Hormone and Lifestyle Practices …to boost immune resistance to COVID and other viral infections
The best way to prevent COVID is to prevent people from getting the infection. The accumulated data over the past year and a half shows that wearing appropriate masks can reduce infections by at least 66%, vaccines can reduce incidence by 80-94%, and avoiding indoor crowds can have a significantly positive effect. Besides those, we […]
Laboratory Testing Helps Ensure Your Best Hormonal Outcome
I hope you are enjoying summer while keeping yourself healthy and well these days. Many of the supplements, hormones, and lifestyle practices you are doing help facilitate your body’s wellness. When we first started working together, we needed labs to get a baseline of how your body was performing and where it needed support. So […]
Your Compounded Bio-Identical Hormones…At Risk!
Dear Patient and Friends, We hope that you are beginning a lovely holiday season despite all the limits of social interactions that we are currently facing. It is undoubtedly a time to get creative! Ensuring that our current choices are the best for having everyone at the table for future holidays is something to contemplate […]
Yes! Estrogen Matters
A new and exceptionally well-researched book has come out recently that I want to share with you. It presents the research data on Estrogen and demonstrates the effects it has on the health of every woman. In the spirit of giving this season, please share this article with all the women you know, especially those who have […]
Effects of Birth Control Pills on the Hormonal Systems
This month I am writing on a topic that I often get questions about: what are the effects of birth control pills (made of synthetic hormones) on my body? Recently, I came across an excellent scientific article on this topic full of references for all the data stated here. I am grateful to those authors […]
Adrenal Health
Did you know that the stress you feel in your life can have a direct influence on your sex hormones? Often I meet people who feel that they should be able only to treat sex hormones and proceed with getting back to balance in their lives. This type of treatment doesn’t account for the many […]
Testosterone
This hormone is, of course, the primary sex hormone for the male body. But it plays important roles for women also in maintaining focused attention, muscle mass and strength and energy, along with libido. These issues I have discussed in previous issues of this newsletter that you can locate on my website janekennedynp.com. But in […]
Re-Building Hormone Balance~ Estrogens
As we start a new year, I want to begin sharing with you the foundations we need to consider when re-building hormonal balance in the body. We’ll start with….. Estrogens~ Estrogen in higher amounts is what makes women feminine. It is what changes girls into women by affecting our sex organs and creating full […]
Hormones – Our Friends!
Recently as I was talking with a new patient at her first visit, we started discussing the pros and cons of the use of bio- identical hormones for her. She proceeded to share with me that despite all the bad press hormones get these days, she couldn’t see why something that was needed to balance […]
Hormones Affect Every Body System
Hope this finds you enjoying late spring in Sonoma County or wherever you are. Such a wonderful time of year to enjoy hiking and the natural beauty of the out-of-doors. And, I find myself after these ventures, feeling refreshed and renewed in life, better able to enjoy it and relieved of whatever stress I might have […]
The Positive Effects of Estrogen Replacement
There are times when patients ask, sometimes for themselves and sometimes for well-meaning family or friends, whether it is really safe to take estrogen? Or even more troubling to me, a patient may say something that gives away the fact that she is worried that taking estrogen may cause her some form of harm. I […]
Building and Maintaining a Healthy Body at Mid-Life
One thing that all of us want is to be in good health with plenty of vitality…forever! At mid-life, when hormonal changes usually emerge, we have this wonderful opportunity to re-evaluate how we are doing and to make changes to course-correct and keep that vitality with the lowest chance of disease. You may remember hearing […]
Testosterone … The Benefits for Women as Well as Men
Recently in this newsletter, I discussed estrogen and progesterone and their multiple roles in our body. Testosterone is the third of the sex hormones. It is the most prevalent in men, but also plays an important role for women. In both sexes, it serves to maintain good quality of life, slow down the […]
The Importance of Progesterone
I must say that it feels somewhat crazy to be writing 2015 on my documents. How is that possible? And how are you doing in this New Year? We can come up with many great intentions, but the important ones are those that stick – the intentions that we make into habits and life style […]
Happy Thanksgiving! Part 1: Back to Basics – Estrogens
What a lovely fall we have had here in Wine Country! Haven’t you enjoyed these sunny, temperate days with the fall foliage that brightens our countryside? Glorious to me! So, appropriate that we are moving into the season of Thanksgiving. Thank you for making your health a priority and letting us be involved in that […]
Changing Magical Thinking into Grounded Steps Forward
Oh, if only life were such that we could just wish a thing to be and without any effort on our part, it was so! Have you ever thought that? I have and it’s nice to play with the idea but with most all things in life that we desire to show up, we have […]
Hormones – Our Friends
During a discussion of the pros and cons of the use of bio-identical hormones in an initial visit with a new patient, she proceeded to share with me that despite all the bad press hormones have had over time she couldn’t see why something that was needed to balance our body’s health in the first […]
Hormone Imbalances in Younger Women
Sometimes we can get focused on menopause (and andropause) and forget that younger women also face health issues that can be traced back to hormonal imbalances. Recently, I have been seeing an increasing number of women in their 20’s and 30’s who have read that there are options to improve their health and quality of […]
Challenges of Male Strength and Independence
by Jon Sterngold MD (Men’s Hormonal and Preventative Health) It’s in our nature as guys to get in trouble when it comes to our health. We’re hardwired to think that we’re OK – that we’re strong enough, healthy enough, and independent enough to keep going and that we don’t need to look for problems under […]
Do I Take Bio-Identical Hormones for the Rest of My Life?
by Jane Kennedy, NP, PC, (Integrative Medicine Hormone Specialist) It is interesting that this question has come up lately for several patients, and I thought we could look at it together since you may have thought about it too. First, it’s good to think back to the reasons why we consider using them in […]
The Rise of Autoimmune Diseases: A Modern Epidemic?
Many people I see in my practice are surprised to learn that their symptoms may be due to a malfunction of their immune system. These kinds of conditions include digestive and bowel disorders, migraines, obesity, chronic fatigue, skin disorders, arthritis, as well as those that are generally labeled as autoimmune diseases such as diabetes, rheumatoid […]
Defeat Legislation Allowing FDA Restrictions on Bio-Identicals
NEWS FLASH Senate Advances To Pass Bill Giving FDA Authority That May Lead to a Ban On Bio-identical Hormones and Other Compounded Medications What is at stake? Your bio-identical hormone prescriptions for estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone may no longer be available if this law passes. Why do we need compounded medications? Pharmaceutical companies […]
The Importance of Hormone Test Follow-up
Happy spring to all of you! Hopefully you have enjoyed, as I have, the pear blossoms and then the apple blossoms that are all over the county. It’s a time of year when we see the potential of new life and renewal all around us. It reminds me of the spring lambs that had so […]
A Disservice to Women and Men
The symptoms of peri-menopause are very real for most women all over the world. Insomnia, mood swings, depression, fatigue, brain fog, loss of a sense of self, loss of libido – all of these and more can wreak havoc in the lives of today’s women. We are talking about women who are doing their best […]
Compounding Pharmacies
We all have recently heard reports in the news about contaminated injections that were compounded by the New England Compounding Center (“NECC”) in Massachusetts. This has been a tragic series of events that have resulted in several deaths, and that clearly must be investigated to prevent further harm and to guide corrective actions. At the […]
Am I in Peri-Menopause? A Guide to the Beginning of “The Change”
Many women ask me whether they are in peri-menopause, and the answer often surprises them. By identifying signs and symptoms and reviewing appropriate lab tests, I frequently find they have been in peri-menopause for quite some time – even years! Those are years when something could have been done to alleviate the growing imbalance that […]
Hormones and Our Quality of Life
Nearly every day I see people who are not living at the level of health and vitality that they want for themselves at mid-life and who are looking for shifts and changes that they can make to improve their over-all well-being.The changes that we face in our body’s physiology at mid-life can have profound effects […]
Women’s Libido
Ahh! Many men through the ages have felt mystified about this topic. It is a central part of who we are as women and holds much power, pleasure, intimacy, and creativity for us. Yet, as we are moving into mid-life (starting with our first born child!), it often disappears – and we don’t always know […]