Assessing Your Status in Hormone Harmony for breast cancer survivors

Assessing Your Status in Hormone Harmony for breast cancer survivors

Dr. Jonathan Wright, medical practitioner since 1973 and author or coauthor of
twelve health books, including Stay Young and Sexy with Bio-Identical Hormone
Replacement (Wright and Lenard 2010), was the first to introduce an integrated,
balanced pattern of bioidentical hormones for women, in the early 1980s. He has been
prescribing, researching, and writing about them ever since. In fact, much of what we
know about the various forms of estrogen and their actions in the body is due to his
exhaustive investigation on the issue. Here’s what he has to say about assessing
estrogen-related cancer risk.

First, Dr. Wright recommends a look at the “EQ” or estrogen quotient, a ratio first
described by Dr. Henry Lemon of the University of Nebraska medical school. The EQ
is the relationship of estriol to estradiol and estrone. The higher your EQ,
mathematically derived as E3/(E1+E2), the better. Dr. Lemon, the originator of the
EQ test, and colleagues (1966) tested estriol along with estrone and estradiol by
having women collect their urine for twenty-four hours and then measuring the
hormone levels in the specimens.

With the authorization of a doctor, nutritionist, or other health professional, the
testing kits can be mailed to you at home, where you collect your specimen and send
it back to the lab. Remember, it’s not the absolute amount of estriol that appears to be
the most important number, but the relative amount of estriol compared with the sum
of estradiol and estrone. According to Dr. Wright (2005), “In today’s environment,
with the amount of estrogen-mimicking carcinogens increasing dramatically, it’s more
important than ever to keep your level of estriol as high as possible. So I don’t see any
reason why we shouldn’t…shoot for an EQ of 1.0 or above.” Interestingly, Dr. Wright
also discovered that iodine raises the EQ for nearly all women.

The second test Dr. Wright recommends is commonly called the "2:16," referring to
the relationship of the estrogen metabolites we discussed earlier (2-hydroxyestrone and
16α-hydroxyestrone). Testing the 2:16 ratio can be done separately or along with the
EQ. You definitely want more “good” (2-hydroxyestrone) estrogen than “bad” (16α-
hydroxyestrone) estrogen—substantially more if possible; any ratio below 1.0 is
unfavorable. Although there’s no consensus concerning the ideal ratio, Dr. Wright
recommends 2.0 or greater, if possible. This lab test will also report on your level of 4-
hydroxyestrone, which also appears to have carcinogenic tendencies, as well as your
level of another metabolite known as 2-methoxyestradiol, an extremely potent, natural
anticarcinogenic form of estrogen made by all women’s bodies.