Autoimmune Disorders

Auto immune disorders are those disease states in which your own antibodies attack some gland or tissue in your body. Normally your antibodies protect you from harmful invaders, but in this case they go after normal tissue. The actual cause is generally never found. Autoimmune disorders, in general, are more common in women.

Why should this be? It is natural to suspect estrogen, the one hormone that is more plentiful in women than men over the course of a lifetime. After follicle depletion or menopause, some women make less progesterone than men of the same age. The onset of autoimmune disorders is often in middle age, when estrogen dominance becomes common.

Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, Sjogren’s disease, Graves’ disease (toxic gloiter), and lupus erythemstos are all not only more common in women, but appear to be related to estrogen supplementation or estrogen dominance. Recent studies have shown that women who use hormone replacement therapy containing estrogen are more likely to get lupus.

Many of my patients with autoimmune diseases who began using natural progesterone to relieve menopausal symptoms reported that their disease symptoms also gradually abated. This is a clinical question that haunts my mind: Is this an unrecognized symptom of estrogen toxicity, or the fact that progesterone itself may ‘tune down’ antibody-modulated disorder? Further research would be nice.

*Excerpt from What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Menopause by Dr. John R. Lee, MD