16/06/2024
Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) is an extremely common intervention, but it has its own health risks and may not address underlying causes of hormonal imbalance. For some clinicians, HRT in women and men is still considered the fountain of youth; for others, it has become a dangerous area fraught with considerable risk that is avoided completely. Controversies and disagreements abound regarding how to diagnose and measure hormonal dysfunction; how to address safety concerns in prescribing HRT; the form, application, and dosage to use; and when and how to insert lifestyle, diet, nutraceutical, and botanical treatments.
The functional medicine approach is uniquely capable of responding to the controversy surrounding HRT by looking upstream to the wide variety of ways that the hypothalamic, pituitary, adrenal, thyroid, and gonadal (HPATG) axis modulates health. By applying dietary modifications, nutraceutical supplementation, and other lifestyle changes as a frontline treatment, the need for HRT can often be minimized or avoided.