Estriol Under Pressure From FDA and Wyeth
Since the Food and Drug Administration is attacking estriol as an unsafe hormone I thought we all need information about it and some real facts about its safety.
Estrogen is not one big molecule, it is a group of molecules. The three main estrogen molecules are: estriol, estradiol, estrone.
Estriol (E3) ES-tree-ol- Estriol is the weakest estrogen. It is primarily produced by the placenta. Estriol is not detectable in the blood stream of non-pregnant women. As the pregnancy progresses, estriol levels increase. Every scientific article and research done on estriol has shown its importance to the survival of the fetus and of its safety to women. Pregnant women have very high levels of estriol circulating in their blood stream.
Because of its safety to the mother and fetus and the fact that pregnant women are usually quite healthy, as early as the 1980s estriol started being studied and used in Asia and Europe to treat symptoms of menopause - hot flashes, night sweats, insomnia,vaginal dryness and recurrent urinary tract infections.
Jonathan Wright MD, an American leader in the field of bioidentical hormone therapies, created a combination of estriol and estradiol known as Biest to treat symptoms of menopause. The success of this combination has translated in the extensive use of the combination of estriol and estradiol by compounding pharmacies around the country for the past 10 years.
No adverse reactions or long term negative side-effects have been reported with the use of estriol by physicians or patients using this bioidentical hormone to the FDA to my knowledge.
Most recently estriol has been studied in the treatment of multiple sclerosis in women. It is well known that women who suffer with autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, thyroiditis and MS experience significant improvement in these conditions during pregnancy. Since estriol is the estrogen of pregnancy and its levels rise dramatically during pregnancy, research is being conducted to evaluate estriol's effect on autoimmune disorders.
Doses of estriol similar to those circulating in the blood stream of a pregnant woman in the middle of her pregnancy (6-8 mg/day) have shown significant remission of the disease and hold much promise. Dr. Rhonda Voskuhl at UCLA has been conducting very important estriol studies on women with MS and the results are very promising.
In an article on NeurologyReviews.com in 2002 Dr. Voskuhl was quoted as saying estriol at pregnancy doses had been given in Europe and Asia in the form of hormone replacement therapy for symptoms of menopause, "which means we didn't have to reinvent the wheel on assessing toxicity. It was very well known how this estriol preparation would be tolerated. Therefore we could go straight to a phase I clinical trials focusing on multiple sclerosis- related disease measures."
In summary, how can anyone attack estriol? Why would the FDA try to take it off the market when it is not only safe for women in menopause, it may even help women with MS?
Maybe because the FDA is not really representing our best interests? Maybe because the FDA represents Wyeth's greed.
Maybe it's time for the FDA to do their homework.
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