In 2006, the oldest of the baby boomers, those born between 1946 and 1964, began turning 60 years old. According to the US Census Bureau, there were an estimated 78.2 million baby boomers, as of July 1, 2005, and 50.8 percent of them were women. That means according to projections 7,918 people turned 60 each day in 2006, or about 330 every hour.

This is one of the reasons why there are so many women today who are so uncomfortable with menopause symptoms. If you are one of more than 40 million women experiencing discomfort from menstruation to menopause, then you need to know the facts.

Defined as the cessation of menstruation for 12 consecutive months, menopause marks the end of a woman’s reproductive years, and usually occurs naturally around age 51 or 52 when the ovaries stop producing estrogen. Immediate menopause can happen at any age when the ovaries are removed surgically. In either case, menopause affects women’s health and quality of life for the remainder of her lifetime.

In 2003, the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) scared the daylights out of women and doctors alike. What many women do not know is that the results comprehensively discussed cardiovascular disease, cancer and osteoporosis in women over 65 years-old on PremPro and Premarin only.

The WHI was established to address the most common causes of death, disability, and impaired quality of life in postmenopausal women. Organized as an attempt to correct the inequities in women's health research and provide practical information to women and their doctors, the WHI focused on synthetic hormone replacement therapy, dietary patterns plus calcium and Vitamin D supplements and their effects on the prevention of heart disease, cancer, and osteoporosis. The reason being the incident of these three diseases increases after a woman reaches menopause.

In November of 2003, there were approximately nine million American women who were still taking some form of Premarin as in PremPro. Premarin® stands for Pregnant Mares' Urine (PREgnant MARes' urINe); PMU for short. Then the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) results came out, and there was a reduction of 25 percent of the approximately 12 million women taking PMU based medications in 1999.

About a third of the approximately fifty-five million post menopausal women in the United States are on synthetic estrogen replacement therapy (ERT), or hormone replacement therapy (HRT). Of them, about 49 percent currently use “PMU” based products, down from a high of 79 percent in 1999.

 For those women who are afraid, and still do not take any Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT), the idea of natural bio-identical hormones became more intriguing. But with so many products on the market, even that has become confusing. And now, the government is trying to regulate all of the bio-identical hormone replacement therapy (BHRT) remedies that are being sold.

Women no longer need to be confused about hormone replacement therapy. People have become accustomed to talking about bio-identical hormone replacement therapy (BHRT) in menopause medicine. But this terminology isn’t truly accurate because hormones are not really bio-identical. Natural hormones are not bio-mimedic unless the body can recognize them as hormones, and they are not considered restoration unless what has been lost is truly restored. They can be mimicked, but they are not identical. Furthermore, they cannot be replaced, rather they can be restored.

Exactly how do biomimetic hormones differ from bio-identical hormones? Biomimetic hormones derived from natural sources, and mimic in the body the natural undulating rhythms of the hormone blood levels in a normal menstrual cycle. Undulating means to cause to move in a smooth wavelike motion.

Bio-identical hormone products are usually formulated from plant sources to match the chemical structure of hormones produced naturally by the human body. The premise is that, technically, the body can’t distinguish bio-identical hormones from the ones the female ovaries produce; however, different forms of human-produced hormones are recognized differently by cells. So it makes sense that bio-identical hormone effects might also be different.

A great part of recognition at the receptor cite depends on presentation, i.e…serum levels and timing, as well as molecular structure. For bio-identical hormone compounds to be authentically the same, biologically, as human hormones, they must be presented biomimetically.

Biomimetic hormone restoration therapy is accurate, it’s biomimetic and mimics the up and down rhythms of hormone blood levels in a normal menstrual cycle.  That’s Biomimetic – not bio-identical.

What is the rhythm? The body's rhythms are governed by a master clock that works much like a conductor. It strikes up one section of the body's orchestra as another quiets down, taking its main cue from light signals in order to stay in sync with the 24-hour day. Our body's hormones surge and ebb to this maestro's wand.

The circadian clock in our cells measures one 24 hour spin of the planet. For 28 days the moon tracks the repeating of that cycle – and so does your body. One product known as the Wiley Protocol uses this natural rhythm of nature to establish the proper doses of estradiol and progesterone that mimic the natural hormones produced by your body. The topical creams and their amounts vary throughout the 28 day cycle to restore the hormone levels of youth.

The latest treatment for women in menopause is multi-phasic rhythmic dosing of bio-mimetic hormone replacement therapy (BHRT) using natural hormones in a bio-mimetic way. More than two million women in the U.S. use customized hormones for menopause symptoms.

As for the future, there will be 57.8 million baby boomers living in 2030, according to projections; 54.9 percent would be female. That year, boomers would be between ages 66 and 84.  Thanks to the relief of the rhythm of Biomimetic Hormone Replacement Therapy (BHRT), hopefully they will all live a little more comfortably.