Because of stress, processed foods, and other problems unique to civilized cultures, many women don’t get enough of the nutritional building blocks needed to create hormonal balance. In most cases progesterone, not estrogen, is deficient. When a woman’s hormones are not in balance she may experience some of the following symptoms:
*Hot Flashes *Weight Gain *PMS Symptoms *Breast Tenderness *Irregular or No Menstrual Cycle
*Facial Hair Growth *Male Pattern Hair Loss *Moodiness/Irritability * Lowered Libido
*Difficulty Conceiving & Maintaining Pregnancy
When balance is restored by increasing progesterone levels these symptoms tend to disappear. A woman who is estrogen dominant must increase her progesterone levels to create the balance necessary for good health.
Progesterone and estrogen have a cooperative relationship in creating hormonal balance. Progesterone is created by the ovaries during ovulation. Higher estrogen levels for the first half of a woman’s menstrual cycle trigger an increase in activities needed to prepare her body to support another life. In the second half of her cycle estrogen levels decrease, progesterone levels increase, and if conception occurs, continue to increase until the last trimester. If no pregnancy occurs a drop in progesterone and estrogen levels activates the menstrual cycle, which flushes out excess cells that have been stored in the uterine lining.
If a woman has a cycle but doesn’t ovulate the body doesn’t create the progesterone needed to remove excess cells stored. Prolonged progesterone deficiency can lead to endometrial hyperplasia, a condition which can increase the risk of uterine cancer. Also, if a woman does not produce enough progesterone to maintain pregnancy through the first trimester, when the placenta takes over the job of making progesterone, a miscarriage will occur.
Menopause is the cessation of the menstrual cycles. Up to 15 years before the onset of menopause a woman’s ability to mature and release an egg may begin to become erratic, and she may not ovulate each month. If she’s not ovulating she isn’t producing progesterone from her ovaries and may begin experiencing menopausal symptoms such as weight gain, vaginal dryness, moodiness and hot flashes. Because she is still having periods she may not realize that her symptoms are due to a lack of progesterone usually associated with menopause.
Currently the most common method of addressing a woman’s hormonal needs is to prescribe them synthetic estrogen(s) and/or progestins. While there is value to this treatment, the best case scenario would be that a woman’s body would naturally produce the needed progesterone on its own. This is possible with the use of natural, nutritional sources. A progesterone-like (“phytoprogesterone”) molecule is available to assist the body in creating its own progesterone. This molecule supplies the body with the building blocks to produce this much needed chemistry. This molecule (Diosgenin) is found in nearly 5,000 plant sources. The richest plant source is the Mexican Wild Yam. Mexican Wild Yam extract can be mixed with a high quality base forming a nutritional cream or emollient which is applied anywhere on the body to give a woman these rich nutritional building blocks which help her manufacture progesterone. Because the Resolve and Balance contain Mexican Wild Yam extract and not USP grade progesterone (synthetic analogs of progesterone created in a lab – sometimes referred to by their marketing terms of “Bio-identical” or “natural” progesterone) or any other drugs there is no need to worry about overdosing or side effects. If there is any excess nutrients left they are naturally excreted by the body.