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Are you a female that's 45 years of age or older and experiencing any of the following hormone imbalance symptoms? If so, then you probably will want to consider something gaining popularity called rhythmic bio-identical hormone replacement that is designed for women in menopause.

Check the following hormone imbalance symptoms to see if you experience: anxiety, allergies, foggy brain, weight gain, depression, dizziness, endometriosis, dry skin, fibrocystic breasts, hair loss, and headaches, suppressed libido, osteoporosis, or urinary tract infections. These symptoms are largely caused by the aberrant relationship between the levels of progesterone and estrogen in your body - and are typically associated with menopause.

Here's how it works ... The two female hormones, estrogen and progesterone, co-exist in a very fragile balance, and any variations of that balance can have an impact on your health. The amounts of these hormones that the woman's body produces every month can change, depending on factors such as age, nutrition, stress, exercise or ovulation or the lack of it.

At perimopause, our hormones begin to fall off and put them back to the same range as is the case during the time between adrenarchy and puberty. As a woman's estrogen levels goes back into that same range again, she may still have some regular periods, or periods that come at fairly regular intervals during the year, but the fact is, that she's possibly no longer ovulating. This means that the woman can't be pregnant anymore.

These peri-menopausal periods are like the ones a girl experienced when her reproductive engine was developing as a teenager. During time, her adrenal glands were trying to jump-start your brain to turn on your ovaries, and once the ovaries kicked in, she had enough estrogen generated by a full basket of eggs.

At midlife, a woman just has sufficient estrogen to create a thin lining in the uterus - but not enough to peak. Then comes the time when the periods are shortened, breasts are lumpier, and the mind is foggier - a phase called perimenopause. If a woman does not peak estrogen with regularity, she is in peri-menopause. The collapse of the rest of a woman's eggs are basically due to the loss of rhythm during the perimenopausal stage. The remainder of the eggs are used up, with the excessive action of FSH. It's about this time, when she'll start to hot flashes, because that's how her system effectively shuts down for good. In rare instances, it takes ten years before menopause is reached.

Menopause is defined as the cessation of menstruation for 12 consecutive months, in clinical terms. Menopause signals the end of a woman's reproductive period, and this normally happens naturally around the age of 52 when her ovaries stop producing estrogen, and there are no more fertile eggs. In terms of blood work, menopause is clinically diagnosed by an FSH score that is higher than five.

Today, a woman can stop the aging process and not experience the symptoms of hormone imbalance and menopause with hormone replacement. But the extent at which she can fool nature (covering the fact that she no longer has eggs) is only to some extent - if the hormones are replaced in the same way as they would be generated in youth, in the exact amounts and a certain rhythm. This is the premise behind rhythmic, bioidentical hormone therapy. To further explain, various amounts of estrogen and progesterone are administered at different days of the month. Women using this rhythmic cycling also will get their periods again, just like when they were young.

Women taking rhythmic bioidentical hormone replacement therapy are raving about how wonderful they now feel. No more sleep deprivation due to hormone-related insomnia and hot flashes. No more brain fig or depression. Their skin looks soft supple and glowing. And more often than not, women who had experienced the dreadful symptoms of menopause are now claiming that they got their lives back.

Rhythmic bioidentical hormones could certainly be the real "fountain of youth."

Link: http://www.billboardmama.com/what-is-menopause-in-women-p-448.html

There are many baby boomers living in the United States who are females. In fact, in 2006, the oldest of the baby boomers born between 1946 and 1964 began turning 60 years of age. There were an estimated 78.2 million baby boomers, as of July 1, 2005, and 50.8% of them were women. Therefore, you would expect that each day in 2006, 7,918 people turn 60 - in hours, that would be 330. (Source: US Census Bureau)

This is the primary reason why there are a lot of women today who are experiencing menopause symptoms. If you are one of more than 40 million women feeling discomfort from menopause, then you need to know the facts.

Just exactly what is menopause? To define, it is the cessation of the menstrual cycle for a period of twelve consecutive months. Menopause marks the end of a woman's reproductive years, and usually happens naturally around age 51 or 52 when the ovaries stop producing estrogen.

There are several women, though, who experience menopause immediately - this happens when their ovaries are surgically removed. But whichever case, the symptoms of menopause impact women's health, mental state of mind, and quality of life for the remainder of her lifetime.

In 2003, however, the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) scared both women and doctors with their warning of not taking hormones. Several women do not know the real facts about the WHI. Those women over 65 years old who are taking PremPro and Premarin, for instance, were found to have experienced cardiovascular diseases, cancer and osteoporosis - these results were comprehensively discussed, no less. Bioidentical hormones weren't part of this research.

The WHI also conducted an in-depth study on postmenstrual women - particularly on the most prevalent causes of death, disability and impaired quality of life. It was an organized attempt to correct the inequities in women's health research and therefore provide practical information to women and their doctors. The WHI focused on synthetic hormone replacement therapy, dietary patterns plus calcium and Vitamin D supplements including their effects on the prevention of heart disease, cancer, and osteoporosis. These 3 diseases were the primary focus of the research because they become more common in menopausal women.

There were about 9 million American women who were still taking some form of Premarin in November of 2003. One of them is PremPro. Another one, Premari- which stands for Pregnant Mares' Urine (PREgnant MARes' urINe); PMU for short. Both of them are synthetic hormones.

The release of the WHI results had an effect on the above-mentioned statistics. There was a reduction of 25% of the approximately 12 million women taking PMU based medications in 1999.

Around one third of the 55 million post menopausal women in the United States are on synthetic estrogen replacement therapy (ERT), or hormone replacement therapy (HRT). Interestingly, only 49% - rather than the high 79% in 1999- of those are presently using PMU based products.

There are still plenty of women who don't fully comprehend hormone therapy, and for those women who are scared, and still don't take any Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT), the concept of natural bio-identical hormones is becoming more interesting. Given that there are so many products in the market, choosing one is a bit baffling. Plus the government continues to try to regulate all of the bio-identical hormone replacement therapy (BHRT) products that are being sold.

The great thing is, women need not be confused about hormone replacement therapy. Interestingly enough, several women have gotten used to taking BHRT in menopause medicine. There is a confusion in the use of the terms, though, since hormones are not really bio-identical. Natural hormones aren't bio-identical unless the body can recognize them as hormones, and they are not considered restoration unless what has been lost is truly restored. They can be mimicked, but they're not identical. They can only be restored, and never replaced. Lastly,hormone therapy needs to be rhythmic, or biomimetic, for it to become truly accurate.

What is the difference between biomimitec hormones and bio-identical hormones? In simpler terms, biomimetic hormones are those that are derived from natural sources and have the capability to mimic the natural undulating rhythms of the hormone blood levels in a normal menstrual cycle. Undulating is to cause to move in a smooth wavelike motion.

Bio-identical hormone products are usually formulated from plant sources to match the chemical structure of hormones produced naturally by the human body. The premise is that, technically, the body can't distinguish bio-identical hormones from the ones the female ovaries produce; on the other hand, various forms of human-produced hormones are recognized differently by cells. So it makes sense that bio-identical hormone results might also be different.

For bio-identical hormone compounds to be genuinely the same, biologically, as human hormones, they must be presented Biomimetically. Recognition at the receptor cites are largely about presentation (such as serum level, timing as well as molecular structure.)

The more appropriate terminology then is biomimitec hormone restoration therapy - it's biomimetic and it mimics the rise and fall of hormone blood levels during a normal menstrual cycle. Note that it is not bio-identical, but biomimetic.

What's the rhythm then? The rhythms of the body are governed by a master clock that operates much like a conductor. It strikes up one section of the body's orchestra as another quiets down, taking its main cue from light signals in order to stay in sync with the 24-hour day. Our body's hormones gush and ebb to this maestro's wand.

The circadian clock that our cells follow is actually one 24-hour rotation of the planet. The moon - and your body - tracks that repetitive cycle for 28 days. There is only one patented bioidentical hormone product on the market that uses this natural rhythm of nature to establish the proper doses of estradiol and progesterone that mimic the natural hormones produced by your body. The topical creams and their amounts vary throughout the 28-day cycle to restore the hormone levels of youth.

The multi-phasic rhythmic dosing of bio-mimetic hormone replacement therapy (BHRT) using natural hormones in a bio-mimetic way is the most recent treatment for menopause in women. Over two million women in the United States use customized hormones for menopause symptoms.

In the future, there'll be 57.8 million baby boomers residing in 2030, according to projections; 54.9% would be female. By then, the age of those baby boomers will be between 66 and 84. Thanks to the relief of the rhythm of Biomimetic Hormone Replacement Therapy (BHRT), hopefully they'll all live more happily.