Quote from: perlita85 on January 17, 2011, 10:08:11 AM
There a peer-review scientific studies that show that most of the herbs do not have enough estrogen-like esteroids to substantiate any claim. None of the herb suppliers have roduced a double blind experiemnt showing that their products grows anything. Just look at the EZ fiasco; and yes it is very dficlt even fr Goverment agencies to go ater the crook.
I am in an ancillary medical field (but not a physician), have done research with human subjects (so know how to read a study and understand the statistics and all that) and would love to know what peer-reviewed studies you are referring to, as I have not been able to find any. Likewise, as I explained, the only folks with enough monetary resources to do quality, double-blind studies are the universities or big pharma companies. Neither has any incentive to incur that considerable expense, since you can't patent a herb. So, you are right that none of the companies marketing herbs has done a study like that, but then neither has the medical establishment. A lack of evidence, either pro or con, is not the same as proof that it doesn't work.
I find it interesting that studies of pueraria mirifica (PM) done in Thailand by the medical establishment there, that DO support the claim of increased breast size in cis-gendered females are conveniently omitted from your blanket assertion that "There is no medical evidence that they work on anybody, period." In other studies, PM has been shown to have other beneficial effects (such as cancer inhibition) that might be useful to MTF trans-gendered folk, even if they have gone the HRT route.
I am not familiar with the "EZ fiasco"--please explain.
Quote from: perlita85 on January 17, 2011, 10:08:11 AM
More importnat is the fact that when you take an unregulated product, you do not what is on it, and it may cause great harm.
There are individuals with significant diabilites due to contaminats in herb formualtion. I have seen medical docuemnted cases of herbs contamianted with heavey metals(mercury and cadmium) that led to illness and even death.
I agree there are risks, but the risks are not just from taking herbs. Just look at the hundreds, perhaps thousands of recalls on commercially produced drugs and the injury and deaths caused by the same, and that's not including misprescribed meds. You can't pin that one just on herb producers. It's rampant throughout the drug industry in general. In aggregate, there are far fewer injuries and/or deaths from herbs than from poorly manufactured drugs and/or wrongly prescribed drugs, not to mention iatrogenic disease. Putting your life and health and well being in the hands of doctors and hospitals is extremely risky if you look at the statistics. That being said, I do not want anyone to think that I think doctors are not to be trusted or are not needed, it's just that most have no experience or knowledge of the effects of herbs and just parrot the standard line of big pharma that they don't work.
I am speaking from personal experience with respect to PM, and taking it for some 9 or 10 months HAS definitely affected my physical body as well as mental outlook. I now have mild to moderate gynecomastia; I didn't before taking PM. Might I have developed it anyway since 60% of men have it at some point in their lives and I did not have it as a teen? We'll never know now, but it is possible. In all honesty, it is the unforeseen psychological changes that I appreciate the most: drastically reduced sex drive and feeling like I "need" to have sex or masturbate daily, much calmer, get angry less easily and less frequently, significantly reduced interest in porn (related to the "need" to masturbate for me), hardly ever cross dress now (aside from my everyday androgynous clothes that were purchased on the women's side of the aisle), and just generally feel much less dislike for my "male bits" as others have called them. In general, I would say my sense of gender dysphoria is so far reduced as to be almost gone; certainly it is WAY more manageable for me now while taking PM.
Shelly has been on PM for some time--why isn't she seeing the same kind of results? There is a wide range of what can be considered normal for any measurable human parameter, and her genetic predisposition may mean she lies on the not-so-sensitive-to-estrogen/phytoestrogen side of the normal distribution for that attribute. Or, she may be using a different brand (apparently whether it is cultivated or wild, and how it is harvested and preserved affect potency), or a different dosage, or she wasn't as willing to experiment on herself and take higher dosages as I have done in the past, or all of the above. Everyone is different. Every trans-female responds to HRT differently. As they say, your mileage may vary, but just because she saw less effect than desired, doesn't mean it doesn't work.
I do not intend to transition MTF. It just doesn't feel like the right choice for me at this point in my life; I don't have the pervasive feeling of being a woman trapped in a male body. I feel more like a woman and man in this body, which is becoming a little less male, but not fully a female. However, I don't mean to say that herbs could replace HRT for those who want to, or are fully transitioning, or have had GRS. But, they might be helpful in the interim until one has the necessary resources to undertake those options.
Now, I am playing the devil's advocate to some extent here, but my main intent is to say: that yes, some herbs DO have a feminizing effect (your mileage will vary), that they generally have much less dire side effects (at least as far as we know to date; and certainly there is risk involved) than standard HRT, and if reducing ones' feelings of gender dysphoria is a good thing, then certain herbs warrant further consideration.
Anyway that's long enough. Thanks for listening if you read this far.
Chrissy
