Bio Identical Hormone Replacement Programs

Feel Like You’re Losing the Spark?

It could be due to age related hormone decrease.

One model of aging addresses the declining levels of hormones over time, along with the declining sensitivity of the related receptors to our hormones. Hormones turn on the cellular machinery and, therefore, cause increased metabolism, protein synthesis, cellular repair, and cell replication. This decline in hormone function begins noticeably in our forties and will continue on throughout the rest of our lives.

Many of the symptoms that we experience as aging are symptoms of declining levels of hormones. We may notice a gradual decline in immune function, loss of muscle function and strength, increase in fat mass, decrease in bone density, increase in age related disease, generalized weakness, impaired mobility, poor strength, loss of energy, loss of sexual desire, atrophy of muscles, osteoarthritis. In time, overall physical frailty can result in falls, fractures, impairment of activity, loss of independence, chronic debility, and an overall poorer quality of life.

By enhancing the level of our circulating hormones, we can enhance and maintain a level of optimal processes that are related to hormonal function like strength and stamina, lean body mass, sexual libido and pleasure, memory and ability to concentrate, resistance to infections, colds, and flu’s, prevention of age related degenerative diseases, and an improved sense of well being and overall quality of life. Enhancing our hormones may also play a part in preventing age related diseases like osteoporosis, cancer, heart disease, and Alzheimer’s.

Sorry, nothing reverses aging. However, bio-identical hormones can slow down the process and help us maintain good health, especially when used along with optimal nutrition, adequate exercise, caloric restriction, vitamins and anti oxidants, and avoidance of risk factors of disease. We can certainly slow down the aging process to achieve less deterioration, less illness, a better quality of life and to feel and function better. This, my friends, is true preventative medicine.

What would be the goals of an Anti Aging program (what we call our Vital Life Program here at Nature’s Wisdom)? Our answer would be to establish optimal hormone functioning along with superior nutrition, exercise, and ongoing detoxification. Optimal hormone functioning consists of taking hormones to a level similar to that of a 28 year old, that point being when we are at our most consistent and highest levels. We do thorough consultation with the patient, attempting to understand where each patient is in the process of their health, along with physical exam and labwork to determine what are their present levels.

Then over the coming months we initiate their hormone supplementation, using Human Growth Hormone, Progesterone, Estrogen, DHEA, Pregnenolone, and Thyroid (withT3 and T4). I want to emphasize that these are bio-identical hormones; meaning these are exactly like the hormones your body produces.

So the effects of these are identical to the effects of the hormones your own body has produced for decades and thousands of years. This is very different from the synthetic hormones, perhaps made from horses’ urine, that are not even close to what your body makes and therefore has a whole range of unnatural and potentially toxic effects on your body. The progestins (synthetic progesterone) is so different from the real thing that if you do lab testing for progesterone levels, nothing shows up!

Once we have initiated our hormone regimen, we continue consultation and labwork to find the optimal dosing, what will work best for the patient over the coming years and allow the benefits to unfold over time. In our grandparents’ era, it was time to start wearing black and grow old in our fifties.

Today we are told that many of us will live into our nineties and beyond, though little is said about the quality of that existence. Unfortunately many of us start thinking, feeling, and acting old in our 40s, 50s, & 60s. And our health care providers have the apathetic view that we are supposed to die of cancer, heart disease, other diseases of old age, and that our maturing years will be an inevitable process of progressive deterioration.

We also know that our middle ages potentially are a time for wonderful changes and experiences in our lives: new businesses, new relationships, expanding visions of service and play. Much of the quality of our life at that time will depend on our overall health, energy, and attitude.

If we plan on being active for the rest of our lives, we want the best quality of life and vitality given whatever quantity is ours. Using bio-identical hormones in a preventative program is safe, well researched, and cost effective medicine for those proactive enough to enhance the quality of their lives in the future.

Dr. Michael Lang, Naturopathic Physician, has been practicing naturopathic medicine for 15 years, homeopathy for 20 years, and using bio-identical hormones in his practice for 10 years, and more recently has initiated his full bio-identical hormone longevity programs (Vital Life Programs).

Dr. Lang is available to speak to your group regarding health and longevity, as well as bio-identical hormone programs.

Dr. Lang may be reached through his Bozeman office at 406-586-1100 or by email at michaellangnd@yahoo.com.

Costs Associated with Vital Life Program

It is expected that most people will keep their family physician. This is important because we are not diagnosing or treating any disease with you. We are doing health enhancement and proactive prevention.

Fees for patients doing the Vital Life Program:

First year professional fees, Dr Lang: $900.00 first year
This includes my initial consults, prescription writing, lab consults, and all follow ups in our office or on the phone. I encourage you to follow up with me as often as needed; sometimes, especially at the beginning of the program, that may mean a few times a month.

Your extra costs will include blood draws, all labwork, and all prescription and non prescription supplements, hormones, and medications.

Second year and ongoing professional fee: $300.00 per year

Your extra costs will include blood draws, all labwork, and all prescription and non prescription supplements, hormones, and medications.

Approximate laboratory testing costs:

First round lab testing: approximately $240.00 for comprehensive hormone urine testing and $200.00 for blood testing, including cbc, chemscreen, Growth Hormone levels, and thyroid function with Free T3.

Secondary, tertiary testing:

$180 for comprehensive hormone testing done within that first year; $100 for blood testing of Growth Hormone levels and Free T3 (thyroid).

Hormone Costs:

All hormones except Growth Hormone: approximately $50-100/month; this would be for Thyroid, DHEA, Pregnenolone, Estrogen, Progesterone, Testosterone, Melatonin.

Growth Hormone only:

$375 to $700 per month.

Vital Life Longevity Program…How It Works!

The goal of the Vital Life Longevity Program is to enhance your hormone function similar to that of a fully grown adult between the ages of 25 – 30 years old. In turn you will gain the long term benefits of optimal hormone functioning. Please review “How To Achieve Healthy Aging,” by Neal Rozier, MD and the articles in the “Vital Life Longevity” link on my website at www.thevitallife.net.

The process in the first year looks something like the following:

At your initial consult I will obtain a good health history, perform a physical exam, further educate about Bio-identical hormone replacement therapy, do baseline hormone blood and urine testing, and any other relevant labwork.

Usually we meet again, review labwork and start hormone therapy plus any other needed nutritional support and lifestyle adjustments.

Then over the next few months we follow up to make sure you are well with your program. Once at stable levels, we will then repeat hormone level testing to make sure you are at optimal levels.

Considering second or third labwork, we continue to make adjustments based on how you are feeling and labwork levels. Once at optimal levels, you cruise. Once you are running stable, labwork is repeated only once a year, or if need arises.

It is expected that you will keep your family physician. This is important because I am not diagnosing or treating any disease process with you. I am doing health enhancement and proactive prevention.

In health,

-Michael Lang, ND


Hormone Safety, from the Literature

Many patients like to see proof from our medical literature that optimal hormonereplacement is both beneficial and safe. There is a plethora of information and data in peer-reviewed medical journals that frequently goes unrecognized and unappreciated. Thefollowing are direct quotes from well-recognized and esteemed medical journals in theworld. These journals are widely accepted by authorities to be legitimate and well researched.
Geriatrics: November, 1999; vol. 54:11 pg. 62 .
./” The length between obesity and diseases of aging has been conftrmed .
./” Increase in visceral fat tissue has a direct effect on age associated insulin resistance and cardiovasculardisease. The increase of visceral fat in older persons is associated with the decreased levels of estrogen,testosterone, and growth hormone .
./” Augmenting the levels of these and other hormones that decrease with age better controls visceral fat,thereby leading to decreased insulin resistance, decreased diabetes, and decreased atherosclerosis.
New England Journal of Medicine: October, 1999 vol. 341: pgs1206-1216 .
./” In adults the goals of growth hormone replacement are to restore normal body composition, improvemuscle and cardiac function, normalize serum lipid concentrations, and improve quality of life .
./” There is evidence that growth hormone deficiency in adults is deleterious, increasing the risk of deathfrom cardiovascular disease .
./” There is, at present, no evidence that growth hormone replacement therapy affects the risk of cancer or cardiovascular disease. Studies show the rate of mortality from cancer was either half the rate of normalsubjects or similar to it.
./” After six months of treatment the basal metabolic rate increased by 6 percent to 11 percent. (Thismeans that the metabolism has increased, which in turn burns body fat.)
./” Medical studies show that quality of life measures, including energy level, mood, and emotions improve with the supplementation of growth hormone. There is a significant improvement of scores in standard psychological tests of energy, emotions, and well-being .
./” Changes in metabolic rate and in muscle and fat mass allow patients to become more physically active.
JAMA: August, 2000 vol. 284: 7 pgs 861-866 .
./” From young adulthood to midlife growth hormone secretion decreases by 75 percent. Somatapause orloss of growth hormone is essentially completed by the fourth decade .
./” Data shows that we should target a younger age for replacement therapy, rather than those older than65, in order to prevent exposure of low growth hormone levels for at least two decades.
Psychoneuroendocrinology: 1992 vol. 17:4 pgs 327-333 .
./” Growth hormone administration increases muscle mass, improves exercise tolerance, improves REMsleep, and enhances a sense of well-being.
Hospital Medicine: September, 1999 pg. 29 .
./” Growth hormone replacement significantly increases patients lean body mass and decreases fat mass.
New England Journal of Medicine: 1990;323: pgsl-6 .
./” Effects of six months of human growth hormone administration on lean body mass and adipose tissuemass were equivalent in magnitude to the changes incurred during ten-twenty years of aging.
Hormone Research: 1991;35 (1):19-24 .
./” We conclude that exogenous growth hormone administration reduces body fat in obese women in the apparent absence of significant kilo-caloric restriction.