That explains Katie's deep voice when mimicking a Potential GOP Ad: 'John Kerry Insults the Troops' courtesy of MRC.org
Posted on 11/01/2006 4:42:24 PM PST by MadIvan
Fifty-two-year old Glennis runs her house with brisk efficiency, but there was a time when her days were spent in a mind-numbing fog.
"I found myself very irritable, very tearful, everything would make me cry," Glennis explains.
Yes, it was menopause, CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric reports.
"I was deteriorating into this old, nasty lady," she says, laughing. "I'd feel like I was outside my body looking at myself and my behavior and saying, 'Eww, do you have to be that way?'"
Glennis started taking synthetic hormones, but stopped when the study four years ago warned of the risks. Some experts believe the study was misinterpreted and that low levels of hormones taken over a short period of time are safe.
But many skeptical women turned to something called bioidenticals. These products, derived from soy and yam extracts, are structurally identical to those hormones found in a woman's body, but they are not approved by the FDA.
Dr. Erika Schwartz, author of four books about menopause, is an advocate for bioidenticals, prescribing them to others and herself.
"I have seen people get their sex drive back. I've seen women get rid of their hot flashes, their night sweats, re-capturing their ability to sleep," Dr. Schwartz says.
But critics say there's virtually no difference between bioidenticals and their synthetic counterparts. And now, doctors are concerned that a new bestseller by former actress Suzanne Somers is creating more hype and more confusion.
"These people are claiming that these are natural, that they don't increase the risk of breast cancer, That's absolute nonsense," says Dr. Wulf Utian, executive director of the North American Menopause Society. "They carry exactly the same risks and exactly the same potential benefits as the commercial products."
Critics also say the compounding pharmacies mixing the bioidenticals aren't regulated enough.
"If they're getting something that's mixed in the backroom of a pharmacy, then they're not certain what they're getting," Dr. Utian says.
But the issue, says Dr. Schwartz, isn't about safety. It's about dollars and cents. Since bioidenticals are found in nature and can't be patented, Schwartz says that drug companies have no financial incentive to study them.
"I have no doubt that it's about profit," Dr. Schwartz says, adding that she wants a long-term study on these plant-derived hormones. For now, these women say the relief they're getting from bioidenticals today is worth whatever they may face in the future.
"I'm more worried about the risks if I don't take this," Glennis says.
"It's really just about maybe the second half of your life and being able to get through that feeling as good as you possibly can," says Stacy Pear, another patient.
Regards, Ivan
Ping!
What are you going do if you were Katie her ratings are so much in crappers here in the US you got do something LOL!
Beside her show getting kill by old reruns of Twilight Zone I am serious LOL!
Presumably she'll pocket her gains and eventually host a short-lived talk show airing after 9 AM.
Regards, Ivan
I've NEVER watched the CBS Couric "show"....BUT, I'll go out on a limb and say......Bio-identical hormones saved my life.....literally. Screw the regular medical profession IF they won't get with the program.
P.S......and...any doctor who is still prescribing premarin to women should have his license revoked.....it's pregnant horse urine.....
She covered this on the evening news??? Good grief, why didn't she just join The View. I don't watch those screaming witches either.
Regards, Ivan
I never watch Couric either - who needs that kind of a headache? - but I'll join in the underlying topic: soy works for me.
LOL!
Soy did NOT work for me.....I must have a genetic predisposition to all my hormones shutting down at once....and I've eaten healthy and been very active most of my life.....sooooo....after being told I had Rheum. Arthr. and would need $10,000/yr drugs......I went searching.....I found Bio-identical hormones and a little thyroid pill......I'm more like I was in my early 30's now....and now I have to go prepare dinner, and for a meeting....
That so true Ivan you could tell I did watch Katie for a week on CBS evening news when she first came on the network you could tell she reading cue cards because I have HD TV I could see EVERYTHING LOL! Katie look very bad on HD TV she has botox I THINK SO
That explains Katie's deep voice when mimicking a Potential GOP Ad: 'John Kerry Insults the Troops' courtesy of MRC.org
She just closed the programme by saying, "I'll be back tomorrow, I hope you will too".
I said in reply, "Not bloody likely."
Regards, Ivan
I bet at least 80 percent of women out there go through menopause the way I did--they hardly notice it at all. Yet women are taught to anticipate it with dread by Katie Couric and other liberal media handwringers.
sw
Actually, this is the sort of surface-level coverage that fits into nightly news, but it's pretty good...
As much as I hate her, score one for Katie for slapping down new-age, snake-oil-selling attacks on the legitimate practices of medicine. "Natural" and "herbal" remedies are to medicine what crude oil is to fuel.
Good for you on the bio-identicals, the whole pharmacy thing is completely rigged. My doctor was willing to try things like fish oil to lower my triglycerides before going to expensive drugs, and I'm glad she did. I just picked up 200 fish oil capsules for about eight bucks, that's a six month supply, versus the $240 I would have paid for co-payments in that time for name brand drugs.
Good grief, why didn't she just join The View. I don't watch those screaming witches either.<<<<<<<<<<<<<
I was trapped in a Dr. office waiting room this a.m. when The View was on, it was ghastley to hear the "girls" screeching and bellowing about poor Kerry being nailed for his "mistake". People were shaking their heads and moving to another waiting area to avoid having to listen to the shrill sounds emitting from the TV.
I would never have heard one moment of those out of control embarrassments to all women had not a radio talk show played some of that idiocy.
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