Now, don t get me wrong. Traditional medical doctors are just as guilty when they write out prescriptions for synthetic estrogen and progesterone for their menopausal patients and tell them the drugs will keep them from getting heart disease and osteoporosis. I ve done it myself. I wish it were that easy. Medicines and, yes, even natural herbs carry risks as well as benefits.
None provides the perfect answer, especially when it comes to menopause.
Two natural products touted as possibly helpful for menopausal symptoms are dong quai and wild yam extract. First, let s look at wild yam. Just to get this straight, you didn t eat it for Thanksgiving last year. Wild yam comes primarily from Mexico and is unrelated to the kind we eat. In the 1940's, it was discovered that wild yam contains diosgenin, a chemical precursor to the progesterone found naturally in humans.