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Hormones, Birth Control, and Insulin Resistance

Published on December 30, 2025

8.2K views

Little known fact. Your reproductive hormones influence how your body responds to insulin. The artificial hormones in hormonal birth control also play a huge role in how your body responds to insulin. And, your body’s response to insulin determines how well you are able to use glucose to supply your daily energy needs.

In this article, we will discuss the basics of how your body creates energy. In this first section, we will unpack:

How your body creates energy from glucose
Glucose vs. fatty acids as an energy source
How insulin resistance impacts the shift between glucose burning and fat burning
How glucose enters your cells to become fuel for energy
How insulin resistance interferes with the transfer of glucose into your cells

Then, we will tie in how your natural reproductive hormones, estradiol and progesterone, impact your body’s use of glucose as a fuel source and discuss how hormonal birth control disrupts this natural balance.

How the Body Creates Energy From Glucose

Many of your cell types are designed to run on glucose, a metabolic product of carbohydrates, as their main source of energy, and in fact, certain cells that don’t contain mitochondria (or contain very few mitochondria) like red blood cells and cells of certain parts of your eye (lens, retina, and cornea) rely either exclusively (as is the case for red blood cells) or primarily on glucose as an energy source.

The reason for this is that mitochondria are responsible for aerobic (oxygen required) energy creation processes within your body, and cells with no or very few mitochondria rely mostly on anaerobic (no oxygen required) energy creation by glycolysis in the cytoplasm of the cell. As we will discuss in more detail later, when your body uses fatty acids as a fuel source, this pathway is purely aerobic, so it is not possible for fatty acids to be used in anaerobic energy creation processes within your cells.

When you eat a meal containing sugar (sucrose) or carbohydrates, enzymatic processes begin breaking the sugar and carbs down into their basic structures within your digestive tract. The structure of both sugar and carbs contain glucose.

Glucose fuels the creation of ATP in a process known as glycolysis, which happens within the cell, and through oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS), which happens within the mitochondria (substructures within the cell). When ATP is broken down within your cells, it releases energy, which is harnessed to power your mitochondria and other important cellular functions. The by-products of that ATP creation (pyruvate and ATP) fuel additional energy production cascades within the cell.

How the Body Switches From Glucose to Fatty Acids for Energy

Even when particular cell types prefer carbs (glucose) as their energy source rather than fatty acids, most cell types are capable of using either of these macronutrients (and also, when necessary, amino acids) as a fuel in order to survive periods of fasting (including overnight fasting).

Insulin plays a key role in regulating whether your body uses glucose (glycolysis in the cell’s cytoplasm and OXPHOS in the mitochondria) or fatty acids (lipolysis in the cell’s cytoplasm and fatty acid oxidation in the mitochondria) as its preferred fuel source. This is because insulin impacts the ratio of two key enzymes (malonyl Coenzyme A and acetyl CoenzymeA) that determine which of these energy pathways is preferred (here and here). The ratio of these enzymes is dynamic, changing throughout the day in response to when and what you eat, and in response to this fluctuating ratio, your body preferentially uses carbs (glucose) or fatty acids as its fuel source.

In an insulin resistant state, your body does not easily shift between glycolysis/OXPHOS (glucose as fuel) and lipolysis/fatty acid oxidation (fatty acids as fuel) and instead remains in a state of using fatty acids as fuel. We will talk about why this is the case in the next section.

How Glucose Gets Inside Cells

The glucose released in your digestive tract from the food you eat is absorbed into your bloodstream, and when your blood glucose levels start to rise following a meal (or any drink containing carbs or sugar), it signals your pancreas to release insulin.

Insulin is the messenger that lets your cells (specifically, your skeletal muscle, fat, kidney, and liver cells) know there is glucose available in your bloodstream. Insulin does this by binding to the cellular membrane, and this activates glucose transporters on the cellular membrane.

Once blood glucose levels start to drop, a healthy body clears insulin fairly quickly so that it can maintain adequate blood sugar levels. Insulin must be cleared so that blood sugar doesn’t drop too low.

What Is Insulin Resistance?

A number of factors influence how your cells respond to insulin. External influences (like stress, diet, and lack of sleep) along with internal factors (hormonal fluctuations) play a role in how the cells respond to insulin. And, different types of cells respond differently to insulin. Skeletal muscle cells are the most sensitive to insulin. Fat cells and liver cells are also sensitive to insulin, and so these cell types (skeletal muscle, fat, and liver) are the quickest to take up extra glucose from the bloodstream.

When your body becomes more insulin resistant, the cells are not as able to respond to insulin. My favorite analogy for this is to imagine that you are at a rock concert. You cannot easily hear the person next to you because the volume in the venue is so loud that your ears are overloaded by the background noise. In order to carry on a conversation, you must move to a quieter place. In this scenario, insulin is the background noise or the decibel level. When you are insulin resistant, your pancreas releases extra insulin to try to get your body’s cells to respond. This would be the same as somebody yelling at you in a concert hall so that you are able to hear them speak.

When you restore insulin sensitivity, it is like taking your body out of that loud concert hall and placing it somewhere quiet. Now, you are able to hear and carry on a conversation without any problems. When you restore insulin sensitivity, the cells are capable of responding to a much lower amount of insulin much more quickly and take the action of absorbing glucose from the bloodstream.

Insulin Resistance Begets Insulin Resistance

With insulin resistance, the cells are used to the high insulin environment (partially deaf to insulin), so they stop responding to insulin’s call. This prompts the pancreas to release more insulin in order to get your cells to hear the message to soak up the extra glucose circulating in the bloodstream. When insulin is unable to be heard because of the high background noise (because there is so much circulating insulin the cells are deaf to it), then glucose isn’t taken up by the cells. This then creates the false message from your cells to key organs to start releasing stored glucose (in a process called gluconeogenesis) to supply the body’s energy needs.

When we are talking about diabetes, this feedback loop often, but not in everyone with diabetes, results in a perfect storm of upward spiraling blood sugar levels.

insulin resistance cycle common in diabetes showing increased insulin resistance triggering gluconeogenesis resulting in higher blood sugar levels which increases insulin resistance — Figure 1. Insulin resistance begets more insulin resistance.

Even in conditions besides diabetes where blood sugar levels are dysregulated, you might have one condition (for example, insulin resistance), without the other (increased release of glucose from your body’s reserves).

With all of that in mind, let us take a look at how reproductive hormones impact insulin resistance and gluconeogenesis, the process of releasing glucose from stored reserves.

Estradiol, Synthetic Estrogens, and Insulin Resistance

Reproductive hormones play a key role in insulin resistance. Most scientific studies agree that estradiol (the endogenous estrogen produced primarily in the ovaries throughout the reproductive years) boosts the release of insulin from the pancreas. While at first glance, this looks like estradiol might contribute to insulin resistance because it prompts release of extra insulin, the opposite is actually true.

Estradiol is widely accepted as a potent compound to restore insulin sensitivity. Whether this is because of upregulation of insulin from the pancreas or whether it is also because of the influence estrogen has on the cells when it binds to estrogen receptors or a combination of both of these is not clear. What is clear, is that estradiol encourages cellular uptake of glucose and more rapid reduction of blood glucose levels after a meal. Estradiol also reduces gluconeogenesis in the liver suppressing the release of free glucose into the bloodstream from the body’s reserves, and this supports healthy blood sugar levels (here and here).

Estrogen Concentrations and Insulin Resistance

How estradiol affects insulin resistance is concentration dependent. Estradiol concentrations in the bloodstream within the normal circulating range (not more than 1 nanomolar abbreviated 1 nM) are associated with healthy insulin sensitivity and healthy blood sugar levels while concentrations higher than 1 nM are associated with insulin resistance. This may be why gestational diabetes is a common condition during pregnancy with up to 10% of pregnant women in America developing gestational diabetes. Progesterone also plays a key role in gestational diabetes as we will discuss in more detail below.

Non-bioidentical Estrogen and Insulin resistance

Ethinyl estradiol, the most common synthetic estrogen used in hormonal contraceptives here in America, also impacts insulin resistance, but like endogenous estradiol, the relationship is not straightforward. Ethinyl estradiol has been shown to impact insulin sensitivity and gluconeogenesis differently depending on:

its concentration in the hormonal birth control
what progestin (synthetic progesterone) it is paired with

Just as high concentrations of endogenous estradiol increase the chances of dysregulated blood glucose control, the synthetic estrogen, ethinyl estradiol, also increases chances of dysregulated blood glucose control. Chemical diabetes caused by hormonal birth control is also well documented in the literature. This is one of the reasons why, since the 1960s, the concentration of artificial estrogens in combined oral contraceptives has been dramatically reduced from upwards of 60 micrograms per pill to as low as 10 micrograms. Currently, most birth control options contain from 20 to 35 micrograms of ethinyl estradiol per pill.

Estrogen Binds to Insulin Receptors Affecting Insulin Resistance

Estrogens, whether synthetic or endogenous, affect blood sugar regulation differently at different concentrations because of their ability to bind to insulin receptors. This concentration-dependent effect of both endogenous estradiol and synthetic estrogens is often overlooked in the conversation regarding the impact of hormonal contraceptives on blood sugar control. Inasmuch as estrogens play a role in insulin sensitivity, insulin secretion, and in gluconeogenesis, and because estrogens are combined in hormonal contraceptives with a wide range of synthetic progestins, the effects on blood sugar regulation are quickly compounded and convoluted.

Progesterone, Progestins, and Insulin Resistance

As with estradiol, the concentration of progesterone also impacts whether progesterone improves or diminishes insulin sensitivity. It is generally accepted that higher concentrations of progesterone during pregnancy are a major contributor to gestational diabetes. Similarly, high concentrations of progesterone, even after menopause, are linked to an increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

The actions of progesterone on glucose metabolism is very much related to carrying a pregnancy to term, promoting glucose storage (rather than consumption of glucose for fuel) and promoting ketogenesis (fat burning) within the body. Even when not pregnant, progesterone is the dominant hormone during the luteal phase (second half of your cycle), and this effects how your body uses glucose and its sensitivity to insulin. This ties into common experiences during the second half of your cycle including carb cravings, potentially diminished appetite (if you are like me), and also weight gain.

Unlike artificial estrogens, of which there is only one used in the combined hormonal contraceptives available in the United States, for progestins, the synthetic forms of progesterone, there are four generations of progestins, with each generation containing progestins of different molecular structures. The class of molecules used in synthetic progestins are similar in structure to the endogenous progesterone molecule, but they are not the same. In other words, they are non-bioidentical.

Progestins bind differently to the progesterone receptors within the body (and also bind to a variety of other receptors), than the endogenous progesterone and their specific structure contributes to how much and whether insulin resistance increases. The molecular structure also affects how the body conserves glucose (increases glucose storage) or uses glucose (in the process of gluconeogenesis). It is generally believed that the androgenic nature of progestins determine their role in reducing insulin sensitivity (here and here).

Hormones and Body Composition

An interesting note, whether we are talking about natural reproductive hormones, estradiol and progesterone, or artificial hormones, ethinyl estradiol and the various progestins, these are all fat-soluble hormones. That means, these hormones may be stored in, and thus, impact the behavior of fat cells. One study evaluated the response of fat cells (adipocytes) in the presence or absence of treatment with artificial hormones and found that in the presence of artificial hormones, the adipocytes were more insulin resistant. This suggests that fat cells may serve as a reservoir for artificial hormones and endogenous hormones alike. They essentially soak up circulating hormones from the bloodstream, and these absorbed hormones in turn impact how the fat cells behave.

This finding means that body composition affects how you respond to hormones, whether endogenous or synthetic, and vice versa. It also suggests that, among other things, we ought to consider dosing hormonal contraceptives relative to body composition. Women with higher body fat may store more of the hormones than those with lower body fat and this may initiate or exacerbate insulin resistance.

Summary

In summary, reproductive hormones are intricately intertwined with metabolism, both with how the body creates energy and how it stores fats and carbs to meet energy demands between meals. Hormonal birth control impacts this finely choreographed dance between reproductive hormones and insulin sensitivity, and this seemingly small influence has a dramatic ripple effect. Insulin sensitivity dictates things like weight gain, oxidative stress, and even, as we will discuss in the next article, susceptibility to UTIs and UTI like symptoms.

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More people than ever are reading Hormones Matter, a testament to the need for independent voices in health and medicine. We are not funded and accept limited advertising. Unlike many health sites, we don’t force you to purchase a subscription. We believe health information should be open to all. If you read Hormones Matter, like it, please help support it. Contribute now.

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This article was published originally on September 18, 2023.

From DES to the Pill: Are We Doomed to Repeat History?

by Mike Gaskins

Published on October 23, 2025

7.6K views

“The doctor wouldn’t have given it to me if he thought it was dangerous, right?”

My wife asked this salient question as we discussed the pros and cons of The Pill. It sent us both into deep reflection. Everything we read said The Pill was dangerous, but the doctor had acted like they should come in a Pez dispenser. To this day, I’m not sure where the cognitive began and the dissonance ended.

The DES Debacle: Origins of Obstinance

Doctors are generally dogmatic, but their nearly universal laissez-faire attitude toward The Pill seems particularly paradoxical when you study the scope and seriousness of its side effects. How can doctors believe that The Pill is safe, when tomes of studies suggest otherwise? Research links The Pill to everything from breast cancer and strokes, to Crohn’s Disease and lupus. To understand where we are and how we got here, it’s important to study the journey that brought us here.

By 1970, the current dogma that ‘The Pill is safe’ was well rooted in the medical community. However, enough doctors expressed concerns that Senator Gaylord Nelson decided to hold Congressional Hearings on the matter. The big three networks covered the hearings extensively, which caused great anxiety among women taking The Pill — and even greater anxiety among pill proponents, who subsequently demanded more ‘pro-pill’ doctors be included.

Senator Nelson took umbrage with their complaints, noting that all but one of the previous doctors had actually been ‘pro-pill’ to some extent, but all had reservations about its complications. Nonetheless, many of the doctors in the second round of hearings seemed more decidedly ‘pro-pill,’ including Dr. Kenneth Ryan, who stated,

I know of no information that indicates that biological properties of the estrogens used in the contraceptive pill are any different than stilbesterol for which we have at least 30 years of clinical experience…(Competitive Problems in the Drug Industry, Ninety-First Congress, Second Session, Page 6541)

Very reassuring… Unless you were actually familiar with the 30-year history of stilbesterol, also known as diethylstilbestrol (DES). Sir Charles Dodds discovered DES in 1938, and rushed it to market in the public domain. The English doctor bypassed the patent process hoping it would discourage the Nazis from further tests on women prisoners in their development of ethinyl estradiol (Barbara Seaman, The Greatest Experiment Ever Performed on Women; page 36).

From DES to the Pill

Despite his noble intentions, Dodds soon regretted the decision. Without a patent, drug companies around the globe were free to produce DES. He never expected that synthetic hormones would be given to healthy women, and was horrified that doctors were prescribing it as hormone therapy for natural menopause.

You Can’t Put the Hormones Back in the Tube

Even worse, Dodds soon learned that an American doctor named Karnaky had begun blazing a new trail – doling out DES to ‘prevent miscarriages’. Alarmed by the news, Dodds sent him a study he had personally performed, which showed that the drug actually caused miscarriages in animal subjects. It didn’t deter Dr. Karnaky or the many doctors who followed his lead. (Robert Meyers, D.E.S. The Bitter Pill; pp. 56-73)

Dodds began to feel like he was fighting a monster that he himself had unleashed. He was most concerned about how his discovery could affect certain cancers. He sent DES samples to the newly formed National Cancer Institute in the United States, and urged them to conduct tests and notify doctors.

Dodds wasn’t alone. The Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry warned,

…because the product is so potent and because the possibility of harm must be recognized, the Council is of the opinion that it should not be recognized for general use at the present time…and that its use by the general medical profession should not be undertaken until further studies have led to a better understanding of the functions of the drug. (Barbara Seaman, The Greatest Experiment Ever Performed on Women; page 44)

The concerns sent murmurs through the medical community, and many doctors began experimenting with lower doses of DES. By 1940, the editors of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) felt compelled to add theirs to the litany of warnings:

“It would be unwise to consider that there is safety in using small doses of estrogens, since it is quite possible that the same harm may be obtained through the use of small doses of estrogen if they are maintained over a long period.” (JAMA, April 20, 1940)

In 1959, the FDA determined the link to side effects (including male breast growth) was sufficient to ban poultry farmers from using DES as a growth hormone. However, the widespread use of DES in humans continued. In fact, it had become standard medical practice by the time Dr. Ryan assured Congress that The Pill was just as safe as DES – showing how medical dogma often trumps scientific evidence.

The greater irony of Dr. Ryan’s statement materialized one year after his testimony, when researchers first linked a rare vaginal cancer to the daughters of women who received DES during pregnancy. The FDA reacted strongly, listing pregnancy as a contraindication for DES use.

Consumer Groups Take the Lead

You would expect this to be the beginning of the end for DES. Shockingly, the medical community responded with indifference, continuing to prescribe DES for a variety of ‘off label’ uses, including as a morning-after pill, to catalyze the onset of puberty, and the old faithful, hormone replacement therapy. (Robert Meyers, D.E.S. The Bitter Pill; page 185)

It took nearly a decade of passionate effort from consumer movements like DES Action to convince doctors to (mostly) abandon DES. Dozens of lawsuits were filed; some were settled; and some are still pending. There is evidence that the harmful consequences could now be affecting a third generation of DES victims.

The current Director of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the National Cancer Institute, Robert Hoover, M.D. oversees the DES Follow-Up Study to track the ongoing repercussions. With identifiable problems now affecting the grandchildren of women who took DES, the disaster hasn’t yet moved into the past tense of our nation’s history. Despite that, Dr. Hoover says:

There’s essentially a whole generation of medical students who don’t know the story. The story has such powerful lessons that I think that’s a tragedy…For about 20 years now, when I standardly ask in my general epidemiology lecture… how many of you have heard of DES, nobody raises their hand.

Sidney Wolfe, M.D., who headed up Ralph Nader’s Health Research Group offered this perspective,

DES is an excellent example of how drug companies behave, how they take advantage of the ways doctors act, and how they make millions of dollars by ignoring evidence of a drug’s harmfulness, by failing to get evidence that it is effective, and then by marketing a product that plays on fears and misconception. (Robert Meyers, D.E.S. The Bitter Pill; page 208).

In just 20 years, the American Medical Association moved from “It would be unwise to consider that there is safety in using small doses of estrogens…” to embracing the release of insufficiently tested hormones as birth control for millions of women. I’m leery of trusting a dogma founded on such an erratically moving target. In their defense, the dogma really hasn’t moved much in the decades since.

Today, the medical community assures us The Pill is the most researched drug ever. Sorry doc, that reassurance just doesn’t ring true. At this point, it feels more like a phrase learned by rote than a statement based on any kind of empirical evidence. Unfortunately, it’s not the only hollow mantra that should raise a red flag when it comes to hormonal contraceptives. I will discuss how the medical community responds to scientific studies in my next post, The Spin Doctor’s Prescription for Birth Control.

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More people than ever are reading Hormones Matter, a testament to the need for independent voices in health and medicine. We are not funded and accept limited advertising. Unlike many health sites, we don’t force you to purchase a subscription. We believe health information should be open to all. If you read Hormones Matter, like it, please help support it. Contribute now.

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This article was published originally on Hormones Matter on August 31, 2016.

Connecting the Dots: Health Problems, Hashimoto’s, and Hormonal Birth Control

by Mike Gaskins

Published on August 27, 2025

6K views

I have always found it curious that many health-conscious women will pay more for meat and dairy products that promise “No Artificial Hormones,” but then don’t think twice about taking the powerful artificial hormones in birth control.

Based on observations from a recent work trip, I began wondering if this paradox could be just a strange quirk of human nature. I was working with a man who obsessed over everything he put in his body. He intently read nutrition labels to compare juices, perused the ingredients before purchasing a protein bar, and asked waiters at restaurants about their food preparation.

It is difficult to eat healthy when you are living on the road, and I was impressed by his commitment to doing so. He really took his health seriously. Then, one afternoon, he said he was going to take a break, picked up his laptop bag, and pulled out a pack of unfiltered Camels.

I wondered what kind of compartments must exist in his brain for this to make sense, and it brought my mind back to the women who make a concerted effort to avoid artificial hormones… except when they don’t.

The Perfect Example

I might have also wondered how my brain could be so de-compartmentalized that his smoking immediately triggered thoughts of birth control, but this isn’t about me. So, I’ll save that for the therapist.

Meanwhile, his dichotomy of action had piqued my interest, and I was unsure where my curiosity would lead me. Then, I met the perfect woman to help me take a deep dive into the topic.

Brandy Searcy has worked as a developmental scientist for pharmaceutical companies for over a decade. As the daughter and granddaughter of nurses, she grew up immersed in conversations centered around healthcare. So, pursuing a PhD in organic synthesis seemed almost a natural extension of her genetics and heritage.

Through her work, which has included forays into cancer research and pesticide development, she honed a keen understanding of endocrine disruptors. Her concern over xenoestrogens in health and beauty products led her to develop Rain Organica, a line of skin care products designed specifically for women looking to detox their lives.

I met Brandy when she invited me on her podcast to talk about my book.

Birth Control and the Compartmentalization Conundrum

After we finished recording, Brandy mentioned that she could not believe how long it took her to connect the dots and realize that so many of her problems were linked to hormonal birth control. This opened the door to a fascinating discussion.

As you might imagine, her family was deeply vested in Western medicine. So, when she began to battle acne at around the age of 14, her mother did what any loving mother would do. She drove her around the state of Georgia trying to find a dermatologist who would conjure up a magic potion to make her acne worries vanish.

After a few years and some bad experiences with Accutane, Brandy’s mindset began to shift. It was around the age of 20 that she decided that she would “treat my skin as an organ to be loved rather than as a battleground.”

Although she had identified the problems with Accutane, it would take another 20 years for her to recognize the role hormonal birth control was playing in her health struggles. Consequently, this would become the first of many milestones she would later identify as missed opportunities to connect the dots.

Living Both Sides of the Coin

“It’s almost like there were two of me. One side was touting this new, healthy approach to life, and the other side was completely ignoring the effects of hormonal birth control on my body.”

When Brandy reflects back on those days before the blinders came off, you can see clouds of guilt and maybe a hint of embarrassment cross her eyes. She says there were any number of events that should have been enough to make her see the light earlier. Like the time red flags and sirens went off in her head when her doctor suggested a form of birth control because the “hormones were localized.”

Looking back at it now, she laments, “If she (the doctor) thought hormones can be localized, why didn’t I question her wisdom on prescribing me birth control in the first place?”

Beyond the common misrepresentations by doctors, Brandy can pinpoint some very specific, significant events in her personal and professional life that she believes should have been enough for her to walk away from hormonal birth control.

Missed Warning Signs

“It’s mind-blowing to me that I couldn’t let myself connect the dots. How I couldn’t see it is beyond me.”

Brandy still feels overcome with dismay as she recounts the significant events, the missed warning signs. Here is her summary of those key events:

2008 – Right leg numbness – The doctor thought she might be experiencing transient ischemic attacks (TIA) caused by the synthetic estrogens in her birth control. He told her to stop taking it until they could identify the culprit. The issues turned out to be structural rather than a stroke, and she returned to The Pill without a second thought.

2012 – Lyme disease – Brandy became very ill. As they worked through the process of diagnosing her illness, the doctor told her to stop taking birth control for six months. During the course of testing, they learned that her ANA and CRP levels were high. Ultimately, she was diagnosed with and treated for Lyme disease. Once again, feeling better, the diagnosis was taken as an exoneration of hormonal birth control. She forgot all about concern for her ANA and CRP levels, and started right back on The Pill.

2012 – Literal warning signs – That same year, she visited a facility that previously manufactured synthetic estrogens. As she walked through the plant, she noticed the bright red “Carcinogen” signs everywhere – on the walls, on the pipes – literally everywhere. Even as one of her co-workers told her this is where estrogens used to be made, she never connected the danger and all these literal warning signs to the same little pill she was taking every day.

2016 – No periods – Brandy was already experiencing gall sludge when her gynecologist recommended a different birth control formulation that, when taken continuously, would allow her to never have a period again, right up until menopause. She loved the idea of eliminating her period and didn’t even make the connection when signs of Hashimoto’s thyroiditis began almost immediately after switching to this brand.

2017 – Gallbladder disease – She had to have her gallbladder removed. While Brandy was still unaware of hormonal birth control’s link to gallbladder issues, she also had a family history of gallbladder disease that kept her from even considering The Pill’s role in her gallbladder’s demise.

2018 – Hashimoto’s diagnosis – After two years of tests, Brandy was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, yet another disease that has been linked to birth control use. This was the event that would finally open her eyes, but the realization still took a circuitous route as it wasn’t the diagnosis itself that helped her make the connection.

When Western medicine told this self-described type-A control freak that there was no cure, she began digging for herself and discovered a book on treating your thyroid using Ayurveda techniques.

Ayurveda is an alternative form of medicine originating from Asia, which focuses on the necessary balance of internal and external influences to maintain proper health. And, it provided the shift in mindset that finally caused Brandy to question birth control.

Looking back at everything now, Brandy says, “We are not made to live in a diseased state. We are made to be healthy, and if we aren’t healthy, it isn’t because our body is broken, it’s because we are putting something in that is making us not healthy.”

Seeing the Light

I asked what she might tell other young women to help them wake up to the dangers of The Pill, or at least give more thought to its potential risks. This led to another interesting rabbit hole as we discussed the various factors that prevent young women from truly contemplating the dangers. Here are some of the variables we discussed:

Lack of reproductive education – Young women aren’t taught about the phases of their cycle, nor how its ebbs and flows can actually help them monitor their health, nor are they educated on how their cycles may change over time.

In Brandy’s case, she had very heavy, irregular, and painful periods as a young girl. No one ever told her this was common when going through menarche. As a result, she said The Pill gave her a false sense of control. She had fully bought into a false narrative that periods should be embarrassing and that they serve no useful function. At some level, she believed that completely stopping her menstruation with potent chemicals might actually be better for her than respecting her body’s natural processes. This did not change even after two doctors had her stop hormonal birth control for health concerns.

Western medicine – We tend to give doctors an inordinate authority over our health decisions to the point of almost idolizing them. This is reinforced by a notion that they have taken the Hippocratic Oath, promising to first, do no harm. However, only slightly over half of all physicians today have taken the oath, and that percentage drops with each new graduating class.

The more entrenched a young woman’s faith in Western medicine the less likely she is to question birth control.

Addiction – Some women seem to develop a type of addiction to hormonal birth control. The mere suggestion that they should look for another option is enough to create severe anxiety.

Stockholm syndrome – Closely related, some women may take on a type of Stockholm syndrome that prevents them from connecting the dots. Stockholm syndrome is described as a coping mechanism that some victims of an abusive situation develop in which they actually grow fond of the abuser.

Brandy recalled, “In a lot of ways, if feels like I was in an abusive relationship, but I wasn’t able to see how abusive it was until I stepped away.”

Withdrawal – Beyond the addictive nature, quitting any synthetic steroid cold turkey can be hard on the system. There’s a reason doctors taper you off of prednisone and other steroids.

Many women experience withdrawal symptoms when they try to stop, and this is enough to drive them right back to The Pill.

Little support – Historically, there has been a lack of support for women coming off these potent synthetic hormones – some after decades of use. Even the medical professionals who prescribe the drug are woefully undertrained on dealing with the detoxification process necessary for a healthy transition off of The Pill. Actually, that is an understatement. Most doctors have not even contemplated the effects of coming off the synthetic steroids in birth control. They act is if you just stop and your body returns to normal.

When Brandy came off The Pill, she immediately began to see and feel changes in her body, including her first UTI, at the age of 40. This was the lightbulb moment when she realized how much impact the synthetic steroids had been having on her body. Despite having made it through 40 years with no UTIs, two of her doctors, who are still clearly wearing their birth control blinders, told her it sounded like she had poor hygiene habits. Somehow, in their eyes, I guess it took 40 years for those bad habits to catch up to her.

By the way, Brandy recently developed a course to help women through the transition off of hormonal birth control.

A Unique Formula

Clearly, there are lots of variables that can influence the way a woman perceives and judges birth control.

Every woman is different. Each has her own unique body chemistry. That is why a birth control formulation that seems harmless to one woman can be deadly for the next.

Brandy mused that the way women weigh their thoughts on The Pill is equally idiosyncratic. There is no one phrase or thought that will lead women to suddenly see the realities of hormonal birth control. Each woman has to hear the right message at the right time to help her properly weigh the benefits and risks for her situation. I say “properly” because the system is so stacked against women getting accurate information about this potent drug.

Brandy added this last thought related to one of the first big hurdles that women encounter – the overwhelming tendency to mitigate and downplay side effects. She advised, “The subtle symptoms are the first indicators. Don’t dismiss them because they seem insignificant. They are frequently pointing to something bigger.”

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We Need Your Help

More people than ever are reading Hormones Matter, a testament to the need for independent voices in health and medicine. We are not funded and accept limited advertising. Unlike many health sites, we don’t force you to purchase a subscription. We believe health information should be open to all. If you read Hormones Matter, like it, please help support it. Contribute now.

Yes, I would like to support Hormones Matter.

Photo by Almos Bechtold on Unsplash.

This article was published originally May 15, 2023.

Summer’s Best Bargain: Free Vitamin D

by Susan Rex Ryan

Published on May 14, 2025

12.9K views

The warmest season of the year is around the corner. Many of us are looking forward to school holidays, work vacations, and relaxing. And shopping often accompanies our summer fun. So take advantage of the best bargain of the season: better health – for free! That’s right, I am talking about sunshine: the light emitting from the fiery heart of our solar system. Ultraviolet B (UVB) rays from the sun provide us with an essential nutrient called vitamin D. Yes, this is the vitamin that not only strengthens our bones and muscles but may significantly protect us from a wide range of serious diseases including autoimmune disorders, cancer, contagious illnesses, diabetes, and heart disease, according to a plethora of credible medical studies from around the world.

Many people—across generations and geographical locations—suffer from low vitamin D levels from lifestyles that do not include unprotected sunbathing. Since the late 1980’s, the medical community has emphasized the need to “shun the sun” to avoid skin cancer. Consumers have embraced this advice by spending billions of dollars so they can slather chemical-laden lotions with exponentially increasing sun protection factors all over their bodies. This behavior has resulted in a vitamin D deficiency epidemic.

Moderate sun exposure is healthy for most individuals. Our bodies possess an inherent mechanism to process only the necessary intake of sun rays, about 20,000 international units of vitamin D. After our skin is exposed to direct sunlight under optimal conditions for about 20 minutes, its safety mechanism turns off the initial production of vitamin D. For many folks, it is then time to move to the shade or don additional protection to reduce the risk of sunburn.

Optimal conditions to enjoy summer’s vitamin D depend on a number of factors that we can, and in some cases, cannot control. These factors include:

Geographic location. The closer you are to the equator and the higher your altitude the better your opportunity to acquire vitamin D-rich sunlight.

Time of day. The window of sunlight between 10:00 in the morning and 2:00 in the afternoon is optimal. If your shadow is shorter than your height, you are in the potential vitamin D-producing time frame.

Sky clarity. An azure sky is highly preferable to cloud cover. UVB light is decreased by about 50 percent when penetrating clouds. Ozone pollution absorbs UVB rays before they reach your skin.

Skin. The less clothing, makeup, and sunscreen you wear, the better the odds that your skin can produce vitamin D. It also is important to understand that melanin, the pigment in your skin, absorbs UVB rays. The lighter your skin, the better chance you can make vitamin D more efficiently.

Age. Youth trumps older ages because the concentration of the vitamin D precursor in our skin, called 7-dehydrocholesterol, decreases with age.

Weight. Less weight means typically more vitamin D production from the sun. As vitamin D is fat-soluble, the body’s fat cells more rapidly absorb vitamin D, decreasing its availability to organs, tissues, and cells.

You may be thinking, “I live near sea level, far from the equator, in mostly cloudy conditions with cool summer temperatures; work full-time during the day; and am dark-skinned and overweight. How on earth (literally) can I get any measurable vitamin D from the sun?” Take advantage of sunny weather by enjoying an outdoor lunch break. Remove that hat, roll up your sleeves, and soak in the sun. Ten minutes of sun exposure is better than none.

Each individual’s options for absorbing nature’s gift of vitamin D may differ.* Fortunately, widely available sources of vitamin D including vitamin D3 supplements may be highly effective in raising your body’s D levels to protect you from a wide array of medical conditions. The information about, and benefits of, vitamin D could fill a book. In fact, I am so impressed with vitamin D’s health benefits that I recently published a book called Defend Your Life to encourage people to improve their health by taking vitamin D.

Happy summer, and happy health!

*Persons who have developed sarcoidosis, specific granulomatous diseases, and rare cancers may experience hypersensitivity to sunlight exposure.

Image by pixel2013 from Pixabay .

This article was published originally on July 2, 2019.

Vitamin D3 and Influenza

by Susan Rex Ryan

Published on October 7, 2024

11.5K views

It’s that time of year again: Signs advertising flu shots dot the commercial landscape. Retail pharmacy stores conveniently sell flu inoculations while shopping. Flu-shot kiosks at airports are common. Pharmaceutical companies produce flu vaccines in nasal-spray form for younger people and high-dose flu shots for older folks. When I think about this ambitious marketing campaign, my reaction is the same: adequate vitamin D3 levels may protect us from influenza as effectively as flu vaccines.

The “flu” is a highly contagious, respiratory disease caused by a type (or strain) of influenza virus. Influenza A, the most common flu virus, usually prevails during the autumn and winter seasons when the least exposure to ultraviolet B sunlight occurs. Seasonal flu vaccines comprise a mixture of the most predictive influenza viruses. However, the effectiveness of flu immunization can be called into question due to the uncertainty about which flu strain will emerge during the season.

Activated vitamin D3 has a profound impact on the immune system. Vitamin D3’s anti-viral and anti-inflammatory functions may lower of the risk of contracting or dying from influenza. To strengthen the immune system, activated vitamin D3 produces two peptides called cathelicidin and defensin that combat viruses. John J. Cannell, M.D., founder and Executive Director of the Vitamin D Council, and colleagues published a paper in the British journal Epidemiology and Infections that proposed low vitamin D3 levels are why the flu occurs more often during the winter. They also suggested that adequate daily vitamin D3 supplementation may reduce influenza symptoms. Subsequently, Dr. Cannell led a team of researchers who further examined vitamin D3’s mechanisms of action on epidemic influenza. Published in the February 2008 issue of the Virology Journal, the researchers confirmed the association between vitamin D3 deficiency and the seasonality of influenza.

From December 2008 through March 2009, researchers conducted a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial involving over 300 Japanese schoolchildren. Children who took a daily 1,200 IU supplement of vitamin D3 benefited from up to a 60 percent reduction in the influenza A infection rate during the darkest months of the year. Four times as many children in the placebo group developed the flu compared to the vitamin D3 group. (Note: A daily dose of 1,200 IU is quite low compared to current recommendations of vitamin D experts.)

More than 186,000 persons died from the H1N1 “swine flu” (a strain of Influenza A) pandemic in 2009-10. Months after the initial outbreak of the virus, University of Virginia researchers published an article in the Journal of Environmental Pathology, Toxicology and Oncology strongly recommending that “all healthcare workers and patients be tested and treated for vitamin D deficiency to prevent” the spread of the H1N1 virus.

A 2012 article published in the journal Critical Reviews in Microbiology reviewed data from randomized, controlled clinical trials to examine the impact of vitamin D3 supplementation in infectious diseases including influenza. The Dutch scientists indicated that vitamin D3 supplementation may prevent or possibly treat influenza viruses but noted that the optimal daily dosage regimen of vitamin D3 has yet to be determined.

A study published in the September 27, 2012 issue of the European Journal of Nutrition examined laboratory results of the treatment of bronchial cells infected with influenza A virus, specifically the H1N1 strain, with vitamin D3. The Indian researchers found that vitamin D3 reduced the severity of H1N1influenza.

Sales of vitamin D3 supplements have dramatically increased over the past several years.However, for the first time in a decade, worldwide sales of influenza vaccines decreased over $4 billion in 2011, according to Kalorama Information, a healthcare market research publisher. Could vitamin D3 awareness and consumption have contributed to the decline in the flu vaccine markets? Given the research, some in the medical community believe that vitamin D3’s antiviral and anti-inflammatory effects on the immune system may prevent influenza as well as potentially alleviate flu symptoms.

Image by Luisella Planeta LOVE PEACE 💛💙 from Pixabay.

This article was published originally on February 25, 2016.

Why Aren’t Women Tested for Factor V Leiden and Other Clotting Disorders?

by Kerry Gretchen

Published on August 26, 2024

25.3K views

When I had a stroke at age 28, my doctors did some tests and found that I have a fairly common clotting disorder called Factor V Leiden. They told me that this, combined with birth control pills, are what caused me to have the cerebral venous thrombosis (stroke). It didn’t occur to me then to ask what Factor V Leiden actually was. Or to ask why I hadn’t been testing for inherited clotting disorders before I was put on medication that increased my risk for blood clots. These things didn’t occur to me until much later, after I learned to walk again.

I spent most of the first two years after my stroke getting on with my life. It wasn’t until I was searching for a topic for my thesis that I revisited what happened to me. I had no idea that birth control pills could be so dangerous and I certainly didn’t know that I could have an inherited genetic condition which would make them exponentially more dangerous for me. “How many women have the same condition?” I wondered. “Why don’t we test them before they are put on hormones?” These are some of the questions I sought to answer with my research.

What is Factor V Leiden?

Factor V Leiden (FVL) is a 20,000-year-old mutation common in the general population and a major genetic risk factor for thrombosis. It’s the most common genetic clotting disorder, accounting for around half of all cases. It’s most commonly found in Caucasians (3-8%).

Patients with Factor V Leiden can be either:

Heterozygous: inherited one mutated gene from a parent

or

Homozygous: inherited two mutated genes, one from each parent

What Does It Do?

As my hematologist described, FVL doesn’t cause blood clots but once activated, it dangerously accelerates clotting. Researchers aren’t clear on why some people with FVL activate and others don’t but there is almost always a precipitating factor—surgery, trauma, immobility, use of hormones, etc.

According to a review in Blood, the journal for the American Society of Hematology, women with heterozygous FVL who also use oral contraceptives have an estimated 30 to 50-fold increased risk of blood clots, while women with homozygous FVL have a several hundred-fold increased risk.

It is the most common genetic cause of primary and recurrent venous thromboembolism in women.

We know that taking estrogen can increase the risk of blood clots, stroke, and heart attack in women. And estrogen, when taken by someone with FVL, can significantly increase the risk of blood clots. Whether women are taking synthetic estrogen in the form of oral contraceptives, or hormone replacement therapy or have increased concentrations of the endogenous estrogens due to pregnancy, they are at much greater risk of clotting.

FVL accounts for 20-50% of the venous thromboembolisms (VTE) that are pregnancy related. In the United States, VTE is the leading cause of maternal death. In addition to causing VTE in pregnant women, FVL has been linked to miscarriage and preeclampsia.

Perhaps the women most at risk for blood clots are those that have been placed on hormone replacement therapy (HRT). A recent review of data from several studies found that women taking hormone replacement therapy were at an increased risk of blood clot and stroke. Worse yet, women with FVL who are also on HRT were 14-16 times more likely to have a VTE.

Despite these risks, women are not systematically tested for FVL before they are prescribed oral contraceptives, before or during pregnancy, or before commencing HRT.

What Women Know about Birth Control and Blood Clots

Part of my thesis research included a survey to assess what women understand about the risks of birth control pills and clotting disorders. Over 300 women who had taken birth control pills participated. What I found was that most women do not understand the side effects of hormonal birth control, nor are they familiar with the symptoms of a blood clot.

As for clotting disorders, nearly 60% of the women surveyed had no knowledge of these conditions. When asked whether they knew about clotting disorders BEFORE they took birth control pills that number increases considerably.

Over 80% of women were taking a medication without the knowledge that they could have an undiagnosed genetic condition that would make that medication exponentially more dangerous.

This shouldn’t come as much of a surprise give that this information is not found in advertisements for birth control pills, on non- profit websites about birth control pills and their risks, or on literature provided with the prescriptions.

Why Aren’t Women Tested for Clotting Disorders?

The most common reason I found in my research for not testing women were cost-benefit analyses measured in cost per prevention of one death.

Setting aside the moral argument that you cannot put a price on a human life, because clearly the government and corporations do just that. (It’s $8 million in case you were wondering.) The cost of taking care of taking care of victims of blood clots is not insignificant.

Each year thousands of women using hormonal contraceptives will develop blood clots. The average cost of a patient with pulmonary embolism (PE) is nearly $9,000 (for a three-day stay not including follow-up medication and subsequent testing).

A hospital stay as a stroke patient is over twice that at nearly $22,000 (not including continuing out-patient rehabilitation, medications, testing, etc.). As a stroke survivor, I can tell you that the bills don’t stop after you leave the hospital. I was incredibly lucky that I only needed a month of out-patient therapy. Most patients need considerably more and will require life-long medication and testing. It’s important to note that due to the increasing cost of healthcare, the figures in these studies (PEs from 2003-2010; strokes from 2006-2008) would be exponentially higher now.

I’m not a statistician but I can do some basic math and while I wasn’t able to find data for the United States (surprise, surprise), the health ministry in France recently conducted a study that showed that the birth control pill causes 2,500 blood clots a year and 20 deaths. The United States has 9.72 million women using the pill compared to France’s 4.27 million. This doesn’t include the patch, ring, injectable, or hormonal IUD, but for the sake of keeping things simple, let’s just use the pill. So we have over twice the pill-users as France, which means twice the blood clots (5,000) and twice the deaths (40). If we assume that half of the blood clots are PE and half are stroke, we come up with a whopping $77.5 million in hospital bills for these blood clots (not counting life-long treatment). Now adding the cost-of-life determined by the government (40 women times $8 million= $320 million) and we end up with nearly $400 million a year in damages caused by the pill. For the cost of only one year of damages, all 10 million women could have a one-time $40 blood test which would result in considerably fewer blood clots.

Furthermore, the research in my thesis shows that women would be willing to not only take these tests, but also to pay for them!

Of the 311 who answered the question, 82.3% (or 256) said they would be willing to take the test. Only 7.2% said no, with the other 10.6% “not sure.” More than 60% of respondents would be willing to pay for the test (up to $50).

In addition, the cost of a blood test is directly proportional to how frequently it is performed. An increase in testing will result in a decrease in the cost of testing.

Women Deserve Better

Putting aside the monetary costs for a moment, what about the emotional and physical toll for women who suffer these dangerous and debilitating blood clots? There is no excuse for women to suffer strokes, pulmonary embolisms, DVTs, multiple miscarriages, and still births because they have an undiagnosed clotting disorder.

That said, requiring a test before prescribing hormones to women would raise awareness of the dangers of these drugs and may reduce the overall number of women using them. Which leads one to wonder if the absence of testing for women is really just a public relations strategy.

Perhaps one of the most devastating cautionary tales of not testing for clotting disorders comes from Laura Femia Buccellato. Her daughter Theresa was 16 years old when she was killed from a blood clot caused by (undiagnosed) Factor V Leiden and birth control pills. Would Theresa be with us today if she had had a simple blood test? Would I have had a stroke? When we will demand better?

We Need Your Help

More people than ever are reading Hormones Matter, a testament to the need for independent voices in health and medicine. We are not funded and accept limited advertising. Unlike many health sites, we don’t force you to purchase a subscription. We believe health information should be open to all. If you read Hormones Matter, like it, please help support it. Contribute now.

Yes, I would like to support Hormones Matter.

Image by fernando zhiminaicela from Pixabay.

This article was first published in September 2016.

Diabetes: Another Problem With Hormonal Birth Control

by Kerry Gretchen

Published on July 12, 2024

6.9K views

Diabetes is the 7^th leading cause of death in the United States according to the American Diabetes Association. Tens of millions of people have diabetes and are at increased risk for a whole host of other problems because of it. The estimated economic cost of diabetes is nearly $245 billion each year. BILLION! So shouldn’t we take a look at how to decrease these risks, lessen this economic burden, save lives?

I’ve done a lot of research on birth control pills, their side effects, and how those risks are communicated to women. My interest in the topic is both personal (I suffered a stroke from hormonal birth control at age 28) and professional. I’ve been reviewing the Nelson Pill hearings and what I’ve found is shocking. Beyond the obvious correlation between blood clots and hormonal birth control, even back in 1970 doctors and scientists knew that these medications affected, contributed to, and caused a myriad of health problems from weight gain to stroke. One of the most surprising to me, because I hadn’t come across it in any of my previous research, was the link between synthetic hormones and diabetes. Dr. Hugh J. Davis, the first doctor to testify at the Nelson Pill Hearings said the following (page 5930):

“A woman, for example, who has a history of diabetes or even a woman with a strong family history of diabetes is not an ideal candidate for using oral contraceptives… [they] produce changes in carbohydrate metabolism which tends to aggravate existing diabetes and can make it difficult to manage.”

Hormonal birth control elevates blood glucose levels, can increase blood pressure, increases triglycerides and cholesterol, and accelerates the hardening of the arteries, among other things. They knew this in 1970. But what about the research now? Well, if you’ve read any of my other articles it probably won’t surprise you that the current research is… wait for it… you guessed it… INCONCLUSIVE! Here’s a look at what I’ve found:

“Cardiovascular disease is a major concern, and for women with diabetes who have macrovascular or microvascular complications, nonhormonal methods are recommended. There is little evidence of best practice for the follow-up of women with diabetes prescribed hormonal contraception. It is generally agreed that blood pressure, weight, and body mass index measurements should be ascertained, and blood glucose levels and baseline lipid profiles assessed as relevant. Research on hormonal contraception has been carried out in healthy populations; more studies are needed in women with diabetes and women who have increased risks of cardiovascular disease.”

And:

“The four included randomised controlled trials in this systematic review provided insufficient evidence to assess whether progestogen-only and combined contraceptives differ from non-hormonal contraceptives in diabetes control, lipid metabolism and complications. Three of the four studies were of limited methodological quality, sponsored by pharmaceutical companies and described surrogate outcomes. Ideally, an adequately reported, high-quality randomised controlled trial analysing both intermediate outcomes (i.e. glucose and lipid metabolism) and true clinical endpoints (micro- and macrovascular disease) in users of combined, progestogen-only and non-hormonal contraceptives should be conducted.

Not enough evidence is available to prove that hormonal contraceptives do not influence glucose and fat metabolism in women with diabetes mellitus.”

For women with polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), this is particularly troubling. They are already at an increased risk for diabetes. “Researchers in Australia collected data from 6,000 women and found that those who had PCOS were three to five times more likely to develop type 2 diabetes than women who didn’t.” Yet the first treatment doctors usually prescribe for PCOS is birth control pills. It’s unclear whether the PCOS alone increases a woman’s risk or just that most women with PCOS are treated with hormones that make her more likely to develop diabetes.

It begs the question, why are we treating a woman for a condition that increases her risk for diabetes with a drug that increases her risk for diabetes?

Even if you don’t have PCOS, you are still at risk. A recent study showed that “women who used hormonal methods of birth control had higher odds for gestational diabetes than did women who used no contraception.” So using hormonal birth control may prevent you from getting pregnant but at the cost of making a future pregnancy more dangerous? It’s not just dangerous for pregnant women, however. Hormonal contraceptives seem to predispose women to diabetes across the lifespan. For example, another study found:

“The prevalence of diabetes was significantly higher in post-menopausal participants who had taken OCs (oral contraceptives) for more than 6 months than in those who had never taken OCs. The duration of OC use was also positively associated with the prevalence of diabetes. Furthermore, taking OCs for more than 6 months led to a significant increase in fasting insulin levels and HOMA-IR in nondiabetic participants. Past use of OCs for more than 6 months led to a significant increase in the prevalence of diabetes in post-menopausal women, and increased IR in nondiabetic participants. These results suggested that the prolonged use of OCs at reproductive age may be an important risk factor for developing diabetes in post-menopausal women.”

This is further proof that taking hormonal birth control affects women for much longer than the duration they take it. A correlation between synthetic hormones and diabetes was evident to doctors and researchers back in 1970 and we’re still trying to understand those effects today. Dr. Hugh Davis testified (pg 5928) about hormonal birth control:

“While you are accomplishing your contraceptive objective you are producing very, very widespread and generalized changes.”

I’m starting to feel like a broken record here, but at what point are these risks not acceptable? And why do we still not fully understand these risks? The goal of the Nelson Pill Hearings was to determine if these medications were safe and they are clearly not. Over and over, experts testified and said the pill should not be taken off the market but that it should be studied more and replaced by something better as soon as possible. As we can see, that hasn’t happened. Women are still having to make the choice between convenient contraception and their health and safety. The risks involved with hormonal contraceptives are still being downplayed, skewed, and hidden. If a serious and potentially life-threatening condition like diabetes is not too high a price to pay to avoid pregnancy, what is? How about loss of libido? Mental health? Weight gain? Blood clots? Stroke? Loss of life? Dr. Davis also said (pg 5925):

“In using these agents (hormonal contraceptives), we are in fact embarked on a massive endocrinologic experiment with millions of healthy women.”

I couldn’t agree more. And the experiment continues.

We Need Your Help

More people than ever are reading Hormones Matter, a testament to the need for independent voices in health and medicine. We are not funded and accept limited advertising. Unlike many health sites, we don’t force you to purchase a subscription. We believe health information should be open to all. If you read Hormones Matter, like it, please help support it. Contribute now.

Yes, I would like to support Hormones Matter.

Photo by Sven van der Pluijm on Unsplash.

This article was published originally on August 29, 2016.

Share Your Hysterectomy Experience

by WS

Published on June 13, 2024

10.2K views

The hysterectomy and oophorectomy industry continues to flourish. There are over 600,000 hysterectomies every year. The oophorectomy rate is about 70% of the hysterectomy rate, some performed at the time of hysterectomy and others as separate surgeries. About 90% of these surgeries are for benign conditions (elective). These are merely estimates based on samples of inpatient data from short-term, acute-care, nonfederal hospitals along with hysterectomy and oophorectomy outpatient percentage estimates. According to the aforementioned publication, the rate of outpatient (ambulatory) hysterectomies increased from 14% in 2000 to 70% in 2014. Outpatient oophorectomies increased from 57% to 84% over the same time period. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reports only inpatient hysterectomies which is why hysterectomy rates are typically understated by the media. A 70% understatement is a gross misrepresentation and outpatient hysterectomies may now exceed 70%.

Hysterectomy is seen as panacea for a multitude of women’s health issues. Unfortunately, it is not, and yet, this perception that hysterectomy is a cure-all survives, largely because of false information from gynecologists, gynecologic oncologists, other medical professionals, hospitals, surgical centers, the media, and women who have had the surgery(ies).

The prevalence of hysterectomy and oophorectomy leads the public to mistakenly believe that a woman’s sex organs are disposable. In many cases, gynecologists fail to provide their patients with the necessary factual information to make an informed decision about these surgeries, leaving women and their partners to learn about the side effects after the fact. Some of the more commonly reported side effects include: bladder and bowel dysfunction, skeletal and figure changes, sexual dysfunction, emotional emptiness, and impaired ovarian function. Although some may believe these side effects are rare and thus rarely discussed pre-surgery, comments on these hysterectomy articles indicate they must be more common than many realize.

What makes these side effects even more troubling, is the fact these procedures are rarely needed. Women are coaxed into the surgery under the false pretense of cancer or pre-cancer or told it is their only or best option. Finally, many women’s organ(s) are removed despite having specifically told their surgeons that organ(s) should not be removed. Here is just one of those stories.

In light of the problems with hysterectomy, the HERS Foundation is collecting stories of post-hysterectomy problems. We are supporting that effort. If you would like to share your story, consider participating in the “In My Own Voice” project. To learn more, click here.

If you would like to share your story here on Hormones Matter, please contact us here.

Thank you in advance for sharing your hysterectomy experience.

We Need Your Help

More people than ever are reading Hormones Matter, a testament to the need for independent voices in health and medicine. We are not funded and accept limited advertising. Unlike many health sites, we don’t force you to purchase a subscription. We believe health information should be open to all. If you read Hormones Matter, like it, please help support it. Contribute now.

Yes, I would like to support Hormones Matter.

Image created using Canva AI.

hormones

How the Body Creates Energy From Glucose

How the Body Switches From Glucose to Fatty Acids for Energy

How Glucose Gets Inside Cells

What Is Insulin Resistance?

Insulin Resistance Begets Insulin Resistance

Estradiol, Synthetic Estrogens, and Insulin Resistance

Estrogen Concentrations and Insulin Resistance

Non-bioidentical Estrogen and Insulin resistance

Estrogen Binds to Insulin Receptors Affecting Insulin Resistance

Progesterone, Progestins, and Insulin Resistance

Hormones and Body Composition

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