Now, don't get me wrong. Traditional medical doctors are just as guilty when they write out prescriptions for synthetic estrogen and progesterone for their menopausal patients and tell them the drugs will keep them from getting heart disease and osteoporosis. I've done it myself. I think, what woman doesn't want to hear that the answer to all her problems is packaged in one tiny pill? If menopause is a state of estrogen and progesterone deficiency, why don't we just replace what's missing and have everything go back the way it was?
I wish it were that easy. Medicines and, yes, even natural herbs carry risks as well as benefits. None provides the perfect answer, especially when it comes to menopause. Two natural products touted as possibly helpful for menopausal symptoms are dong quai and wild yam extract. In keeping with the look-before-you-leap philosophy of this site, I think it would be worth a closer look at each of these before rushing out to buy them.
First, let's look at wild yam. Just to get this straight, you didn't eat it for Thanksgiving last year. Wild yam comes primarily from Mexico and is unrelated to the kind we eat. In the 1940's, it was discovered that wild yam contains diosgenin, a chemical precursor to the progesterone found naturally in humans. Not much came of the finding, commercially-speaking, because soon afterward, pharmaceutical companies found a way to manufacture a synthetic progesterone-like chemical that was, quite frankly, an easier way to make money. Such synthetic progesterone is found in birth control pills and in most forms of medically-prescribed hormone replacement therapy for menopause. Recently, however, natural progesterone has made a comeback, particularly in a topically-applied cream in which the progesterone (derived from wild yam) is absorbed through the skin. Available over-the-counter, it doesn't have to mimic the body's natural progesterone; it's actually the same chemical we have in our bodies.
Do these kinds of products work? Probably. Tests of saliva for progesterone show predictable increases several hours after progesterone cream is applied to the skin. Furthermore, studies have shown improvement, particularly in premenopausal symptoms such as fluid retention, heavy or irregular menstrual cycles, depression and mood swings that actually precede the cessation of menses by several years. In women with hot flashes and night sweats, there is some evidence that wild yam cream alone will provide relief without the simultaneous use of estrogen, a necessary "ingredient" of medically-prescribed therapies. This is good news for those worried about estrogen-related risks such as breast or uterine cancer and blood clots. The risk of osteoporosis, too, is probably reduced by the use of wild yam cream.
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