#322 Menopause Hormone Therapy: Everything You Need to Know in 2026

So let's start first with some terms, because I find that there's a lot of confusion, there's a lot of different terms out there, and it, it makes it more complicated if we're using different terms for different things.

So starting off with the term hormone replacement therapy.

Traditionally, historically, that's been the main way we refer to use of estrogen and progesterone in postmenopause is called hormone replacement therapy, but the terminology there is shifting, and so you're more likely to hear it referred to as menopause hormone therapy, or MHT.

And so going forward in this video, instead of calling it HRT, I'm gonna be calling it MHT, menopause hormone therapy.

And sometimes you'll even hear about it specifically as estrogen therapy or progesterone therapy or testosterone therapy.

All of those are the individual hormones in menopause hormone therapy, okay? And then the next confusing term is understanding the different kinds of hormones.

And so a lot of times you might hear natural hormones.

You might hear...

Sometimes you might hear plant-based hormones or bioidentical hormones versus, uh, synthetic hormones or hormones that are Uh, synthetically produced, such as equine estrogen, otherwise known as Premarin.

And so, uh, what I want you to know is the predominant words, and I find if we use this terminology, it makes it a lot easier to understand, is to know that there's, there's what are considered bioidentical hormones.

What that means is when we say bioidentical, is that they look identical to what your human body makes, right? And that right away makes sense.

Of course, if we wanna introduce a hormone into our body, much better to introduce a hormone that looks the same as what our body's used to seeing at a biochemical level.

And so bioidentical hormones are now considered preferred, even in standard medicine, even from pharmaceutical companies.

It's the bioidentical hormones, and they...

There's some situations where they might have been derived from a plant.

Other times they've been produced from other methods, but it doesn't...

It's not so much referring to how they were produced, as it's referring to the fact that they look the same as what our human body, um, makes.

And so that's the terminology of the, what are now also referred to as the current formulations of menopause hormone therapy versus the old formulations.

The old formulations from 30-plus years ago are no longer being preferred.

We have current formulations that I'm gonna tell you about that are bioidentical.

And then the other possibility is synthetic hormones.

And synthetic means that they were produced in a lab, and they are...

They might be estrogen-like or progesterone-like, but they're slightly different biochemically than what our bodies make.

And when it's slightly different than what our bodies make, we refer to it as synthetic, okay? So if you hear me say synthetic, then I'm referring to those hormones that are not exactly like what our body makes.

And what you're gonna hear me describe is that those synthetic hormones, and I include in that category Premarin and also progestins like Provera, those are associated with increased risks.