July 11, 2002 -- Rather than face the now-proven risks of hormone replacement therapy (HRT), an estimated six million women may now be searching for other options to help relieve menopausal symptoms. One option that is likely to become more familiar to women and their practitioners is the Peruvian herb maca. Maca is a cruciferous root vegetable that when freshly harvested resembles a small turnip. Maca has been used as both a food and medicine for thousands of years by native people from the Andes Mountains.

The search for safer alternatives to HRT intensified this week after reports were issued by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), indicating that the use of combination estrogen/progestin drugs in healthy menopausal women increases the risk of invasive breast cancer, heart disease, stroke, and blood clots, outweighing the drugs’ possible health benefits. NIH stopped a large-scale clinical trial and recommended the 16,000 participants stop taking the estrogen/progestin drugs immediately.

Research has shown that maca contains no plant hormones, unlike soy/genistein and black cohosh. Instead, its action relies on plant sterols, which act as chemical triggers to help the body itself produce a higher level of hormones appropriate to the age and gender of the person taking it. Clinical case studies have shown that maca can be effective for premenstrual syndrome (PMS), as well as menopausal symptoms, and may help symptoms of hypothyroidism as well.

Alan Warshowsky, M.D., is an ob-gyn who serves as Director of Women’s Health at the Continuum Center for Health and Healing at Beth Israel Hospital in New York. Says Dr. Warshowsky: "At least 50 percent of my menopausal patients are using maca and doing well. I don’t recommend the genistein supplements made from soy, since research has shown that they can have a stimulating effect on breast cancer cells.”

Karen Paris, a Physician’s Assistant of the Atkins Center in New York, the clinic founded by famed weight loss expert Robert Atkins, M.D., has said that the clinic began using organic maca root extract last year, finding it more effective for their menopausal patients than the phytoestrogenic herbs.

Says Paris, "We have had great success using maca in conjunction with some nutritional supplements, to wean women off of hormone replacement therapy. Some of them have been on HRT for many years. For the few women who still have some symptoms, we have developed a combination protocol that works very well, involving maca extract and a tiny amount of natural estrogen together with natural progesterone--which unlike progestin, is not carcinogenic."