No: 4 in a series of articles - The Prostrate and Hormones
Prostate problems are perhaps the fastest growing health concern among men in Westernized countries, and the rate of prostate cancer is increasing steadily. It has been known for a long time that hormones play a key role in prostate cancer. The first treatment for prostate cancer was castration to eliminate the production of testosterone, which was thought to aggravate, if not cause, prostate cancer.
Dr. Charles Huggins held this position in the early 1940’s but, as we now know, this perhaps ignored the part played by the adrenal glands in producing testosterone. Moreover, estrogen is also produced in the testes. Much has changed since those days except for the fact that chemical castration (hormone ablation therapy) is still a treatment offered by conventional medicine under the continued belief that testosterone is the problem.
Today, alternative therapies look upon testosterone as a man’s friend bearing in mind that prostate cancer is virtually unheard of in younger men where the testosterone levels are high. There is mounting evidence that testosterone depletion and estradiol dominance are important factors in causing prostate cancer. Much documentation for this was compiled by John R. Lee, M.D. and published in his books (HORMONE BALANCE FOR MEN - www.johnleemd.com ).
He prescribes rebuilding and balancing hormone levels to those maintained by younger men where prostate cancer is of no consequence.To measure general hormone levels allopathic medicine relies on a blood sample, but that only shows the levels at that specific moment while it is known that hormone levels change throughout a 24 hour period. Serum testing does not discriminate between total “free” and protein-bound hormones and it is the “free” hormone that is bio-active. A better method of measurement is the saliva panel where samples are taken every four hours in a 24-hour period. Here the actual levels of available hormones can be tracked for a more accurate picture of hormone activity.
A leading laboratory that takes and measure the hormone levels the saliva samples is Sabre Sciences in Carlsbad, California (www. sabresciences.com). One of the principals is Dr. Michael Borkin. I interviewed for my “Alternative Treatments for Prostate Cancer” DVD. We explored the role of the endocrine system in a male and its importance in treating prostate cancer.Sabre Sciences provides a service to establish hormone levels and also compounds trans-dermal supplements from natural sources to bring the hormone levels back to the desired levels. According to Dr. Lee, “all disease comes from metabolic imbalance. When the underlying metabolic imbalance is corrected, the disease goes away. Cancer is no different – it is caused by an underlying metabolic imbalance that turns normal cells into cancer cells.”
Practitioners like Drs. Borkin and Lee understand that maintaining good levels of both progesterone and testosterone should be the goal of men for prevention and treatment of prostate cancer. Additional reading by Roger Mason on the relationship of testosterone and prostate cancer can be found at http://www.youngagainproducts.com/ Roger Mason is the subject of my next article in this series.
Photos and captions
Dr. Michael Borkin
Dr. Borkin in the Sabre Sciences “clean” room preparing trans-dermal “creams”.
Photography by Richard Greer