Why Would Anyone Take Estrogens from Horse Urine?

In 1942, a Canadian company came up with a way to extract estrogens from the urine of pregnant mares. This estrogen combination is called "conjugated equine estrogens."

No one really knows exactly what's in conjugated equine estrogens. What we do know is that they include small amounts of estrone and even less estradiol, estrogens that are the same as human estrogens. Beyond that, conjugated equine estrogens are contaminated with as many as 60 estrogen compounds that are only found in horses.

Since the 1940s, doctors have prescribed conjugated equine estrogens for their patients in menopause. These estrogens were extremely effective at relieving many of the symptoms of menopause, including mood swings and hot flashes.

There are a lot of major problems with using horse urine estrogens to treat menopause, many of which came out in the 2002 Women's Health Initiative study.

In the past few decades, pharmaceutical companies have been able to produce a purified form of estradiol. Estradiol is the most important of the human estrogens, estrogens that are chemically identical to the estrogen your body makes (or at least used to make). That's why estradiol is referred to as "bioidentical."

Multiple studies over the past 15 years have shown that estradiol:

• does not increase the risk for breast cancer, especially when given along with bioidentical progesterone
• does not increase the risk for heart attack or stroke
• decreases the risk for heart attack and stroke, if given early in menopause
• does not increase the risk for deep vein thrombosis or pulmonary embolism, two specific types of blood clots, especially if it's given in a transdermal patch or cream form
• decreases the risk for osteoporosis and reverse bone loss, something no other treatment can do
• decreases the risks for metabolic syndrome and visceral fat
• decreases the risk for insulin resistance and diabetes
• decreases the risk for dementia

There's simply no reason whatsoever to use messy, dirty hormones that come from horse urine anymore.

Estradiol is clearly the best choice to treat menopause symptoms.

References

1. Breast cancer risk in relation to different types of hormone replacement therapy in the E3N-EPIC cohort. Fournier A¹, Berrino F, Riboli E, Avenel V, Clavel-Chapelon F.
<sup>2. Percutaneous estradiol/oral micronized progesterone has less-adverse effects and different gene regulations than oral conjugated equine estrogens/medroxyprogesterone acetate in the breasts of healthy women in vivo. Murkes D, Lalitkumar PG, Leifland K, Lundström E, Söderqvist G.
3. Effect of hormone replacement therapy on cardiovascular events in recently postmenopausal women: randomised trial Schierbeck LL, Rejnmark L, Tofteng CL, Stilgren L, Eiken P, Mosekilde L, Køber L, Jensen JE.</sup>