What Is Hormone Therapy?

When you think of hormone therapy, you probably think of menopause. But hormone therapy treats more than hot flashes. Endocrinologist Jack Merendino, MD, explains the various types of hormone therapies and the conditions they treat.

Transcript

00:00

People often ask me what hormone therapy is. And I think most people tend to think of hormone replacement

00:06

therapy after menopause when they think of hormone therapy. But of course, there are many hormones. There are pituitary hormones.

00:13

There are a thyroid hormone, parathyroid hormone, hormones from the adrenal gland and from the ovaries and testes.

00:20

So hormone therapy can be replacement therapy-- after menopause, for example, when you get estrogen and progesterone.

00:27

Or if you're a man who has a testosterone deficiency, you might get treated with testosterone. Many, many people take thyroid hormone as hormone therapy.

00:36

And something that a lot of people don't think about, which is insulin, is hormone therapy, because insulin is a key hormone for life

00:42

and obviously critical for the treatment of people with diabetes.