Mental Health Benefits of Hormone Replacement Therapy
Hormone Replacement Therapy Offers Benefits for Mental Health
Menopause is notorious for causing “mood swings” in women. But recent clinical research has also determined that menopause can worsen or cause a relapse of mental health problems that existed before menopause.
Fortunately, women do not have to suffer with many of the debilitating side-effects of menopause anymore, thanks to advancements in bioidentical hormone replacement therapy (BHRT). Prosperity Health in Royal Oak, MI is proud to be a provider of 100% natural BioTe BHRT pellets that are safer, more effective, and more convenient than previous methods of hormone therapy.
One aspect of menopause that bioidentical hormone replacement therapy can help dramatically is women’s mental health. This is wonderful news for menopausal women for many reasons. While psychiatric medications can indeed help relieve symptoms of depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, and many other mental illnesses, these strong drugs often have unpleasant, dangerous, long-term side-effects.
However, physicians are increasingly recognizing that restoring women’s hormone balance with BHRT during menopause can naturally improve mental health – even sometimes eliminating the need for psychiatric meds – without side effects.
Menopause Mental Health & Hormone Replacement Therapy
Endocrinology is the study of hormones and how they affect all of the systems of the body. And, of course, psychiatrists and neurologists are doctors who study and treat disorders of the brain. In recent years, scientists have combined these three medical disciplines into a field called “psycho-neuroendocrinology” – which is the study of the role that hormones play in regulating mental health.
Scientists and doctors in this exciting field of medicine have discovered that by balancing certain hormones, hormone replacement therapy can offer a natural approach to improving mental health. In other words, by regulating and restoring balance to the hormones that affect the brain, HRT can assist in returning the brain and mind to optimal functioning in many cases.
Menopause Hormone Replacement Therapy for Depression
Scientists have long known that there is a link between depression and menopause. And research has shown that female patients with a history of clinical depression and/or anxiety are more likely to experience a relapse or worsening of clinical depression or anxiety during menopause.
Studies show that a significant number of females – about 18% who are in early perimenopause and 38% who are in late perimenopause – will experience symptoms of depression.1 Recent medical studies have also suggested that females who had severe premenstrual syndrome (PMS) when they were younger, and/or those who experienced postpartum depression, often have more severe mood swings during perimenopause.
But clinical research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Psychiatry2 found that hormone replacement therapy reduced the risk of menopause during depression by almost half. After receiving HRT for a year, 32% of the perimenopausal female patients treated with a placebo experienced clinically significant depression, while only 17% of the women in the study treated with hormone replacement therapy experienced serious symptoms of depression.
So, while menopause itself does not cause psychological disorders, the hormonal declines and imbalances of perimenopause and menopause can aggravate or put a woman at higher risk of a relapse of many mental health disorders. And research shows that rebalancing these declining hormones with HRT can help alleviate this risk of relapse.
Menopause Hormone Replacement Therapy for Bipolar Disorder
Bipolar disorder (previously called manic depression) is a mental illness that causes extreme mood swings, characterized by emotional highs (mania) and lows (depression, hopelessness, loss of interest in life). And menopause has also been shown in clinical studies to increase symptoms of bipolar disorder.
During menopause, women who are afflicted with bipolar disorder report significantly more depressive episodes. Researchers believe that this is probably directly attributable to the decrease in the hormone estrogen, which happens to all women during menopause as they reach the end of their reproductive years. Research studies have revealed that women with bipolar disorder are likely more sensitive to hormonal shifts during menopause.
Menopause Hormone Replacement Therapy for Schizophrenia
Psychotic disorders refer to those severe mental conditions that cause abnormal thinking and perceptions – including delusions, paranoia, hallucinations, and losing touch with reality. Medical research has also shown that a decline in estrogen levels during menopause can also trigger or exacerbate some psychotic conditions, including schizophrenia.
It is interesting to note that schizophrenia typically manifests during young adulthood, but there is also often a second surge of schizophrenia in women during menopause. And, somewhat less frequently, perimenopause (the period leading up to menopause) may also significantly increase the risk of an initial onset of schizophrenic psychosis.
Psychiatrist have long known that female patients with pre-existing chronic schizophrenia often undergo a deterioration of their mental state and frequently exhibit a greater demand for psychiatric medications during menopause.
Hormone Replacement Therapy for Reducing Alzheimer’s Risk
Recent trailblazing research has also found a link between hormone decline and Alzheimer’s disease in women (but not in men). Researchers discovered that accelerated biological aging is often associated with females who have a certain genetic Alzheimer’s risk factor – but that hormone replacement therapy, seems to slow down this aging, and in the process also decelerates the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.
This groundbreaking research provides important evidence of the crucial role hormones play in mental functioning. By determining that estrogen therapy slows aging and lowers the risk of Alzheimer’s disease in women with certain genetic predispositions, physicians may be able to stave off cognitive decline with hormone replacement therapy in some patients.
Menopause Hormone Replacement Therapy for Better Mental Health
Hormones help regulate every function of a woman’s body – including the functioning of the brain. And yet, the hormone decline of menopause is an unavoidable fact of life. As she reaches the end of her reproductive cycles, every woman will experience declining, imbalanced, or insufficient hormone levels.
And, in addition to the hot flashes, night sweats, and decreased libido of menopause, many female patients with preexisting mental illness may find their psychiatric symptoms worsening. But while the potential role of hormone replacement therapy in treating mental conditions during menopause still being explored, the prospects appear very promising.
In many cases, restoring balance to the body through hormone replacement therapy may prove to be more effective – with fewer side effects – than harsh psychiatric medications with dangerous or unpleasant reactions.
Hormone Replacement Therapy | Royal Oak
Prosperity Health in Royal Oak, MI offers BioTe® hormone replacement pellets that can help restore your body and mind to optimal balance – with NO daily pills, NO painful weekly shots, and NO messy creams. A single pellet insertion can last several months. And because BioTe utilizes bioidentical hormones it is safer, more effective, and more natural than lab-created synthetics, with fewer side-effects and risks.
If you are menopausal or perimenopausal woman in the Royal Oak are who is experiencing mood swings, “brain fog,” memory loss, trouble concentrating, or an increase in psychiatric symptoms, schedule a consultation at Prosperity Health today!
Royal Oak Hormone Replacement Therapy: 248.997.4242
1 As Menopause Nears, Be Aware It Can Trigger Depression and Anxiety, too; NPR.com. January 16, 2020.
2 Transdermal estradiol shows promise in treating and preventing perimenopausal depression; JAMA Psychiatry, online. Susan Girdler, Ph.D., Hadine Joffe, M.D., et. Al.; Jan. 10, 2018.
DISCLAIMER: This article is provided as general information only and is not intended to be used as medical advice. The benefits of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) are well documented through clinical research. However, Prosperity Health is not representing that hormone replacement therapy is a treatment or cure for any disease. Nor is HRT right for every patient. Only your physician can determine if hormone replacement therapy may be an appropriate part of your personal healthcare plan, based on your age, overall health, risk factors, and lifestyle.
