Menopausal women, scared off traditional hormone therapy by studies showing the pills cause breast cancer and heart disease, are seizing on another approach: "bioidentical" hormones.
A recent best-selling book gave a huge impetus to bioidentical hormones, saying the "natural" substances can cure the insomnia, irritability and indifference to romance that often accompany menopause.
And many converts believe these hormones are safe because they have the same molecular structure as the hormones their bodies produce.
Bioidentical hormones tend to be made up by pharmacists according to a doctor's prescription, which makes women feel that the dose is tailored to fit their individual needs.
Bioidenticals also seem more natural because they are derived from plants such as yams and soy, unlike one of the most common conventional hormones, Premarin, which is made from the urine of pregnant mares.
But experts say there's nothing natural about high levels of sex steroid hormones - estrogen, progesterone and testosterone - in women who are past their childbearing years. And the "natural" products are made in laboratories, just like "synthetic" hormones.
Most important, they say, women could be fooling themselves if they think their new treatments are any safer than the ones they abandoned.
Bioidenticals may have fewer risks, they say - but there's no evidence.
"They haven't proven safety and efficacy," said Dr. Wulf Utian, a reproductive endocrinologist at the Cleveland Clinic and director of the North American Menopause Society. "It's misleading to reassure people it's safe without having proven it's different from what's already available."
Nevertheless, many women undergoing bioidentical hormone therapy believe it's safer than conventional medication.
"I don't worry about the health effects because it's close to what the body produces," said Diane Schafer of Crown Point, Ind., a patient of BodyLogicMD, a Chicago medical practice that specializes in bioidentical hormone therapy. Schafer had been overweight, depressed and unable to sleep and had dangerously high cholesterol, but now she says she feels much better.
Joyce Kyce of La Grange Park, another devotee of BodyLogicMD, acknowledged that "every medication probably has some risks." But she added, "I feel [bioidentical hormone therapy] is safer."
In fact, a small study from the University of Oregon found that 71 percent of women believe these products have fewer or no risks compared with conventional hormones.
