Hormones In My Blood

The Hormone Solution: Stay Younger Longer with Natural Hormone and Nutrition Therapies
by Thierry Hertoghe, M.D.

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That's just the kind of happy ending that lured me into medicine. But as for my chosen area of specialization, I've got the hormones in my blood to thank. As a fourth-generation physician experienced with hormone treatments whose father, grandfather, and great-grandfather talked about hormones, health, and aging at the dinner table, I learned the secrets of good health and longer life well before I even hit adulthood.

Still, I wasn't entirely sold on the idea of being a doctor and started medical school without much enthusiasm. I found the studies interesting enough but not inspiring. As I began working in the hospital - in my chosen field, psychiatry - I could not escape the feeling I was working with the wrong medicine. In many of the psychiatric patients, all I could see was signs of hormonal deficiencies. They were as clear as day to me but obviously had been overlooked by many medical professionals as the patient wound his way through the system before ending up with me.

Endocrinologists, the doctors "officially" in charge of hormones, seemed mostly to specialize in diabetes, only occasionally venturing into other therapies. Most of them were very traditional and spent their time on disease treatment rather than prevention. The specialization and subspecialization of medicine today has left a lot of doctors with so narrow a focus that they miss even big flashing neon signs if they are outside of their area of expertise. I prefer to follow my grandfathers' footsteps. The medicine I knew from my father and grandfathers was more holistic (not alternative, but truly holistic, meaning concerned with the whole person), more complete, and aimed primarily at achieving and maintaining total health.

I saw more of this kind of potential in family-practice medicine. There was room there, at least among some of my colleagues, for considering not just powerful drugs, but also nutrition (food, vitamins, and trace elements), environmental health, lifestyle choices, and even psychology when thinking about how to treat a patient.

So I finally switched over to general medicine, and the success I had with a surprising number of endocrinological cases finally lit a fire under me. Like Nicole, who was forty-nine and losing her hair. She'd also gotten flabby muscles and dry skin, felt tired and stress-sensitive all the time, and had bouts of nervousness, depression, and upset stomach - none of which had bothered her until she was closing in on fifty. We got her hormones balanced with natural estrogen, progesterone, cortisol, and DHEA (dehydroepiandrosterone), and a diet to support them, and she felt and looked better within two months. Her hair even stopped falling out - and grew back.

Or like Ken, about the same age as Nicole, who was losing his memory. He had poor concentration and muddled thinking. On top of that, he complained he was getting old - thinning hair, small wrinkles all over his face, a growing potbelly, loss of strength, back pain, and decreased sex drive and potency. But with growth hormone, testosterone (like half of men over fifty, though he had "normal" levels, much of the testosterone in his body was bound to excessively high levels of proteins in the blood that made it unavailable for regular use), thyroid hormone, DHEA, and cortisol - in natural forms and proper balance - along with vitamin and mineral supplements, Ken was soon bragging he felt like he'd gone back in time about fifteen years.

And like Wally, who I don't think would be alive today - or at least not leading a full, active life - if not for the thyroid hormone, growth hormone, testosterone, and cortisol he started taking. He had already survived two heart attacks and one triple bypass surgery by the time I met him. But his cholesterol remained stubbornly high no matter what he did, and depression and constant exhaustion were draining the life out of him. His body was prematurely old, with weakened muscles, low sex drive, thickening skin, weight gain around his belly, and a noticeable layer of fat under his skin. His surgeon and cardiologist were worried that even the surgery wouldn't protect his stressed heart for long. But once we got the full complement of hormones in him, with carefully adjusted small doses, he felt stronger and better than he had in years. And ten years later Wally was still alive and well and no longer convinced he'd meet his father's fate: death by heart attack before his son graduated from college.

Through cases like these, I discovered that I could help people understand what their bodies were telling them in order to zero in on the most appropriate treatment, and that gave me the sense of mission I'd been missing. I realized it was a gift, not a burden, handed down to me through four generations.

The gift my great-grandfather, grandfather, and father gave to me was a truly holistic approach - treating the whole patient - and an understanding of the paramount importance of clinical symptoms. Every hormonal deficiency has a telltale group of physical and mental effects, and a careful history and physical will give you all the clues you need, if you know how to read them.

The final key came directly from my father, who recognized that particularly difficult cases were simply cases of deficiencies in not one but many hormones - what he called multiple deficiency syndrome. He discovered that filling in all the lacking hormones (as well as the nutrients that support them) could resolve seemingly intractable problems and even reverse the "inevitable" signs of age. There is no one miracle hormone for everyone. Each person needs different hormones, and always in combination, usually three to six at a time - rarely solo. Most of us could benefit from natural low-dose hormones, individually adapted and judiciously balanced, by the time we are thirty-five.

As my own practice developed, I saw that men's as well as women's hormones shift with age and that women's hormonal shifts started well before menopause (potentially accounting for many poorly understood clusters of symptoms). Furthermore, since women's bodies make small amounts of "male" hormones, they can have deficiencies of them, just as men can. All the rest of the many hormones in the body could become deficient as well and be equally problematic - and equally correctable.

To answer my many questions, I sought out the top experts in each hormone and pressed them on both the scientific mechanisms of action and practical applications. I learned at least as much by looking back at the way things were done in my grandfathers' time, when medicine was, by necessity, focused on clinical symptoms rather than lab values. Often all doctors had to go on at that time was what they could observe clinically, so they were extremely careful observers. I still believe that the interaction between doctor and patient is what is most useful in revealing the truly necessary information, and that while cold statistical values can be helpful confirmation of a clinically based hypothesis, they are limited in what they actually show. I'm glad to be practicing with all the resources of high-tech medicine available to me, but we can't afford to let the wisdom of the old school - a sort of high-touch medicine - get lost.

No matter how the problem gets diagnosed, however, the solution always follows the same pattern: the right hormones, in the right combination, at the right doses, with the right nutrients.

Copyright © 2002 by Thierry Hertoghe, M.D.

About the Author

Thierry Hertoghe, M.D., is a member of the International Advisory Board of the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine. He lectures regularly to medical professionals and laypeople in the United States and abroad on the subject of hormone deficiencies.