Frequently Asked Questions - FAQs
- What exactly is hormone modulation & how does it work?
- How long before you can actually see results?
- How long do I have to be on these therapies?
- What happens if I stop the program?
- At what age should a person start such a program?
- Will Hormone Replacement Treatment interfere with my currently prescribed medications?
- Will your HRT trained Physician be taking over as my doctor?
- How many oral preparations or ointments does one have to take on a daily basis?
- What Causes Menopause Symptoms?
- Why does hGH have to be injected?
- Is this type of program FDA approved?
- Isn't it unnatural to inject or ingest hormones?
- Is Growth Hormone safe? Will it make things "grow"?
- There's been a lot of negative press recently about HRT for women. What do you think about that?
- Do You Accept Insurance?
- What about the scandal involving athletes using growth hormone and steroids? Why is the use of growth hormone being questioned when there are so many benefits?
- Are you ever too old to start?
- Interest in hGH Credible Information
- Is there any credible medical literature to support the use of hGH for deficient adults?
What exactly is hormone modulation & how does it work?
Hormone modulation is the science of optimizing hormones that are no longer being adequately produced by the body. While genetic programming does many wonderful things, nature's plan brings us to the age of reproduction and nurturing, and then seems to have little use for us. At that point, we begin to fail.
In fact, much of aging can be seen as deficiencies in many of the substances that our body once produced in abundance. Regaining and maintaining metabolic and endocrine functions at the upper end of the normal range for your age gives you the best opportunity for a healthy and vigorous life. This optimal range is in the upper third of the normal range when we were in our 20’s and 30’s.
How long before you can actually see results?
While this varies with each person, some people feel results within days. Just like beginning an exercise program, you can expect results within three to six months after beginning hormone management. Often the results of proper modulation are manifested by what you don't feel, i.e., sick, tired, moody, etc.
How long do I have to be on these therapies?
You should give your program at least four to six months to see significant benefits. Most patients will experience benefits before three months and continue to see improvement beyond that point. Your body needs that much time to heal and rebuild. You should remain on the program for as long as you want to optimize your health.
What happens if I stop the program?
You will have gained time while you were on the program, but if you should elect to stop, you will experience no accelerated aging. Should you stop the program, your body will simply begin to age again at the normal rate. The benefits will fade over time, however you still have benefited.
At what age should a person start such a program?
There is no age limjit for the initial baseline evaluation. Deficiencies may begin to appear for some people at a fairly young age, and in some older people’s levels are fine. Generally after around thirty years of age, most people lose from 1%-3% of their hormone levels per year. It's never too early for any adult to begin the nutraceutical program, better diet and excercise. A person does not need to begin hormone modulation therapy, however, until such time as the body begins to lower its hormone production. Our thorough blood tests and assessments help us determine exactly where you may be most deficient and how we can best help you. Every person is different and will have different needs as far as hormone modulation goes.
Will Hormone Replacement Treatment interfere with my currently prescribed medications?
Generally not. In some instances, medications may actually be reduced or no longer needed. Your Age Management certified physician will be able to advise you best on this and will be happy to work with your own doctor should you so desire.
Will your HRT trained Physician be taking over as your Primary Health Care Provider ?
Absolutely not. As a wellness program, your Physician is happy to communicate with your current health care team, and/or any specialists you may be seeing. You are encouraged to continue your usual visits with your regular doctor or provider.
How many oral preparations or ointments does one have to take on a daily basis?
The number of medications and nutraceuticals either in oral, topical or injectable forms you take daily depends on your medical, hormonal, and nutritional needs. Of course your physician will also consider your individual tolerance for taking medications. Frequently hormones and nutritional supplements are conveniently supplied and mailed to you directly on a predetermined schedule.
What Causes Menopause Symptoms?
Menopause is caused by the loss of those chemical substances that were once natural and common throughout your body and which regulated and assisted with daily body functioning. The hormonal shifts, imbalances, and fluctuations in menopause may cause all the following: weight gain, night sweats, insomnia, thinning hair brittle nails, hot flashes, mood swings, lack of energy, forgetfulness, dryness, loss of sex drive. Why the weight gain? Fat cells contain an enzyme that creates estrogen - so the body tries to hold onto fat. Weight gain also results from high levels of cortisol. This is because cortisol interferes with insulin, a hormone that converts sugar in your blood to useable energy. Additionally, when your cortisol levels overshadow your DHEA hormones, you lose energy and feel fatigued. Why might you have insomnia? Sex hormones regulate melatonin, a hormone that controls your circadian rhythms and sleep-wake cycle. But when your sex hormone levels drop, the melatonin production increases, throwing off your sleep rhythms as well as encouraging depression. Estrogen also has an impact on your body's temperature regulation. A sudden fluctuation can trigger a hot flash. With mood swings, the culprit here is, once again, imbalanced estrogen levels. Estrogen receptors inside the brain increase neurotransmitter and synapse connectivity. Fluctuations of estrogen can cause neurotransmitters to fire unpredictably, creating seemingly unexplainable mood swings. Imbalanced hormone levels can become increasingly complex, because sometimes the level of a hormone is not as important as its ratio to the other hormones. This is why we talk of "balancing" hormones rather than merely increasing them.
Why does hGH have to be injected?
The present forms of Human Growth Hormone breaks down if taken orally, so the only truly effective way to obtain its benefits, at this time, is by injection. The nature of the hGH molecule is similar to insulin but the complexity of the hGH molecule is far greater than insulin.
At present there are no oral, nasal, sublingual, or transdermal growth hormone products including secretagogues, however research in this area is vigorous and new developments are coming rapidily.
Pharmaceutical manufacturers Merck and Pfizer were featured on the front page of the Wall Street Journal in May of 2002 reporting that they have spent approximately $100 million to develop non-injectable hGH products and have failed. Presently the state of evidence-based medical research is overwhelming and compelling that the best way to introduce human growth hormone into the body is by injection.
Is this type of program FDA approved?
HGH was approved by the FDA for treatment of hormone deficient adults in the summer of 1996. You need to be evaluated to determine if you are deficient.
Isn't it unnatural to inject or ingest hormones?
Many of the hormones we use now can be formulated in topical or oral vehicles. However some of the bio identical replacement injectable hormones that are prescribed require injection. These may include some forms of testosterone and hGH. After an injection, the medication spreads to its target organs just as it would be if secreted by the pituitary gland. Supplementing these hormones when indicated is as natural as supplementing thyroid hormone. It simply returns your body to a state in which it is functioning more optimally.
Is Growth Hormone safe? Will it make things "grow"?
Human Growth Hormone is safe in physiologic doses. Among its many functions is that of repairing and re growing tissue. When a person reaches maturity, Growth Hormone is important for cell revitalization and repair. Cells cannot repair, maintain, and heal properly in its absence. While hGH is sometimes used to help stimulate height in children who are pituitary dwarfs, it does not make an adult grow taller. There has never been a double blind study or peer reviewed research that correlates physiologic dosages of hGH, and cancer. HGH has proven to be extremely helpful in strengthening the immune system, increasing mental acuity and focus, and preventing the onset of diseases usually associated with aging.
There's been a lot of negative press recently about HRT for women. What do you think about that?
Most women over thirty-five years of age need some form of hormone supplementation, which can include testosterone, human growth hormone, thyroid, and possibly others. This applies to women that have reached menopause as well as premenopausal women. Menopause is clearly a hormone deficiency condition. We believe it is absolutely crucial to the health and well being of every woman to replace these lost hormones with natural bio identical hormones in order to maintain quality of life and prevent unnecessary suffering. Synthetic means the molecule is not natural to the human body. Bio identical hormones are natural hormones whose molecules are identical to those made by humans.
Do You Accept Insurance?
Our Center does not accept insurance. Upon request we can provide you with a medical bill and a copy of your clinical record. These documents may help if you wish to pursue reimbursement from your insurance company or document medical expenses for your tax preparation. Some patients may have success in obtaining at least partial reimbursement.
We do not require or recommend asking for pre-approval. Insurance companies make money on the premiums they charge to cover reimbursement for health risk. Their biggest expense is hospital bills. Insurance companies are most profitable when they can keep individuals out of the hospital; hence their goal is pay only for those medical services that avoid hospitalization, not those services that optimize one's health long-term. Since we are not dealing with "a disease" but rather maintaining and optimizing our health, insurance companies may or may not cover these services.
What about the scandal involving athletes using growth hormone and steroids? Why is the use of growth hormone being questioned when there are so many benefits?
There exists a significant difference between physiologic optimization and abuse. Generally athletes are young and vigorous and already performing at a very high level. These athletes do not have any partial hormonal deficiencies, so they take hormones to go way beyond the optimal physiologic range. Whether athletes take a testosterone derivative or growth hormone, there is a short-term benefit for performance, but the long-term detriment to their body exceeds the benefits.
Are you ever too old to start?
Age is not a barrier. Many of the older people, including those over 60 years, will ask this question thinking it is too late to begin a program. The answer is quite the opposite. Older people have greater deficiencies or partial deficiencies, therefore the response to hormone modulation and supplementation is excellent and almost immediate. It is important to note that early intervention can reduce rapid advancement of diseases, such as osteoporosis and Alzheimer’s. Less progress is to be expected when conditions such as these are advanced.
Interest in HRT has produced Credible Information
Our first goal is to provide credible evidenced-based medical information to help you make well-informed decisions so that you can improve your overall health and prevent disease. The benefits of medically supervised HRT which may include human growth hormone (hGH) supplementation for hormonally deficient or partially deficient adults have been clearly documented by medical literature from Harvard University Medical School, Cenegenics Medical Institute, The Journal of the American Medical Association, The New England Journal of Medicine and other prestigious institutions and publications.
There is substantial and well-established reasoning behind the use of Growth Hormone Supplementation and its relationship to health maintenance and reduction in disease risk. As far back as 1998, the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism (Carroll, P., 1998) published the Growth Hormone Research Society Scientific Committee’s findings regarding growth hormone deficiency in adulthood and the effects of growth hormone supplementation. There findings showed that even in the context of a lower/normal range IGF-1, given appropriate signs and symptoms, a diagnosis of Adult Growth Hormone Deficiency was valid, and that replacement of growth hormone was associated with beneficial clinical outcomes.
Also in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, as far back as (Johannson, G., 1997) the use of growth hormone treatment in abdominally obese men was described. The study determined that growth hormone supplementation therapy reduced abdominal fat, improved both glucose and lipoprotein metabolism, and reduced diastolic blood pressure in treated subjects.
That same year in Clinical Endocrinology, (Verhelst, J., 1997) patients with entry IGF-1 levels at 120 ng/mL or below treated over a 2-year period with growth hormone, demonstrated a 50% reduction in risk for hospital admission and a 45% reduction in days missed from work during the study period. This is an important outcome when considering global health issues, and has obvious clinical significance.
There are hundreds, perhaps thousands of published articles in recognized medical journals regarding the efficacy of hormone supplementation and the retention or improvement in bone mineral density, improvements in lean body mass, reduction in body fat, composition, and improvement of other markers of disease risk. Many respected medical clinics believe there is no question that hormone optimazation therapy is associated with subjective changes in markers of disease risk and well-being.
Provided by permission from the Cenegenics Medical Institute.