Female Issues by Dr Carolyn DeMarco
Hormonal Health for Women [Revised & Corrected 10/09/07]
Contents:
Pages 1-16:
•Conference Call (transcribed by Barbara Rozen)
Page 17:
•Amounts of pregnenolone, DHEA and progesterone in Young Living products.
•How to test your thyroid, excerpted from the Essential Oils Desk Reference.
•How to learn more from Dr. DeMarco
•How to set up a private consultation with Dr. DeMarco
About Dr. DeMarco:
In 1972, Dr. DeMarco obtained her medical degree from the University of Toronto She worked as a consultant in complementary medicine in both the city of Toronto and in rural British Columbia. She is a pioneer in natural childbirth and home births, and trained lay midwives.
For over twenty-five years, Dr. DeMarco has been championing the cause of women's health and alternative medicine. She was among the first to advocate the pro-active take-charge approach to health care that has now been adopted by mainstream medicine. Over her whole career, her mission has been to inform, inspire and empower women to take charge of their health at every level. She has lectured and given workshops extensively across Canada and the United States on women's health and alternative medicine.
Conference Call with Dr. Carolyn DeMarco, Sept. 30, 2003:
Dr. DeMarco speaking:
With all these issues on women’s health that are mentioned, perimenopause, menopause, PMS and fertility, fibroids and endometriosis, all of them have a lot of things in common.
One of the things that is very common is progesterone deficiency, and it’s very widespread because of the use of chemicals in our agriculture. These are chemicals that mimic estrogen and they’re present in the fat of meat and dairy and in cosmetics and in many chemical products. We have these estrogen mimickers, which create this relative progesterone deficiency, which is also the cause of cystic breasts, endometriosis, fibroids, PMS, menopause and the perimenopause, which is a very tumultuous time which leads up to the menopause. And in that time your estrogen and progesterone are fluctuating wildly. In PMS, again, there’s a relative progesterone deficiency.
Common factors in many of these problems are an imbalance of the thyroid and adrenal glands and sometimes also a coexisting infection, like candida, and very widespread vitamin and mineral deficiencies among the population because of a poor diet. So all of these women’s health conditions also reflect a whole multitude of causes.
Now the other thing is that in every one of these conditions there is a liver dysfunction where there’s a problem breaking down the estrogen, again causing estrogen excess, relative to the progesterone.
Fortunately, we have a lot of products at Young Living that can answer all of these questions; we have a whole variety of products.
Often when the body is very stressed, the thyroid will try to compensate first, and the thyroid becomes exhausted. Many, many women are suffering from subtle levels of thyroid deficiency, which can only be diagnosed by taking the basal temperature. In the EODR [Essential Oils Desk Reference] you will see under “thyroid”, a method for taking the basal temperature.
Many women will have normal blood tests for thyroid, but they will have a sub-clinical, low level of underactive thyroid, and that often will really undermine their health and cause fatigue and feeling cold all the time. Sometimes that even causes menstrual problems, and as well can contribute to weight gain, although that’s not the only factor.
In Young Living we do have a great product, Thyromin, which is something that balances the thyroid gland. After the thyroid glands are exhausted, the adrenal glands are the next to be affected. The adrenal glands are stressed any time people have a very stressful lifestyle, a diet high in coffee and sugar. And the adrenal glands will get stressed. Sometimes just correcting the thyroid problem will help the adrenals by itself. Sometimes just correcting the adrenal problem will help the thyroid.
One of the very interesting things about natural progesterone, which helps all of these conditions, is that it also potentiates thyroid hormones. So sometimes just taking natural progesterone will help. In Young Living we have Progessence. So for PMS, often the Progessence is one of the first places you can start. Premenstrual Syndrome: again, one of the causative factors is a progesterone deficiency. The foundation of all women’s health programs is taking B vitamins daily as well as calcium / magnesium.
Two things that Dr. Young has always stressed is that for every woman’s health condition, you should check whether you need Thyromin and secondly Mineral Essence, because he says that without those two, you can’t have proper hormone balance.
There’s a very interesting relationship between the adrenal glands and the thyroid, which I just mentioned. Most people are under some kind of adrenal stress if they’re living in today’s modern world. High levels of stress impact the whole hormonal system, especially the thyroid and the adrenals. And the adrenal glands make both progesterone and DHEA. Both progesterone and DHEA are mother hormones and they can be converted to either estrogen or testosterone.
Chronic stress leads to higher cortisol levels, a stress hormone made by the adrenal glands. And if cortisol levels are elevated, this means lower progesterone levels. The whole hormonal cascade is affected. Cortistop is a great product, which helps the adrenal glands. It’s designed for the excess cortisol, which is produced by stress. It’s an excellent product for countering that stress and helping balance that whole hormonal cascade.
As I was talking about, we’re living in a sea of estrogen mimickers, and this estrogen dominance interferes with hormone activity, while progesterone will make thyroid hormones work better, the ones that you already have. So actually the adrenal gland becomes stressed first and then the thyroid gland tries to compensate, but often it’s the thyroid gland first. And we have also an oil that covers both the adrenal and thyroid gland and that is EndoFlex. And that you can take by mouth, up to six drops, 3 times a day. EndoFlex helps both the adrenals and the thyroid. It can also be applied over the adrenal glands.
Fibroids are also influenced by excess estrogen and low thyroid function, and again liver dysfunction. When the liver is working better, the whole female system is working better.
We have now a whole raft of products for the liver. I’ll talk about some products while we’re going along. Gary has invented a whole number of products and all of them are quite brilliant.
The first thing I usually have people try is a natural progesterone product, Progessence. So we have a lot of interesting hormones involved in the female system. Estrogen and testosterone are at the end of the pathways, whereas progesterone is at the top of the pathway and can be converted to either estrogen or testosterone. Same goes for DHEA, which is the master adrenal hormone. Pregnenolone is even higher up in the cascade and when Gary Young introduced pregnenolone, he introduced a whole new brilliant aspect to how we're balancing the hormones. Pregnenolone is a really interesting hormone and it’s made from cholesterol. It is the mother hormone for all the steroid hormones: estrogen, progesterone, testosterone and DHEA, so it’s even higher up. It also can influence the thyroid hormones and growth hormones. It’s very safe and has very few side effects. One of the brilliant things Gary Young did is to combine pregnenolone and progesterone to have a greater impact with fewer side effects on the hormonal system, as well as combining pregnenolone and DHEA. These products are Prenolone and Prenolone +DHEA.
Almost all the women’s health problems that were mentioned here, whether it’s menopause, perimenopause, PMS, fibroids, even ovarian cysts, are all helped by progesterone and/or pregnenolone. Some people respond much better to pregnenolone by itself, and other people will respond to progesterone by itself. You can also use both of these hormones together.
There’s a very particular way to use natural progesterone skin cream. If you are menstruating, you use it from day 12 to day 25 of your cycle. So you don’t use it all the time. If you’re menstruating or you’re in the perimenopause, you use it for approximately two weeks of your cycle and the average dose is about ¼ teaspoon at night. It should be applied on the skin and rotated. What Dr. Lee suggests is that you put it one night on the face, the next night on the palms of the hands, the next night on the soles of the feet, the next night on the inner thigh or inner arm and then back to the face. The reason that was suggested is that if you put it on the same area every night, that area becomes saturated and the actual amount that you absorb will go down steadily, so you’ll be getting less and less of the active hormone. Now he’s changed the sites [locations for application] recently. Those [mentioned above] are the new sites where he suggests putting the cream. He used to suggest also the belly, the buttocks and the breast. We no longer suggest that.
It’s quite clear that natural progesterone does have a protective effect against breast cancer and Dr. Lee has written a new book in conjuction with Dr. David Zava, one of the world experts on salivary hormones, and it’s called, What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Breast Cancer. In that book he discusses all the latest evidence showing that natural progesterone will protect you from breast cancer.
Natural progesterone also has a protective effect against heart disease. It actually prevents the arteries of the heart from going into spasm, whereas synthetic progesterone, Provera, or any of the new patches, will cause coronary artery spasms. When we see the new results of hormone replacement studies, which indicate a danger to the heart, they’re referring to studies with Premarin, or something very similar to Premarin, and a synthetic progesterone. There’s never been any suggestion that natural progesterone is harmful to the heart.
Natural progesterone also has a bone protecting effect; it protects the bones. Research so far has shown that it is one of the important hormones for the bones. Testosterone and DHEA are also important hormones for bones and for treatment of osteoporosis.
Fertility is another issue which involves looking at all aspects, and especially the diet and chemical exposure. Raindrop Technique is useful for people who are trying to get pregnant and clearing up latent infections.
In pregnancy, I usually don’t suggest Raindrop Technique, however many people have done Raindrop Technique without any ill effects. I don’t generally suggest any type of detoxification during pregnancy. I do have, in my book, a long section on pregnancy. There are two sections in my first book (which is on the web) called Take Charge of Your Body. The website is www.demarcomd.com .
Another interesting aspect on breast cysts, and you can look this up on the website in my book, Take Charge of Your Body, is that many breast cysts are due to iodine deficiency. We’re deficient in many trace minerals, but iodine, in particular. There’s widespread iodine deficiency in women in North America. Taking MultiGreen, liquid dulse, other seaweeds or other sources of iodine like Lugol’s Solution, which is concentrated potassium iodine, will help, as well as natural progesterone cream [Progessence]. And for almost every condition we recommend B vitamins. [SuperB]
Natural progesterone is totally safe in the first four months of pregnancy. It’s used by the medical profession to prevent miscarriage. I wouldn’t use any of the other hormonal products, however. I think that is the only one I would use during pregnancy.
Some people have used the PD 80/20 for fertility and had really spectacular results with it. PD 80/20 has 640 ml of pregnenolone and 120 ml of DHEA. However, once you’re pregnant I wouldn’t suggest using it. For young women I wouldn’t suggest using it for long periods of time: one to three months at a time, at the dose of one a day. But it has been quite spectacular in some ways for infertility and other women’s problems. During pregnancy it’s very safe to use lavender, Gentle Baby, clary sage and sage (at time of delivery). Dr. Young does not believe that clary sage poses any risk of miscarriage. The research [showing that clary sage causes miscarriage] was based on dropping cold clary sage on a single uterine fiber.
If there’s an expectant mother who feels she needs a balance of estrogen, this is a formula that Dr. Young gave earlier: 1 drop clary sage and 3 drops bergamot to help maintain balance of estrogen levels. At the time of delivery he suggests 4 drops clary sage and 6 drops sage. Sometimes people are sick to their stomach during labor and the oils can make them nauseous.
I tend to be quite conservative during pregnancy, though I think that most of the oils can be used, but I avoid cleansing oils. I have treated someone with Raindrop during pregnancy, but we try to do that before pregnancy because the toxins that are released can sometimes go into the baby. There’s that danger; it’s just not a good time to be doing cleansing. It’s a good time to be doing building. Mary Young took products such as BeFit, and a number of other products during her pregnancy, but again, there’s a couple of products that contain cat’s claw, that shouldn’t be taken. I believe that’s Exodus and ImmuneTune. I feel that most of the other oils can be used as needed, and in general, there should be a break of one to two days a week for any oil that you’re using daily. Geranium oil certainly can be used during pregnancy. And again I usually don’t advise cleansing, like liver cleansing, during pregnancy. However, you can take Master Hers, any of the protein drinks like Protein Complete or Balance Complete.