Recently the New York Times published a long article entitled the Estrogen Dilemma. It’s an article rich with many issues, and previous blogs have critiqued its uncritical acceptance of the timing hypothesis, and its failure to distinguish between the transient symptoms of perimenopause, early menopause, and the rest of your long, healthy, post-menopausal life.
But it is quite remarkable to me that, when speculating about potential hormonal treatment for poor memory and issues of staying on task, the only steroid hormone that seemed to be on anyone’s radar was estrogen. The writer had a lot of space (7600 words) and gave the scientist a lot of freedom to speculate, so I’m guessing that the absence of progesterone in the article is a true representation of her conceptual blind-spot. Progesterone was mentioned a few times, in the context of protection from uterine cancer, and in the context of using MPA (a synthetic relative) as a possible scapegoat in interpreting the WHI randomized hormone therapy trial data. But never did I see any suggestion that progesterone might be anything other than a necessary evil.
In fact, there are some intriguing new research areas that look at progesterone as therapy in neurological domains.
- Studies of the use of oral micronized progesterone for traumatic brain injury are now in Phase III trials, which means they think that it is almost ready to go out into the world as a therapy.
- Scientists are exploring the use of progesterone in recovery from strokes.
- And there are even some people looking at how progesterone may both weaken cravings and lessen the high for cocaine, and has potential in helping people who are addicted to illegal substances.
So, in a free-wheeling article about how scientists are exploring possibilities, it’s interesting that the possibilities seem to be limited by a cultural bias towards estrogen.
