If Mercola takes testosterone replacement, why is he making women scared to death of taking estrogen?

Am not into contentiousness but what the heck?

Here is a text I woke up to this AM while still in bed.

What’s also very astonishing, dismaying and weird is that some ladies that follow his work for years, reached out and texted me that he has been writing how he has been taking testosterone replacement for years.

I have not spoken to him.

He has not invited me on his podcast.

He has done much good, too.

But if that is true, he is on hormonal therapies but frightening women to be off of them, this is hugely unfair. Hypocritical! He can do hormone replacement to stay younger, healthier. But ladies can’t?

He consistently is making ladies afeared unnecessarily of estrogen replacement? What is his agenda?

His spin on the science is all wrong.

WHI in a nutshell.

Women’s Health Initiative (WHI 1) was set up to figure out how to keep aging ladies well and not topple Medicare.

Hormone trials were set to show results of menopausal ladies taking two different hormone regimes. One was a combo arm made of estrogen from pregnant horse’s urine (conjugated equine estrogen or CEE) + synthetic progestins (medroxyprogesterone acetate or MPA). Or the estrogen-only arm, with no MPA.

Two arms: estrogen in combo or estrogen-solo.

The combo arm was stopped prematurely due to an uptick in cases of breast cancer and heart issues. All due to added “synthetic progestins”.

The estrogen-only arm continued onward as no problems were initially seen. Until a bit later an uptick in stroke occurred. Why? The estrogen was swallowed.

When estrogen is swallowed it goes through the gut and liver. This makes metabolites that are sticky. Linked to clots. To strokes.

This does not happen and in fact there is stroke protection, if estrogen is taken topically (on the skin) or mucosally (first vaginal pass inside the vagina).

The estrogen-only arm, early on, showed extraordinary breast cancer protection.

There have now been multiple re-analyses (not exactly sure of the exact number of all of them but appears to be at least 7 to 10) of the estrogen-only arm.

Every single re-look-see at the estrogen-only arm (without synthetic progestins) shows statistical protection against getting breast cancer in the first place.

And against recurrence in the second place.

And protection against dying from breast cancer if you do get a recurrence in the third place.

Protection, protection, protection.

Not one look at the WHI estrogen-only arm ever showed an increased risk of getting or dying from breast cancer.

The final re-analysis was done by the original authors of the first WHI.

It was presented at a yearly San Antonio scientific breast cancer symposium in December 2019. I refer to this second re-analysis of the WHI as the WHI 2.

They published and proclaimed:

Being on estrogen replacement (without synthetic progestins that are btw what make up most oral contraceptives) for an average of 5 years:

• Reduced the incidence of getting breast cancer by 23%.

• Reduced risk of dying from breast cancer if you did get it, by 44% (highest level of breast cancer fatality protection ever seen by any compound).

A month after that came out I was presenting to 900 pharmacists at Ceasar’s Palace in Vegas. When I shared these results, these amazing healers jumped up out of their seats. Applauding. Yelling. Joyously.

It was thrilling.

This was firm scientific vindication of estrogen.

But this has not made it into the cultural or medical consciousness.

Why? Is it really that science wants ladies to do more procedures, take more meds, have more surgeries? I have been reading that these are what obesity and menopause docs are recommending. It’s nuts.

Estrogen protects so many tissues. As well as the hippocampus. Where memories live.

Pondering, what is Mercola up to?

Why is he quoting the first WHI? Incorrectly?

Why is he instilling terror over a natural protective steroid?

I have no idea.

Sensationalism?

Crazy marketing scheme?

Fear mongering?

Does he really not like women?

Stubborn ignorance?

What the heck?

God bless him, but he is totally wrong.

Maybe he’s not on adequate testosterone replacement?

Last take-away: If you initiate estrogen/natural progesterone therapies, and you go on to get breast cancer, you are in a much better, safer position than if you had not (how many providers are inappropriately sued, omg?).

Dr. Leon Speroff, an iconic professor and thought-leader in gynecologic medicine, has been writing and publishing about this for years.

I have written extensively about all this with many citations in Safe Hormones, Smart Women (which took 3 intense years to write as so little had been written about all this back then but still all holds true) and in many past Substacks.

My rebuttal to Mercola’s past, wrong estrogen podcast was published last week in the Townsend Medical Newsletter. But it’s also published for free here.

Dr. David Brownstein & I also did a recent free webinar on the safety of estrogen which you can watch here

Follow the science?

Estrogen is breast protective.

That’s what the science says.

I put my money where my mouth is. Had breast cancer 30 years ago, been on estrogen, natural progesterone and testosterone replacement, for years. Yes it was ER+.

In the pragmatic and robust materials that each attendee gets at Everything Hormones, you get a slide pdf of “all” the 26 peer-review studies, each abstract, run by giving estrogen therapies to ER+ breast cancer patients, mostly with matched cohorts.

In not one study did women do worse.

They had less recurrence, less death if they did suffer a recurrence. And enjoyed higher quality of life.

Dr. Avrum Bluming, an oncologist from southern California that I interviewed for Safe Hormones, Smart Women, led one of these studies. Dr. Bluming writes about them in his must-have book, Estrogen Matters.

What a way to wake up.

Hadn’t even had my morning cup of Joe. Yet.

Knowledge is power.

To abuse that, is what?

I always ask: Why would Mother Nature Make the very hormone that drives humanity be pro-carcinogenic? Makes no sense.

We are about the science and the sense and the safety.

Dr. B.