Dr Thierry Hertoghe, who is one of the leading Antiaging physicians in Europe, says that hormones are the biggest antioxidants in your body.

He goes on to say that as your hormones decline, you increase your risk of many of the Western diseases.

In other words, when you're young, and you have lots of hormones, you rarely get a crippling illness. But as you get older, and your hormones generally decline, you're more likely to be ill.

It is Dr Herthoge's (and many other anti-ageing physicians) belief that you should have your hormones running at a level that you would normally have in your 30s.

This applies to both males and females and does not just include the well-known hormones such as oestrogen and testosterone.

The Bioidentical Hormones that we can now give to people, are not to give you levels which were greater than when you are young, or to override your own hormones. They are given to people in different ways (such as pills, creams, troches) to bring you up to levels that you are at in your 30s.

This is not just prevention of illness, as many people find that with good hormonal balance as they feel much better in many different ways (often finding that they are less tired, both physically and mentally)

Many doctors now think that as the hormones decline, we age more quickly, and we are more at risk of the age related diseases such as heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer's, osteoporosis, etc

Conventional HRT in women has had bad press in the last seven years -- it has been shown to increase the risk of some diseases, such as breast cancer and heart disease, rather than prevent them. Many women have given up on HRT and have developed symptoms and have left themselves open to developing osteoporosis etc.

Some doctors, such as Dr Thierry Hertoghe who is the president of the World Society of Anti-Aging Medicine, and who visited Australia recently, are now advocating that bio identical (natural) hormones, along with a good diet, and adequate vitamin and mineral supplementation can work to help symptoms and minimise long-term problems.

So, maintaining a good hormone balance is not just adding oestrogens in women and testosterone in males. It is much more complex than this.

Links, which may be helpful, include -

drlam.com
pccarx.com.au

I do not endorse any products or have affiliations with any company.

I would advise everyone to Google any of the above hormones as much as possible, and for ladies, to understand the big differences between Progesterone and progestogens. (Many of your doctors will not understand these themselves, as many progestogens have been erroneously been called Progesterone in medical literature - for this reason, if you are Googling Progesterone I would advise you to put the word natural with it, as otherwise you may find progestogens appear).