HRT’s Role In Preventing Addiction

Is there a connection between female hormones and addiction? A new study may have found a link. Female hormones are potent modulators of brain chemicals like serotonin and dopamine, the brain’s neurotransmitters. Hormone replacement therapy, used to improve the quality of life in female patients by preventing depression, anxiety and insomnia disorders, may also help prevent addiction that can result from those symptoms when they go unchecked.  

Female Hormone and Addiction Links

It turns out that hormonal and brain chemical imbalances can cause drug and alcohol cravings. One clinical study proved that many female patients develop addiction issues because of midlife changes in estrogen and progesterone production. These findings have historically gone undetected because most addiction treatment centers do not routinely examine the hormones involved in the pituitary-adrenal-ovarian axis. 

Other clinical studies have indicated that addicted patients utilize drugs and alcohol either to stimulate under-active brain regions or to relax over-active brain systems. The aberrant electrical activity in the addicted patient’s brain is typically caused by inherited or acquired biochemical and hormonal deficiencies. Normalizing the underlying biochemical and electrical imbalance can actually stop the drug and alcohol craving.  

Correcting hormonal deficiencies can eliminate various addictions that are prevalent in the middle age female population, but addiction is still a complex problem that can have many factors.  

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