SalivaTesting.com - How Many Hormones Should I Test For?

Taking a Saliva Hormone Test will assist you in assessing important steroid hormones which could be the cause of many of your symptoms. The three main hormones for all men and women to test are Estradiol - E2, Progesterone - Pg and Testosterone - T.

Estradiol: We always encourage the testing of estradiol - E2 estrogen. E2 is an estrogen that causes cell proliferation and is the strongest estrogen that your body makes. It is produced with each women's menstrual cycle and is the most common estrogen prescribed in hormone replacement therapy. A balance is usually maintained between estrone and estradiol of about 50/50 therefore we don't recommend testing for Estrone - E1 estrogen as it is likely to be identical to E2.

Men over the age of 50 usually will have escalating levels of E2 often in larger amounts than women of the same age. Men too need to test this hormone.

Progesterone: We always recommend that Progesterone - Pg should be tested. Progesterone is a neutral hormone with neither male nor female attributes. It is the balancing hormone to E2 - estradiol. This hormone needs to be found in adequate amounts in both men and women as it has been shown to protect the prostrate in men by inhibiting 5-alpha reductase, and to protect the uterine lining and breast tissue in women. Low progesterone levels contributes to estrogen dominance in both men and women. Adequate progesterone assists the body in building new bone an important component in the prevention of osteoporosis.

Testosterone: New studies suggest that testosterone can be of real help, and potential harm, to women. It is important to determine testosterone levels for women since high levels of testosterone can also triple heart risks for older women. This is a hormone that a women would only supplement if the saliva test shows it is deficient!

Men should always test testosterone levels since the decline of this hormone is at the core of male menopause (andropause). Often loss of energy, loss of sexual drive loss of ambition are written off as burnout or depression when in actual fact these symptoms could be related to low testosterone.

Additional Hormones To Test Would Be:

DHEA: This hormone is produced in the adrenals of both men and women from cholesterol. Nearly every cell in the body has receptor sites for this hormone. DHEA follows the pathway in the body converting to Testosterone and Estrogens. We know that DHEA declines steadily after early adulthood. When they test and find out they are deficient, both men and women generally feel marked improvements in well-being when they take a DHEA supplement.

AM Cortisol: Cortisol is made in the adrenal glands in reaction to stress. The effect of elevated Cortisol is often so subtle that we hardly pay attention to the symptoms - gaining a few extra pounds, a slight drop in sex drive and energy levels and a bit of trouble with our memory. Finding out if your stressful lifestyle is having an impact on your morning Cortisol can be determined through a saliva hormone test. If cortisol levels show to be out of range you will be motivated to do something about getting your stress levels under control.

Next Week: "Who Would Benefit From Saliva Hormone Testing?"

FDA Approved Home Saliva Hormone Testing Kits Available Here

What is Saliva Hormone Testing?

Saliva Hormone Testing is an accurate and simple way for the ordinary man or women to assess the current levels of steroid hormones (e.g. estradiol, progesterone, testosterone) - in their body without having to make an expensive visit a doctors office.

Scientific literature for almost 30 years has documented saliva testing of steroid hormones. Saliva testing is routinely used in scientific research settings and as standard textbook material for students of endocrinology and internal medicine (Williams Textbook of Endocrinology). The World Health Organization (WHO) approved this method of testing in the 1990's when it was found to be an accurate, convenient and noninvasive measurement of free hormone levels.

Steroid hormones in saliva reflect the portion of circulating hormones in the bloodstream that are unbound by serum binding proteins (free or bioavailable) and therefore are able to enter tissues throughout the body. The salivary hormone values, therefore, reflect the biologically active (the unbound) portion available to target cells. Blood hormone assays reflect both bound and free forms of hormones and do not provide information about the bioavailable fraction of hormone, which can vary depending on the level of blood hormone binding proteins.

Simply put, hormone saliva testing tells us the amount of hormones in our body that are actually usable by our cells; where as blood testing evaluates all circulating hormones regardless of their availability to our cells - and most importantly anyone can do this easy test.

Next Week: "What Hormones Should I Test?"

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Let's Talk About Hormones - What Every Woman Needs To Know

I have recently observed a number of women friends and acquaintances, who have had their HRT therapy - a combination of the pharmaceutical drugs Premarin (pregnant mares urine) and Provera (medroxyprogesterone acetate) - discontinued by their physicians. Suddenly, women ranging from their 50's to late 70's are suffering from hot flashes, vaginal dryness, weight gain, fatigue and worse.

Another group are told not to worry about HRT as long as they only use it for three to four years. This confusing position has resulted from the information published in the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) study on HRT published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, (JAMA), July 17, 2002, Vol. 288, No. 3. For women who think that the risk factors that have shown up in the WHI-HRT study are new, I would encourage them to locate a women's magazine that dates prior to July 2002 and have a look at the back of the Premarin and PremPro ads that were often found in those magazines. Be aware that the print is very small. The topic "Dangers of Estrogen" is very prominent as is the topic "Side Effects".

The WHI-HRT study just validates that those dangers and side effects are real and actually effect women, women who are our friends and our relatives. In revisiting the WHI Study at www.whi.org a few interesting things came to light. The WHI study recruited 16,608 healthy women to participate in the study of Premarin and Provera. Forty-two percent (42%) on HRT and thirty-eight percent (38%) on the placebo group left the study before the end of 5 years! Those in the HRT group left because of side effects according to the study.

Others left at the two and one-half mark when a letter was sent to them encouraging them to stay in the study even though the results showed an increase in blood clots, stroke and heart disease at that point. Many believe that the results would have been much worse had these women continued in the study. "An incredible forty-two percent of those healthy women chosen to participate in the WHI fell out of the study in the first couple of years because they didn't like the side effects of the drugs. If all those women had continued, or if they hadn't limited the study to healthy women, there would have been a much higher rate of all adverse events (breast cancer, heart attacks, thromboembolism blood clots).... says Dr. David Zava, PhD., breast cancer researcher.

The JAMA call it a "large randomized trial". It could also be considered a well-controlled study of healthy women of our day. WHY? - because only healthy women were allowed into the study. They controlled the number of women who were over weight - the average body mass index being 28.5. They did not accept a representative number of women who had been treated for diabetes, women that had or were using hormones, women who had given birth during the higher risk years - before twenty or after thirty, women who had heart problems or a history of any heart problems. They even controlled the number of women who had relatives who had breast cancer. Remember, we are talking about women between the ages of 50 and 79 who participated in the study, not 35 to 40 year old women! How many women in that age group do you know who would qualify for this study? In fact this study represents less than twenty percent of the population.

According to Dr. David Zava " you can't extrapolate study results from a population of healthy women to the entire population. The results are actually much worse than they appear to be because of the selection bias. The downplaying of the risk of using HRT is a travesty. The late John R. Lee MD and author of "What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Breast Cancer" suggested that it has become "unethical" for doctors to prescribe HRT to women. To suggest as some do to use HRT for only two or three years seems ridiculous in light of the fact that the study was only a five-year study. The study clearly shows that heart attacks, strokes and blood clots affecting women began from day one of the study and continued though out the study. That would mean that the risks would always be present for anyone who goes on short term HRT. While it is tempting to say that this is all the healthcare system's problem or that it is the fault of the profit driven pharmaceutical companies, the solution may lay closer to home.

It appears that we are being told what we are eager to hear and only being sold what we are eager to buy. A pill to solve our hot flashes, make us beautiful as we age and prevent our diseases all without effort on our part. We want shortcuts and we want them now! The WHI-HRT study was a good thing, maybe even a great thing. What it truly told us is that a large percentage of healthy women who use drug therapies to deal with hormone challenges will get sick...breast cancer, heart attacks, strokes, blood clots in their lungs just to name a few. Women who are not healthy... should not go near HRT because of the potential for life threatening drug induced disease.

The good news for women who decide to discontinue traditional (synthetic) hormone replacement therapy is that there are a number of safe, effective and natural alternatives to choose from. It is critical that women become informed and take control of their own hormone health. The decision is up to us and it may be the most important decision we will ever make!

This Article Is Copywright 2007 Jackie L. Harvey & Saliva Testing.com

Jackie Harvey is a nutritional speaker who shares her interest and information on hormonal health and women's saliva hormone testing throughout North America in her popular "Let's Talk About Hormones" seminar. Visit Jackie's informative website SalivaTesting.com for a schedule of events in your area and for more information about her Best Selling 1-hour DVD "Let's Talk About Hormones with Jackie Harvey".