What is HRT? HRT and Hormones Explained

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In this short video, Dr. Sophie Newton explains how menopausal HRT, sometimes called just MHT, is the use of exogenous (didn’t come from your body) to replace/supplement the endogenous hormones (made in your body) that aren’t being made in the quantities that would result in ideal health.

Bioidentical hormones are, as the name suggests, chemically identical to those made in the body; there is no difference, all the way down to the atomic structure.

People are understandably wary of “putting chemicals into the body”, but in fact, everything is a chemical and those chemicals are also found in your body, just not in the numbers that we might always like.

In the case of hormones, these chemical messengers are simply there to tell cells what to do, so having the correct amount of hormones ensures that all the cells that need to get a certain message, get it.

In the case of estrogen specifically, while it’s considered a sex hormone (and it is), it’s responsible for a lot more than just the reproductive system, which is why many people without correct estrogen levels (such as peri- or post-menopause, though incorrect levels can happen earlier in life for other reasons too) can severely feel their absence in a whole stack of ways.

What ways? More than we can list here, but some are discussed in the video:

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  • America Worries About Health Costs — And Voters Want to Hear From Biden and Republicans

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    President Joe Biden is counting on outrage over abortion restrictions to help drive turnout for his reelection. Former President Donald Trump is promising to take another swing at repealing Obamacare.

    But around America’s kitchen tables, those are hardly the only health topics voters want to hear about in the 2024 campaigns. A new KFF tracking poll shows that health care tops the list of basic expenses Americans worry about — more than gas, food, and rent. Nearly 3 in 4 adults — and majorities of both parties — say they’re concerned about paying for unexpected medical bills and other health costs.

    “Absolutely health care is something on my mind,” Rob Werner, 64, of Concord, New Hampshire, said in an interview at a local coffee shop in January. He’s a Biden supporter and said he wants to make sure the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, is retained and that there’s more of an effort to control health care costs.

    The presidential election is likely to turn on the simple question of whether Americans want Trump back in the White House. (Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, remained in the race for the Republican nomination ahead of Super Tuesday, though she had lost the first four primary contests.) And neither major party is basing their campaigns on health care promises.

    But in the KFF poll, 80% of adults said they think it’s “very important” to hear presidential candidates talk about what they’d do to address health care costs — a subject congressional and state-level candidates can also expect to address.

    “People are most concerned about out-of-pocket expenses for health care, and rightly so,” said Andrea Ducas, vice president of health policy at the Center for American Progress, a Washington, D.C.-based progressive think tank.

    Here’s a look at the major health care issues that could help determine who wins in November.

    Abortion

    Less than two years after the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to an abortion, it is shaping up to be the biggest health issue in this election.

    That was also the case in the 2022 midterm elections, when many voters rallied behind candidates who supported abortion rights and bolstered Democrats to an unexpectedly strong showing. Since the Supreme Court’s decision, voters in six states — including Kansas, Kentucky, and Ohio, where Republicans control the legislatures — have approved state constitutional amendments protecting abortion access.

    Polls show that abortion is a key issue to some voters, said Robert Blendon, a public opinion researcher and professor emeritus at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He said up to 30% across the board see it as a “personal” issue, rather than policy — and most of those support abortion rights.

    “That’s a lot of voters, if they show up and vote,” Blendon said.

    Proposals to further protect — or restrict — abortion access could drive voter turnout. Advocates are working to put abortion-related measures on the ballot in such states as Arizona, Florida, Missouri, and South Dakota this November. A push in Washington toward a nationwide abortion policy could also draw more voters to the polls, Blendon said.

    A surprise ruling by the Alabama Supreme Court in February that frozen embryos are children could also shake up the election. It’s an issue that divides even the anti-abortion community, with some who believe that a fertilized egg is a unique new person deserving of full legal rights and protections, and others believing that discarding unused embryos as part of the in vitro fertilization process is a morally acceptable way for couples to have children.

    Pricey Prescriptions

    Drug costs regularly rank high among voters’ concerns.

    In the latest tracking poll, more than half — 55% — said they were very worried about being able to afford prescription drugs.

    Biden has tried to address the price of drugs, though his efforts haven’t registered with many voters. While its name doesn’t suggest landmark health policy, the Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA, which the president signed in August 2022, included a provision allowing Medicare to negotiate prices for some of the most expensive drugs. It also capped total out-of-pocket spending for prescription drugs for all Medicare patients, while capping the price of insulin for those with diabetes at $35 a month — a limit some drugmakers have extended to patients with other kinds of insurance.

    Drugmakers are fighting the Medicare price negotiation provision in court. Republicans have promised to repeal the IRA, arguing that forcing drugmakers to negotiate lower prices on drugs for Medicare beneficiaries would amount to price controls and stifle innovation. The party has offered no specific alternative, with the GOP-led House focused primarily on targeting pharmacy benefit managers, the arbitrators who control most Americans’ insurance coverage for medicines.

    Costs of Coverage

    Health care costs continue to rise for many Americans. The cost of employer-sponsored health plans have hit new highs in the past few months, raising costs for employers and workers alike. Experts have attributed the increase to high demand and expensive prices for certain drugs and treatments, notably weight loss drugs, as well as to medical inflation.

    Meanwhile, the ACA is popular. The KFF poll found that more adults want to see the program expanded than scaled back. And a record 21.3 million people signed up for coverage in 2024, about 5 million of them new customers.

    Enrollment in Republican-dominated states has grown fastest, with year-over-year increases of 80% in West Virginia, nearly 76% in Louisiana, and 62% in Ohio, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

    Public support for Obamacare and record enrollment in its coverage have made it politically perilous for Republicans to pursue the law’s repeal, especially without a robust alternative. That hasn’t stopped Trump from raising that prospect on the campaign trail, though it’s hard to find any other Republican candidate willing to step out on the same limb.

    “The more he talks about it, the more other candidates have to start answering for it,” said Jarrett Lewis, a partner at Public Opinion Strategies, a GOP polling firm.

    “Will a conversation about repeal-and-replace resonate with suburban women in Maricopa County?” he said, referring to the populous county in Arizona known for being a political bellwether. “I would steer clear of that if I was a candidate.”

    Biden and his campaign have pounced on Trump’s talk of repeal. The president has said he wants to make permanent the enhanced premium subsidies he signed into law during the pandemic that are credited with helping to increase enrollment.

    Republican advisers generally recommend that their candidates promote “a market-based system that has the consumer much more engaged,” said Lewis, citing short-term insurance plans as an example. “In the minds of Republicans, there is a pool of people that this would benefit. It may not be beneficial for everyone, but attractive to some.”

    Biden and his allies have criticized short-term insurance plans — which Trump made more widely available — as “junk insurance” that doesn’t cover care for serious conditions or illnesses.

    Entitlements Are Off-Limits

    Both Medicaid and Medicare, the government health insurance programs that cover tens of millions of low-income, disabled, and older people, remain broadly popular with voters, said the Democratic pollster Celinda Lake. That makes it unlikely either party would pursue a platform that includes outright cuts to entitlements. But accusing an opponent of wanting to slash Medicare is a common, and often effective, campaign move.

    Although Trump has said he wouldn’t cut Medicare spending, Democrats will likely seek to associate him with other Republicans who support constraining the program’s costs. Polls show that most voters oppose reducing any Medicare benefits, including by raising Medicare’s eligibility age from 65. However, raising taxes on people making more than $400,000 a year to shore up Medicare’s finances is one idea that won strong backing in a recent poll by The Associated Press and NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

    Brian Blase, a former Trump health adviser and the president of Paragon Health Institute, said Republicans, if they win more control of the federal government, should seek to lower spending on Medicare Advantage — through which commercial insurers provide benefits — to build on the program’s efficiencies and ensure it costs taxpayers less than the traditional program.

    So far, though, Republicans, including Trump, have expressed little interest in such a plan. Some of them are clear-eyed about the perils of running on changing Medicare, which cost $829 billion in 2021 and is projected to consume nearly 18% of the federal budget by 2032.

    “It’s difficult to have a frank conversation with voters about the future of the Medicare program,” said Lewis, the GOP pollster. “More often than not, it backfires. That conversation will have to happen right after a major election.”

    Addiction Crisis

    Many Americans have been touched by the growing opioid epidemic, which killed more than 112,000 people in the United States in 2023 — more than gun deaths and road fatalities combined. Rural residents and white adults are among the hardest hit.

    Federal health officials have cited drug overdose deaths as a primary cause of the recent drop in U.S. life expectancy.

    Republicans cast addiction as largely a criminal matter, associating it closely with the migration crisis at the U.S. southern border that they blame on Biden. Democrats have sought more funding for treatment and prevention of substance use disorders.

    “This affects the family, the neighborhood,” said Blendon, the public opinion researcher.

    Billions of dollars have begun to flow to states and local governments from legal settlements with opioid manufacturers and retailers, raising questions about how to best spend that money. But it isn’t clear that the crisis, outside the context of immigration, will emerge as a campaign issue.

    KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

    Subscribe to KFF Health News’ free Morning Briefing.

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  • Tasty Versatile Rice

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    In the nearish future, we’re going to do some incredible rice dishes, but first we need to make sure we’re all on the same page about cooking rice, so here’s a simple recipe first, to get technique down and work in some essentials. We’ll be using wholegrain basmati rice, because it has a low glycemic index, lowest likelihood of heavy metal contamination (a problem for some kinds of rice), and it’s one of the easiest rices to cook well.

    You will need

    • 1 cup wholegrain basmati rice (it may also be called “brown basmati rice“; this is the same)
    • 1 1/2 cups vegetable stock (ideally you have made this yourself from vegetable offcuts that you saved in the freezer, then it will be healthiest and lowest in sodium; failing that, low-sodium vegetable stock cubes can be purchased at most large supermarkets. and then made up at home with hot water)
    • 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
    • 1 tbsp chia seeds
    • 1 tbsp black pepper, coarse ground
    • 1 tsp turmeric powder (this small quantity will not change the flavor, but it has important health benefits, and also makes the rice a pleasant golden color)
    • 1 tsp garlic powder
    • 1 tsp yeast extract (this gently improves the savory flavor and also adds vitamin B12)
    • Optional small quantity of green herbs for garnish. Cilantro is good (unless you have the soap gene); parsley never fails.

    This is the ingredients list for a super-basic rice that will go with anything rice will go with; another day we can talk more extensive mixes of herbs and spice blends for different kinds of dishes (and different health benefits!), but for now, let’s get going!

    Method

    (we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)

    1) Wash the rice thoroughly. We recommend using a made-for-purpose rice-washing bowl (like this one, for example), but failing that, simply rinse it thoroughly with cold water using a bowl and a sieve. You will probably need to rinse it 4–5 times, but with practice, it will only take a few seconds per rinse, and the water will be coming up clear.

    2) Warm the pan. It doesn’t matter for the moment whether you’re using an electronic rice cooker, a stovetop pressure cooker, electronic pressure cooker, or just a sturdy pan with a heavy lid available, aside from that if it’s something non-stovetop, you now want it to be on low to warm up already.

    3) Separately in a saucepan, bring your stock to a simmer

    4) Put the tbsp of olive oil into the pan (even if you’re confident the rice won’t stick; this isn’t entirely about that) and turn up the heat (if it’s a very simple rice cooker, most at least have a warm/cook differentiation; if so, turn it to “cook”). You don’t want the oil to get to the point of smoking, so, to test the temperature as it heats, flick a single drop of water from your fingertip (you did wash your hands first, right? We haven’t been including that step, but please do wash your hands before doing kitchen things) into the pan. If it sizzles, the pan is hot enough now for the next step.

    5) Put the rice into the pan. That’s right, with no extra liquid yet; we’re going to toast it for a moment. Stir it a little, for no more than a minute; keep it moving; don’t let it burn! If you try this several times and fail, it could be that you need a better pan. Treat yourself to one when you get the opportunity; until then, skip the toasting part if necessary.

    6) Add the chia seeds and spices, followed by the stock, followed by the yeast extract. Why did we do the stock before the yeast extract? It’s because hot liquid will get all the yeast extract off the teaspoon 🙂

    7) Put the lid on/down (per what kind of pan or rice cooker you are using), and turn up the heat (if it is a variable heat source) until a tiny bit of steam starts making its way out. When it does, turn it down to a simmer, and let the rice cook. Don’t stir it, don’t jiggle it; trust the process. If you stir or jiggle it, the rice will cook unevenly and, paradoxically, probably stick.

    8) Do keep an eye on it, because when steam stops coming out, it is done, and needs taking off the heat immediately. If using an automatic rice cooker, you can be less attentive if you like, because it will monitor this for you.

    Note: if you are using a simple pan with a non-fastening lid (any other kind of rice cooking setup is better), more steam will escape than the other methods, and it’s possible that it might run out of steam (literally) before the rice is finished. If the steam stops and you find the rice isn’t done, add a splash of water as necessary (the rice doesn’t need to be submerged, it just needs to have liquid; the steam is part of the cooking process), and make a note of how much you had to add (so that next time you can just add it at the start), and put it back on the heat until it is done.

    9) Having taken it off the heat, let it sit for 5 minutes (with the lid still on) before doing any fluffing-up. Then you can fluff-up and serve, adding the garnish if you want one.

    Enjoy!

    Want to learn more?

    For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:

    Take care!

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  • ‘It’s okay to poo at work’: new health campaign highlights a common source of anxiety

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    For most people, the daily or near-daily ritual of having a bowel motion is not something we give a great deal of thought to. But for some people, the need to do a “number two” in a public toilet or at work can be beset with significant stress and anxiety.

    In recognition of the discomfort people may feel around passing a bowel motion at work, the Queensland Department of Health recently launched a social media campaign with the message “It’s okay to poo at work”.

    The campaign has gained significant traction on Instagram and Facebook. It has been praised by health and marketing experts for its humorous handling of a taboo topic.

    A colourful Instagram post is accompanied by a caption warning of the health risks of “holding it in”, including haemorrhoids and other gastrointestinal problems. The caption also notes:

    If you find it extremely difficult to poo around other people, you might have parcopresis.

    Queensland Health/Instagram

    What is parcopresis?

    Parcopresis, sometimes called “shy bowel”, occurs when people experience a difficulty or inability to poo in public toilets due to fear of perceived scrutiny by others.

    People with parcopresis may find it difficult to go to the toilet in public places such as shopping centres, restaurants, at work or at school, or even at home when friends or family are around.

    They may fear being judged by others about unpleasant smells or sounds when they have a bowel motion, or how long they take to go, for example.

    Living with a gastrointestinal condition (at least four in ten Australians do) may contribute to parcopresis due to anxiety about the need to use a toilet frequently, and perceived judgment from others when doing so. Other factors, such as past negative experiences or accessibility challenges, may also play a role.

    A man in office attire holding a roll of toilet paper.
    Some people may feel uncomfortable about using the toilet at work. Motortion Films/Shutterstock

    For sufferers, anxiety can present in the form of a faster heart rate, rapid breathing, sweating, muscle tension, blushing, nausea, trembling, or a combination of these symptoms. They may experience ongoing worry about situations where they may need to use a public toilet.

    Living with parcopresis can affect multiple domains of life and quality of life overall. For example, sufferers may have difficulties relating to employment, relationships and social life. They might avoid travelling or attending certain events because of their symptoms.

    How common is parcopresis?

    We don’t really know how common parcopresis is, partly due to the difficulty of evaluating this behaviour. It’s not necessarily easy or appropriate to follow people around to track whether they use or avoid public toilets (and their reasons if they do). Also, observing individual bathroom activities may alter the person’s behaviour.

    I conducted a study to try to better understand how common parcopresis is. The study involved 714 university students. I asked participants to respond to a series of vignettes, or scenarios.

    In each vignette participants were advised they were at a local shopping centre and they needed to have a bowel motion. In the vignettes, the bathrooms (which had been recently cleaned) had configurations of either two or three toilet stalls. Each vignette differed by the configuration of stalls available.

    The rate of avoidance was just over 14% overall. But participants were more likely to avoid using the toilet when the other stalls were occupied.

    Around 10% avoided going when all toilets were available. This rose to around 25% when only the middle of three toilets was available. Men were significantly less likely to avoid going than women across all vignettes.

    For those who avoided the toilet, many either said they would go home to poo, use an available disabled toilet, or come back when the bathroom was empty.

    Parcopresis at work

    In occupational settings, the rates of anxiety about using shared bathrooms may well be higher for a few reasons.

    For example, people may feel more self-conscious about their bodily functions being heard or noticed by colleagues, compared to strangers in a public toilet.

    People may also experience guilt, shame and fear about being judged by colleagues or supervisors if they need to make extended or frequent visits to the bathroom. This may particularly apply to people with a gastrointestinal condition.

    Reducing restroom anxiety

    Using a public toilet can understandably cause some anxiety or be unpleasant. But for a small minority of people it can be a real problem, causing severe distress and affecting their ability to engage in activities of daily living.

    If doing a poo in a toilet at work or another public setting causes you anxiety, be kind to yourself. A number of strategies might help:

    • identify and challenge negative thoughts about using public toilets and remind yourself that using the bathroom is normal, and that most people are not paying attention to others in the toilets
    • try to manage stress through relaxation techniques such as deep breathing and progressive muscle relaxation, which involves tensing and relaxing different muscles around the body
    • engaging in gradual exposure can be helpful, which means visiting public toilets at different times and locations, so you can develop greater confidence in using them
    • use grounding or distraction techniques while going to the toilet. These might include listening to music, watching something on your phone, or focusing on your breathing.

    If you feel parcopresis is having a significant impact on your life, talk to your GP or a psychologist who can help identify appropriate approaches to treatment. This might include cognitive behavioural therapy.

    Simon Robert Knowles, Associate Professor and Clinical Psychologist, Swinburne University of Technology

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Related Posts

  • How To Unchoke Yourself If You Are Dying Alone
  • The Joy Of Missing Out

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    What this is not going to be: a sour grapes thing.

    What this is going to be: an exploration of how the grass is greener on the other side of the fence wherever you water it

    It’s easy to feel lonely and isolated, even in today’s increasingly-connected world. We’ve tackled that topic before:

    How To Beat Loneliness & Isolation

    One of the more passive (but still reasonable) ways of reducing isolation is to simply say “yes” more, which we discussed (along with other more active strategies) here:

    When The World Moves Without Us… Can We Side-Step Age-Related Alienation?

    But, is there any benefit to be gained from not being in the thick of things?

    Sometimes some things associated with isolation are not, in reality, necessarily isolating. See for example:

    Singledom & Healthy Longevity

    But, the implications of embracing the “joy of missing out” are much more wide-reaching:

    Wherever you are, there you are

    You’ve probably read before the phrase “wherever you go, there you are”, but this phrasing brings attention to the fact that you already are where you are.

    There are quite possibly aspects of your current life/situation that are not ideal, but take a moment to appreciate where you are in life. At the very least, you are probably in a safe warm dry house with plenty of food available; chances are you have plenty of luxuries too.

    See also: How To Get Your Brain On A More Positive Track (Without Toxic Positivity)

    And yet, it’s easy to have a fear of missing out. Even billionaires fear they do not have enough and must acquire more in order to be truly secure and fulfilled.

    As it goes for material wealth, so it also goes for social wealth—in other words, we may worry about such questions as: on whom can we rely, and who will be there for us if we need them? Do we, ultimately, have enough social capital to be secure?

    • For social media influencers, it’ll be follower counts and engagement.
    • For the family-oriented, it might be the question of whose house a given holiday gets celebrated at, and who attends, and who does it best.
    • In more somber matters, think about funerals, and those where “there was such a huge turnout” vs “almost nobody attended”.

    It sure sounds a lot like a dog-eat-dog world in which missing out sucks! But it doesn’t have to.

    So let’s recap: your current situation is probably, all things considered, not bad. There is probably much in life to enjoy. If people do not come to your holiday event, then those are not people who would have improved things for you. If people do not attend your funeral even, then well, you yourself will be late, so hey.

    Right now though, you are alive, so…

    Enjoy the moment; enjoy your life for you.

    Invest in yourself. Better yourself. Improve your environment for yourself little by little.

    We spend a lot of time in life living up to everyone’s expectations, often without stopping to question whether it is what we want, or sometimes putting aside what we want in favor of what is wanted of us.

    • Sometimes, such ostensible altruism is laudable and good (the point of today’s article is not “be a selfish jerk”; sometimes we should indeed shelve our self-interest in favour of doing something for the common good)
    • Sometimes, it’s just pointless sacrifice that benefits nobody (the point of today’s article is “there is no point in playing stressful, stacked games when you could have a better time not doing that”)

    If you are about to embark on an endeavor that you don’t really want to, take a moment to seriously consider which of the above two situations this is, and then act accordingly.

    For a deeper dive into that, you might like this book that we reviewed a while back:

    The Joy of Saying No – by Natalie Lue

    Enjoy!

    Don’t Forget…

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    Learn to Age Gracefully

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  • Death by Food Pyramid – by Denise Minger

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    This one is less about “here’s the perfect way of eating” or even “these specific foods are ontologically evil”, but more about teaching science literacy.

    The author explores various health trends from the 70s until time of writing (the book was published in 2014), what rationales originally prompted them, and what social phenomena either helped them to persist, or caused them to get dropped quite quickly.

    Of course, even in the case of fads that are societally dropped quite quickly, on an individual level there will always be someone just learning about it for the first time, reading some older material, and thinking “that sounds like just the miracle life-changer I need!”

    What she teaches the reader to do is largely what we do a lot of here at 10almonds—examine the claims, go to the actual source material (studies! Not just books about studies!), and see whether the study conclusions actually support the claim, to start with, and then further examine to see if there’s some way (or sometimes, a plurality of ways) in which the study itself is methodologically flawed.

    Which does happen sometimes, do actually watch out for that!

    The style is quite personal and entertaining for the most part, and yet even moving sometimes (the title is not hyperbole; deaths will be discussed). As one might expect of a book teaching science literacy, it’s very easy to read, with copious footnotes (well, actually they are at the back of the book doubling up as a bibliography, but they are linked-to throughout) for those who wish to delve deeper—something the author, of course, encourages.

    Bottom line: if you’d like to be able to sort the real science from the hype yourself, then this book can set you on the right track!

    Click here to check out Death By Food Pyramid, and arm yourself with an unlimited ammunition of knowledge!

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    Learn to Age Gracefully

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  • The Breathing Cure – by Patrick McKeown

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    We’ve previously reviewed this author’s “The Oxygen Advantage”, which as you might guess from the title, was also about breathing. So, what’s different here?

    While The Oxygen Advantage was mostly about improving good health with optimized breathing, and with an emphasis on sports too, The Breathing Cure is more about the two-way relationship between ill health and disordered breathing (and how to fix it).

    Many kinds of illnesses can affect our breathing, and our breathing can affect many types of illness; McKeown covers a lot of these, including the obvious things like respiratory diseases (including COVID and Long COVID, as well as non-infectious respiratory conditions like asthma), but also things like diabetes and heart disease, as well as peri-disease things like chronic pain, and demi-disease things like periods and menopause.

    In each case (and more), he examines what things make matters better or worse, and how to improve them.

    While the style itself is just as pop-science as The Oxygen Advantage, this time it relies less on anecdote (though there are plenty of anecdotes too), and leans more heavily on a generous chapter-by-chapter scientific bibliography, with plenty of citations to back up claims.

    Bottom line: if you’d like to breathe better, this book can help in very many ways.

    Click here to check out The Breathing Cure, and breathe easy!

    Don’t Forget…

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    Learn to Age Gracefully

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