwork to get even one of these hormones approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

With no multinational drug industry to pay the enormous costs, the large definitive studies that might demonstrate efficacy better than competing drugs will never be done. Almost all doctors see only the studies for the benefits and risks of Premarin®, Provera® and other patentable "hormones"; studies which the pharmaceutical industry has conducted itself or underwritten.

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What’s the Difference Between Natural Progesterone and Synthetic Progesterone?

According to Christianne Northrup, M.D., obstetrician-gynecologist, internationally recognized authority on women’s health and healing, and bestselling author of Womens Bodies, Women’s Wisdom (Bantam Books, New York, 1994), and The Wisdom of Menopause (Bantam Books, New York, 2001) there are no side effects with natural progesterone at the usual doses. Natural progesterone is a precursor molecule that can be converted in the body to other important, necessary hormones.

Synthetic progestins, on the other hand, as found in Provera®, have many known side effects including bloating, headache, and weight gain. "Unfortunately, many women are told their synthetic progestin is the same as progesterone. But synthetic progestins can actually increase PMS symptoms because taking a synthetic progestin decreases the body’s natural progesterone levels," says Dr. Northrup. Also, there is evidence that when synthetic progesterone is used, it appears to increase the risk of breast cancer.

And there’s a huge difference economically. Man-made hormones not found in nature are far more profitable for the pharmaceutical companies than natural hormones because, unlike natural substances, they can be patented.

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What’s the Difference Between Natural Progesterone Cream and Natural Progesterone Spray?

Creams are messy. They have to be carefully measured to make sure you’re getting the right dose, and since you have to keep opening the jar or tube, the cream can get contaminated. TransMist Spray is an extremely convenient way to deliver a precise dosage of 6 mg of natural progesterone with each spray. TransMist contains the highest, pharmaceutical-grade USP progesterone, blended in a vitamin E-rich transdermal base. It’s simply the easiest and cleanest way to apply natural progesterone.

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Where Should I Apply the Spray?

Progesterone is most easily absorbed where the skin is relatively thin and soft, such as the face, neck, upper chest, breasts, inner arms, abdomen, inner thighs, palms of the hands and soles of the feet. Just be sure to alternate sites so that the progesterone is absorbed into the fat layer under the skin. If you apply it to the same spot all the time, the fat will become saturated in that area and you won’t get optimal absorption.

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What is the Recommended Dosage of Natural Progesterone?

For premenopausal women, use 12-24 mg/day (2-4 sprays) for 14 days before the expected day of your period, stopping the day or so before it begins. For example: Start using the spray between days 12 to 15 and end on day 26 of the menstrual cycle. For postmenopausal women and post-hysterectomy, use 12-18 mg/day (2-3 sprays) for two weeks of the month, and then discontinue for two weeks. Repeat to mimic your pre-menopausal cycle. Since natural progesterone doesn’t produce side effects, flexibility in dosing carries no risk.

Dr. Northrup says that, "Each woman’s need varies, so you may have to experiment to find a dose that works for you. Many women are able to decrease their dosages over time once their symptoms have been completely relieved. It is more effective, however, to start out with dosages that are on the high end of usual dosages and stay with these for several months."

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What If I’ve Had Cancer?

If you’ve had cancer, and hormone replacement is clearly indicated, some natural healthcare practitioners prefer to recommend progesterone only, because it’s clearly anti-carcinogenic.

Although the risk of breast cancer from estrogen replacement therapy remains controversial, the increased risk of endometrial cancer is largely eliminated when a natural progesterone is taken along with the estrogen.

A study conducted in Taiwan focused on forty premenopausal women who had undergone a breast lumpectomy. Ten to 13 days before surgery, the women were randomly assigned to apply a topical gel containing either estradiol, progesterone, estradiol plus progesterone, or a placebo each day. When the researchers examined postsurgical breast tissue from around the lump, they found increased proliferation of breast epithelial cells in the samples from the women who had used the estradiol-only gel compared with the placebo. By contrast, cell proliferation was significantly reduced in the tissue samples from the women who had used either the estradiol/progesterone gel or the progesterone-only gel.12 .The study concluded that progesterone does not increase the proliferation of normal epithelial breast tissue, indicating that it doesn’t increase the proliferation of cancerous tissue either.

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How will TransMist™ Progesterone Spray Make Me Feel?