Healthcare professionals often recommend treating these symptoms to alleviate their adverse effects, and one of the therapies often prescribed for conditions caused by hormone imbalance is Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT). Prior to 2002, HRT was primarily prescribed to treat vaginal dryness, hot flashes and urinary problems, as well as to prevent osteoporosis and to help prevent atherosclerosis and coronary artery disease.
HRT is controversial for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that the hormones used to provide the therapy have often been deliberately compounded to be different from the hormones actually produced by the human body.
When hormones were first developed for HRT in the first half of the twentieth century, they were developed primarily from equine hormones (that is, hormones produced by horses, which are very similar to human hormones). Later on, as medical technology became more sophisticated, the ability was developed to synthesize hormones. However, even though it was possible to synthesize hormones that were identical to those produced by humans, the companies that did the synthesizing deliberately altered the hormones to be different in chemical structure from human hormones - in fact, they were made unique so that the companies could patent the chemical formula (the law does not permit the patenting of naturally-occurring compounds, like water or human hormones).
On the other side, many women are willing to look for other options for alleviating the symptoms of menopause; some of those are indeed herbal remedies for menopause.
