Menopause Matters Forum
Menopause Discussion => All things menopause => Topic started by: Kathleen on November 26, 2024, 05:29:57 PM
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Hello ladies.
I was just watching an interview with Dr Michael Greger of NutritionFacts.org fame.
He was talking about the effects of the weight loss drugs such as Ozempic. It appears that after a year of using the drug the body sort of fights back and tries to undermine the constant satiety feeling that the drug has induced. Presumably because it isn't normal for the ILP1 receptors to be active all the time. I think, but I'm not sure, that this process is governed by hormones.
I wonder if a similar thing is happening to those of us struggling with HRT? Are our bodies almost trying to reject the oestrogen that is being introduced because it is preventing the body from reaching a balance. I also wonder if this balance should be provided by our natural testosterone as a replacement for our natural oestrogen?
I understand that we can convert testosterone to oestrogen so perhaps that is how post meno is supposed to be? Crazy thought but when we supplement with oestrogen are we actually taking the wrong hormone?
I am probably misunderstanding something fundamental so please feel free to correct me ladies.
Wishing you all well and take care.
K.
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Hi this is very interesting and all speculative but my personal view is no, exogenous sex steroids and weight loss drugs are two very different situations.
First of all I don't believe menopause is an intentional, benevolent act by our creator. I believe it is a design flaw, only revealed by modern standards of nutrition, hygiene, pharmacology and surgical treatments allowing large numbers of us to outlive our ovaries.
I remember getting a VCR in 1992, and being fascinated by the fact it was programmable up to 2013. Somebody had had to estimate its longevity, and they were overly optimistic (it was obsolete after about 5 years when everyone started watching DVDs). Menopause is merely the inverse of this.
Also, I have personally been on exogenous hormones from 29 to 45 (premenopausal) in the form of the combined pill. I plan to remain on this until 55, and whilst my ovaries will quietly fail in the background, neither I nor my body will know when this has occurred. If I choose my subsequent HRT wisely, I will still not notice anything as my body neither knows not cares where the hormones are coming from, only that they are present.
Contrast this with weight loss drugs - we definitely ARE designed to seek out food and pack on as much weight as possible as those ancestors who did survived when famine came. The naturally skinny biatches who could take or leave food, sorry but they were firewood, whilst my cave grandmothers lived off their cellulite until they could tuck in to another mammoth.
So with hormone therapy, we are simply extending the optimal state that nature never intended us to outlive, but with ozempic etc we are fighting against the very blueprint for our survival, the drive to eat and put on weight, which served us well right up until the last century.