What is natural progesterone?
• Natural progesterone comes from plant sterols. The most common source today is the Wild Mexican yam.. It is processed to match the chemical composition of our bodys own progesterone, in other words bio-identical. The natural progesterone is micronized and therefore capable of passing through the skin into the blood stream. Synthetic progesterone is called progestin and is manufactured by pharmaceutical companies. Products that contain Wild Yam extract alone without micronized progesterone are not natural progesterone.
Progesterone is a steroid hormone. It is produced by the ovaries in women and by the testes and adrenals in men (though in lower amounts). Progesterone is not a sex characteristic determining hormone (as is estrogen for female development and testosterone for male development). Progesterone is crucial to our biological balance, well-being and overall good health, as it serves to balance the effects of estrogen on the human body – among other things. Progesterone is NOT found to exist anywhere outside the human body. It is in fact synthesized through some elegant chemistry from herbal extracts – such as those from wild yams, or soy. It is called “natural” to signify that it is the identical molecule to that produced by the human body itself, and hence treated by the human anatomy as a part of its own – and not as a foreign substance. Progesterone is copiously produced during pregnancy and is extremely important to fetus development. In fact the name is derived from – Pro – gestation – h
