We do research so you don't have to! ZRT docs on staying up-to-date with hormone research

I'm often asked where I find out all the hormone information that we are able to share with you. The truth is that the docs here at ZRT are voracious readers. On a routine basis, I scour a variety of resources to try to stay on top of all things hormones, herbs, and medicine. For this blog, I thought I might share a few of the articles that have caught my attention - a review of the reviews so to speak. I hope that one of these peaks your interest.

Osteoporosis docs urge screening for more women.
The current recommendation is to screen women older than 65 or younger women at higher risk. Men were considered to have insufficient evidence to promote screening.

Alison's comments. By the time you are screening a 65 year old, your ability to change their course of osteoporosis is severely hampered by the 10+ (average) onset of menopause and postmenopausal bone loss. Instead, consider at the onset of menopause or at least age 50 to see if hormone supplementation benefits outweighs risk for bone health. In men, consider routine screening as well. As the population of men have a drop in testosterone, an increase in cardiometabolic syndrome, a decrease in exercise and nutritional status; then all men become at higher risk for osteoporosis. Certain individuals with family history in osteoporosis may also benefit from screening much earlier. Also, consider testing vitamin D to prevent future problems.

Increased pregnancy loss rate in thyroid antibody negative women with TSH levels between 2.5 and 5.0 in the first trimester of pregnancy.
Women with autoimmune antibodies have higher miscarriage rate, but this is one of the few studies to look at autoimmune negative women. Women with autoimmunity have twice the rate of pregnancy loss. Women with TSH levels < n="4123).">

Alison's comments. Sarcasm is tempting here, but there is a point when you have to step back and really look at the situation. If I was pregnant and I could cut my risk of miscarrying a wanted baby by half without any detriment to my health or the baby's I think we have to question how criminal it is to NOT screen all women and treat them. Many women aren't tested for thyroid early in the first trimester and most are not screened preconception, and I wonder if we did more screenings could we change the now standard miscarriage rate. Take home: encourage preconception thyroid screening and EARLY pregnancy screening of thyroid; maintaining TSH levels.

Sexy thoughts: effects of sexual cognitions on testosterone, cortisol and arousal in women.
Abstract states that thinking sexy thoughts increased testosterone, but didn't change cortisol. They also found that baseline testosterone and use of hormonal contraceptives may blunt this.

Alison's Comments. I find this intriguing because we don't usually think of hormones outside of cortisol to be under our control. This sexy thought workshop only lasted 15 min. It's a good article to back up mindful fantasy for men and women experiencing low libido.

Adaptogens exert a stress-protective effect by modulation of expression of molecular chaperones.
First rule of researching herbs in pubmed is to know the botanical (latin) name of the herb. Many, many pages of articles exist in the medical literature about herbs. This article is about a product (no endorsement) which is a combination of Schisandra chinensis, Rhodiola rosea and Eleutherococcus senticocus (i.e. siberian ginseng). What they found was when they tortured mice (sorry, but that's what they do) by making them swim to exhaustion, they were able to swim with less emotional trauma after adrenal support. This theory is that the use of the herbs increased the expression of heat shock proteins (Hsp 72) which mediated the stress response. To learn more about heat shock proteins check out wikipedia

Alison's Comments. I absolutely love when science backs up and supports the use of herbal remedies that have been used for generations based on folklore, kitchen wisdom, herbal heritage, and old fashioned remedy. My ultimate favorite is finding out how something works from my old merck manual 1895 edition (which I and the other docs here actually know how to read). So, I love learning about Eleutherococcus. However, it did make me wonder about it's use in people with Melanoma after brushing up ala wikipedia and seeing that heat shock protein 72 is already highly upregulated in that disease.

Ah… I think I feel another literature search coming on…

Dr Alison McAllister

ZRT participates in research around the world. Click here for the latest in our collaborations.