How to Use Progesterone
Before considering using progesterone, it is important to understand that it is not a magic bullet and that the greatest benefits will be gained by implementing a bioenergetic diet approach that allows you to effectively burn glucose as your primary fuel without backing up electrons in your mitochondria. It’s important. This reduces energy production. My new book, “A Guide to Cellular Health: Unlocking the Science of Longevity and Joy,” is coming soon and covers this process in great detail.
Once you’ve adjusted your diet, an effective strategy that can help prevent estrogen excess is to take transmucosal progesterone (i.e., applied to the gums rather than orally or transdermally), a natural estrogen antagonist. Progesterone is one of four hormones that many adults believe they can benefit from. (The other three are thyroid hormones T3, DHEA, and pregnenolone.)
I do not recommend transdermal progesterone. This is because the skin expresses high levels of the enzyme 5-alpha reductase. This causes a significant portion of the progesterone you are taking to be converted irreversibly, primarily to allopregnanolone, and cannot be converted back to progesterone.
Ideal Way to Administer Progesterone
When progesterone is used transmucosally on the gums, as I have advised, the FDA believes it converts it into a drug and prohibits any company from advising this on its label. This is why companies like Health Natura promote their progesterone products as “topical.”
However, understand that it is perfectly legal for doctors to recommend off-label indications for medications to their patients. In this case, progesterone is a natural hormone, not a drug, so it is very safe even when used in high doses. This is different from the synthetic progesterone used by pharmaceutical companies but often and incorrectly referred to as progestin.
Dr. Ray Peat conducted groundbreaking research in the field of progesterone and was probably the world’s leading expert on progesterone. He wrote his Ph.D. began studying estrogen in 1982, and has spent most of his professional career documenting the need to counteract the risks of excess estrogen with a low-LA diet and transmucosal progesterone supplementation.
He found that most solvents did not dissolve progesterone well and that vitamin E was the best solvent to optimally deliver progesterone to the tissues. Vitamin E also protects you from damage caused by LA. You need to be very careful about which vitamin E you use, as most commercially available supplements are worse than useless and can do more harm than good.
It is important to avoid the use of synthetic vitamin E (alpha-tocopherol acetate – acetate indicates that it is synthetic). Natural vitamin E is denoted as “d alpha tocopherol”. This is the pure D isomer that the body can use.
There are other vitamin E isomers as well, and the D isomer to be effective requires the full spectrum of tocopherols and tocotrienols, especially the beta, gamma, and delta types. You can take a look at the Vitamin E label in our store as an example of ideal Vitamin E. You can use brands with similar labels.
You can purchase pharmaceutical grade bioidentical progesterone from many online stores, such as Amazon, for about $40 for 10 grams of progesterone powder, bioidentical micronized powder. That’s almost a year’s supply, depending on the dosage you choose.
However, you will need 1/64 teaspoon (25 mg) and 1/32 teaspoon (50 mg), so you will need to buy a small stainless steel measuring spoon. A normal dosage is usually 25-50 mg, taken 30 minutes before bed because it has anti-cortisol properties and increases GABA levels for better sleep.
Unfortunately, this supplier often sells out of the product, so in that case you can use Simply Progesterone from Health Natura. Pre-mixed with vitamin E and MCT oil. Although Health Natura states that its product is for “topical use only,” it is recommended to be rubbed into the gums and applied through mucous membranes.
For menstruating women, progesterone should be taken during the luteal phase, or last half of the cycle, which may be decided to begin 10 days after the first day of menstruation and to stop progesterone once menstruation begins.
If you are a man or a woman who is not menstruating, you can take progesterone daily for 4 to 6 months and then take a week off. The best time to take progesterone is 30 minutes before bed. This is because progesterone has anti-cortisol properties and can help you sleep better by increasing GABA levels.
This is what I have personally been doing for over a year with very good results. I am a doctor so I have no problem doing this. Transmucosal progesterone therapy requires a doctor’s prescription, so if you are not a doctor, you should consult your doctor before using this treatment.
