Does natural progesterone cream build bone?
One of progesterone cream’s strongest proponents, Dr. John Lee, claims that progesterone cream actually reverses osteoporosis. However, he has published only one study in a medical journal. Although he reports that the women who used progesterone cream had increased bone density, he doesn’t indicate whether they were also taking estrogen — which has been proven to increase bone density. In other words, it’s likely that the positive effect was due to estrogen, not progesterone cream. A few randomized studies have been conducted and none have found that progesterone cream increases bone density.7,8 The nature of natural progesterone creams The creams are formulated from a vehicle — a “base” of a fatty or oily substance — and the active agent — in this case, micronized natural progesterone. Micronized natural progesterone is extracted from diascorea, a variety of wild yam, and as such is considered a supplement rather than a drug and therefore does not require FDA approval. The creams
