Progesterone

No summary available for this substance.

Progesterone

Progesterone is a hormone that plays a significant role in the menstrual cycle and in maintaining the early stages of pregnancy. It is often used in hormone therapy for menopausal women to help alleviate symptoms. Progesterone is also available as a supplement and can be produced in the laboratory.

Category
Hormone Supplement
Molecular Formula
C21H30O2
Mechanism of Action
Progesterone prepares the endometrium for the potential of pregnancy after ovulation. If pregnancy occurs, progesterone levels in the body remain high, maintaining the uterus and preventing menstruation. Notably, in menopausal women, it can help to counteract the effects of estrogen.
Evidence Grade
A

Other Names

  • P4
  • Luteohormone

Primary Benefits

  • Helps regulate the menstrual cycle
  • Prepares the body for pregnancy
  • Alleviates menopausal symptoms

Recommended Dosage

Amount Dosage varies
Frequency Usually taken daily
Note Dosage depends on the individual's health, age, and response to therapy.

Side Effects

  • Mood swings
  • Headache
  • Bloating
  • Breast tenderness

Precautions

  • Not recommended for people with liver disease
  • Not recommended during certain types of hormone related cancer
  • Not recommended for people with blood clotting disorders or stroke

Interactions

  • May interact with certain medications such as anticoagulants and some other hormone therapies

Key References

  • Chabbert-Buffet, N., et al. (2007). Effects of progesterone on the endometrium: lessons from the progesterone receptor antagonists. Reproduction, 134(1), 2-12.
  • Stanczyk, F. Z. (2013). Pharmaceutical progesterone for systemic therapy. Climacteric, 16(S1), 18-24.
How to Optimize Female Hormone Health for Vitality & Longevity | Dr. Sara Gottfried
Optimizing Women's Health: Hormones, Nutrition, Exercise, and Genetics Insights 17:36 0
“in your 20s that's when you want to do some base casing with estrogen progesterone and testosterone”

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How to Optimize Female Hormone Health for Vitality & Longevity | Dr. Sara Gottfried
Optimizing Women's Health: Hormones, Nutrition, Exercise, and Genetics Insights 18:52 0
“this Tango between estrogen and progesterone is incredibly important you want to have the the right lead you want to have the right follow between the two hormones”

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How to Optimize Female Hormone Health for Vitality & Longevity | Dr. Sara Gottfried
Optimizing Women's Health: Hormones, Nutrition, Exercise, and Genetics Insights 1:35:56 0
“I went to the lab and I ran a hormone panel and my cortisol was three times what it should have been my insulin was in the 20s I was fasting my glucose was 105 my thyroid was mildly abnormal my progesterone was low”

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How to Optimize Female Hormone Health for Vitality & Longevity | Dr. Sara Gottfried
Optimizing Women's Health: Hormones, Nutrition, Exercise, and Genetics Insights 1:54:31 0
“birth control is basically tonic estrogen so constantly taking estrogen estrogen women are taking estrogen so that they don't get the estrogen priming of progesterone you're not getting any ovulation”

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How to Optimize Female Hormone Health for Vitality & Longevity | Dr. Sara Gottfried
Optimizing Women's Health: Hormones, Nutrition, Exercise, and Genetics Insights 2:00:43 0
“it's a progestin so it's not the normal uh progesterone that your body makes your ovaries make and your adrenals make it is a synthetic form of progesterone and it is the same progestin similar same class that was shown to be dangerous and provocative in the women's health initiative so I'm not a fan of progestins I do not recommend them for any woman unless the consequence of not taking them is surgery or some other um you know unless it it gives them some freedom in some way so I don't like progestins”

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How to Optimize Female Hormone Health for Vitality & Longevity | Dr. Sara Gottfried
Optimizing Women's Health: Hormones, Nutrition, Exercise, and Genetics Insights 2:09:20 0
“when a woman asks for a hormone panel and she's not trying to get pregnant she usually gets told that hormones vary too much it's a waste of money you don't need it or if you're feeling hormonal why don't you go on a birth control Bill unless she's trying to get pregnant if she's trying to get pregnant suddenly those same tests are very reliable and they get you know their testosterone their free testosterone their thyroid pain they get their estrogen and progesterone maybe they get their cortisol they get their amh.”

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How to Optimize Female Hormone Health for Vitality & Longevity | Dr. Sara Gottfried
Optimizing Women's Health: Hormones, Nutrition, Exercise, and Genetics Insights 2:14:01 0
“the study was done with synthetics it was done with conjugated equin estrogen known as Premarin and mroy progesterone acetate those were the so-called estrogen and progesterone those are uh synthetic hormones we think especially the progest is associated with the greater risk of breast cancer”

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How to Optimize Female Hormone Health for Vitality & Longevity | Dr. Sara Gottfried
Optimizing Women's Health: Hormones, Nutrition, Exercise, and Genetics Insights 2:20:26 0
“further the concept right now in conventional medicine is that hot flashes and night sweats are these nuisance symptoms that we will take care of temporarily maybe with a little bit of estrogen progesterone or birth control pill because it's given a lot or that they pass this idea you know suck it up suck it up doesn't matter that you're not sleeping anymore you know turn down the temperature in your room and that's not right because hot fleshes and night sweats are a biomarker of cardiometabolic disease they are a biomarker of increased bone loss they are a biomarker of changes in the brain so many of these symptoms that occur in perimenopause are not driven by the ovaries they are driven by the brain”

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Female-Specific Exercise & Nutrition for Health, Performance & Longevity | Dr. Stacy Sims
Optimizing Women's Wellness Through Nutrition, Exercise, and Hormone Health 1:04:48 0
“progesterone it's a good indication that you've ovulated because your heart rate variability tanks but it's not a good indication of what your body can do”

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Female-Specific Exercise & Nutrition for Health, Performance & Longevity | Dr. Stacy Sims
Optimizing Women's Wellness Through Nutrition, Exercise, and Hormone Health 1:10:57 0
“after ovulation estrogen dips, you get hungry, it comes up and people are like I have some Cravings which are driven by progesterone because your body needs more calories but at the same time with the elevation of estrogen you're not hungry.”

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Female-Specific Exercise & Nutrition for Health, Performance & Longevity | Dr. Stacy Sims
Optimizing Women's Wellness Through Nutrition, Exercise, and Hormone Health 1:26:14 0
“we want people to do is look at the ratio of their estrogen progesterone and keeping track of luteinizing hormone if they are at that point where they are going to have a really big training block”

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Dr. Peter Attia on Mastering Longevity – Insights on Cancer Prevention, Heart Disease, and Aging
Proactive Health Strategies: Preventing Chronic Conditions Through Lifestyle Choices 2:38:15 0
“obviously what happens in menopause is three hormones that are really important to a woman during her reproductive years go away um and they go away in very short order.”

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Dr. Peter Attia on Mastering Longevity – Insights on Cancer Prevention, Heart Disease, and Aging
Proactive Health Strategies: Preventing Chronic Conditions Through Lifestyle Choices 2:49:06 0
“nowadays women take bioidentical micronized oral progesterone or they use a progesterone cated IUD if they don't benefit symptomatically from progesterone”

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Dr. Peter Attia on Mastering Longevity – Insights on Cancer Prevention, Heart Disease, and Aging
Proactive Health Strategies: Preventing Chronic Conditions Through Lifestyle Choices 2:54:34 0
“progesterone you would do either oral micronized bioidentical or you would use a progesterone coated IUD”

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Dr. Peter Attia on Mastering Longevity – Insights on Cancer Prevention, Heart Disease, and Aging
Proactive Health Strategies: Preventing Chronic Conditions Through Lifestyle Choices 3:18:18 0
“everything is bespoke and I and I think that that's just really important for anybody listening to this right it's like you don't want to go to somebody who does paint by numbers you know paint Pine numbers is a bad approach everybody's on this everybody's on that no no no it's like you know some women do not absorb testosterone very well pardon me do not absorb estrogen very well from a cream some you know might end up requiring to take get orally some much prefer a cream some prefer a patch some can tolerate some only need this dose some need that dose some need a very small amount of oral progesterone you do need at least 100 milligrams to oppose the estrogen at the endometrial level so you know somewhere between 100 and 200 is probably necessary some can't tolerate it at all and you have to use the IUD”

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171- Longevity science: caloric restriction studies, aging biomarkers & possible longevity molecules
Exploring Genetics, Environment, Nutrition, Hormones, and Health for Longevity 1:53:00 0
“the hormone replacement work in human females which suggests that well maybe replacing those hormones isn't such a great idea”

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What Is A Compounding Pharmacy? The Secret to Beating Illness & Hormone Imbalances | Shaun Noorian
Understanding Hormone Imbalances and Medication Applications for Optimal Health 20:55 0
“natural bioidentical hormones now available by prescription that you can get at your regular Pharmacy like you know some of the patches for estrogen or the oral micronized progesterone that's a prescription”

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The Hidden Benefits of Fasting | Masterclass
Understanding the Impact of Fasting on Health and Nutrition Benefits 2:04:13 0
“the balancing of hormones that we're all kind of looking for like in men you see more testosterone, higher Androgen receptor density, more appropriate levels of cortisol, a balancing of estrogen progesterone in women, growth hormone tends to be more youthful”

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The Hidden Benefits of Fasting | Masterclass
Understanding the Impact of Fasting on Health and Nutrition Benefits 2:09:55 0
“hormonal changes can change the distribution of body fat on your body so if you see like women with very very high cortisol estrogen progesterone imbalances they'll start to notice more more belly fat than than they normally would men who is let's say testosterone is low estrogen levels may be too high they'll see more body fat level more body fat storage and maybe the upper body back of the arms maybe in the lower body.”

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Endometriosis Explained
Comprehensive Overview of Endometriosis: Impacts, Treatment, and Support 56:06 0
“So yes, you still can have HRT if you have endometriosis, but it may be recommended that you have a combined HRT.”

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Exercise & Nutrition Scientist: The Truth About Exercise On Your Period! Take These 4 Supplements!
Optimizing Women's Health and Performance Through Physiological Understanding 8:18 0
“we see when progesterone comes up after ovulation our core temperature comes up we don't have as much heat tolerance”

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Exercise & Nutrition Scientist: The Truth About Exercise On Your Period! Take These 4 Supplements!
Optimizing Women's Health and Performance Through Physiological Understanding 32:01 0
“if we're looking at injury and the way that estrogen makes more um laxative ligaments so that means that our ligaments become more relaxed when estrogen comes up which is why people assume that around ovulation is when people will have more ACL tears it's not because we also see that progesterone comes in and can have a different effect on the tendons but that isn't accounted for in a lot of of the protocols that are out there for training and prevention of overtraining”

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Exercise & Nutrition Scientist: The Truth About Exercise On Your Period! Take These 4 Supplements!
Optimizing Women's Health and Performance Through Physiological Understanding 1:12:15 0
“when progesterone comes up it's trying to take in everything as a building block for the uterine lining insulin resistance what does that mean so insulin is the hormone that that is a signal for your muscles to uptake glucose to store it okay so it sends a signal to grab the glucose out my blood store it which brings my glucose levels down”

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Exercise & Nutrition Scientist: The Truth About Exercise On Your Period! Take These 4 Supplements!
Optimizing Women's Health and Performance Through Physiological Understanding 1:16:23 0
“after ovulation like I said progesterone comes up it's only produced if we ovulate because progesterone is produced from the breakdown of the housing of the egg progesterone like I said earlier will hold everything in the blood it will tell the body we need more blood glucose and we need that glucose to come to the endometrial lining we also need more amino acids so we're going to break down lean mass or I'm going to make this person crave more protein oriented Foods so that I can have amino acids to come in”

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Exercise & Nutrition Scientist: The Truth About Exercise On Your Period! Take These 4 Supplements!
Optimizing Women's Health and Performance Through Physiological Understanding 1:51:17 0
“we're not looking to replace hormones we're looking at a therapy to attenuate change”

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Brain Expert: These Common Habits SHRINK Your Brain – Alzheimer’s, Fatigue & Lost Joy | Daniel Amen
How Everyday Habits Impact Brain Health and Mental Well-being 1:19:07 0
“I think once a year you should just have your thyroid, your insulin, um, cortisol, testosterone, estrogen, progesterone for women measured.”

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Stay Young Forever: The #1 Thing For Overall Health & Longevity Is This… | Peter Attia
The Key to Longevity: Essential Exercise Components for Aging Well 1:47:10 0
“the Women's Health Initiative actually showed that estrogen was protective Against Breast Cancer but estrogen combined with synthetic progesterone did slightly increase the risk of breast cancer.”

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Dr. Peter Attia: Improve Vitality, Emotional & Physical Health & Lifespan | Huberman Lab Podcast
Improving Healthspan Through Lifestyle Choices and Preventive Health Measures 36:01 0
“the second thing that makes cholesterol so important it is the precursor to some of the most important hormones in our body so our sex hormones testosterone estrogen progesterone in addition to glucocorticoids”

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How to Exercise & Eat for Optimal Health & Longevity | Dr. Gabrielle Lyon
Optimizing Health and Longevity Through Nutrition, Exercise, and Supplements 1:21:27 0
“in order to maintain skeletal muscle mass especially as hormonal status changes decrease in testosterone decrease in estrogen decrease in progesterone that the heaviness of the load has to increase”

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Dr. Peter Attia: Exercise, Nutrition, Hormones for Vitality & Longevity
Optimizing Health and Longevity Through Nutrition, Hormones, and Exercise 1:05:19 0
“Menopause is, I guess maybe I'll even take a step back. I don't know how much your audience is familiar with how estrogen progesterone work.”

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Dr. Peter Attia: Exercise, Nutrition, Hormones for Vitality & Longevity
Optimizing Health and Longevity Through Nutrition, Hormones, and Exercise 1:09:16 0
“So if you can stabilize their progesterone during the last half of their luteal phase, and sometimes we would just do it for the entire luteal phase, just put them on a low dose of progesterone, all PMS symptoms vanish.”

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Dr. Peter Attia: Exercise, Nutrition, Hormones for Vitality & Longevity
Optimizing Health and Longevity Through Nutrition, Hormones, and Exercise 1:11:42 0
“if you want to give estrogen to a woman who still has her uterus, you have to give her progesterone as well.”

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Dr. Peter Attia: Exercise, Nutrition, Hormones for Vitality & Longevity
Optimizing Health and Longevity Through Nutrition, Hormones, and Exercise 1:22:45 0
“So assuming, again, a woman still has her uterus, the estrogen solves most of the problems, but then you have to decide, can she tolerate the progesterone?”

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Dr. Peter Attia: Exercise, Nutrition, Hormones for Vitality & Longevity
Optimizing Health and Longevity Through Nutrition, Hormones, and Exercise 1:23:16 0
“We just use a progesterone coated IUD. So then you get the local progesterone in the uterus for protection, and the systemic estrogen.”

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