Hormones Are Where It’s At: Bioidentical Hormones, Menopausal Women, and Anti-Aging Medicine

• In Event: 446 - Section on Sex and Gender Paper Session. Science, Technology, and Medicine: Dimensions of Gender, Sex, and Sexualities

Abstract

This paper examines the biomedicalization of aging through a particular lens: women seeking hormone replacement therapies (HRT) from “anti-aging” clinicians. Bioidentical hormone therapy (BHRT), the treatment most commonly on offer, requires a prescription from a physician yet remains unapproved by the FDA-- compounded in individual pharmacies outside of their purview. Within a larger study of anti-aging science and medicine, we interviewed 31 clinicians practicing “anti-aging” medicine and 25 female patients who were taking BHRT prescribed by a physician at the time of the interview. In this paper, we analyze their relationships with BHRT, menopausal symptoms, (anti-)aging, and biomedicine. What emerges is the appeal of BHRT’s unique positioning in their conception of drugs and hormones, sitting at a crucial juncture between conventional medical practices and alternative health therapies. Our analyses focus on our interviewee’s perspectives and perceptions of BHRT: their reasons for seeking out this treatment; its perceived safety and risks; and why they feel that it’s the “right” choice for them. Through a discourse about the “naturalness” of BHRT and the sense in which it is “personalized” for individual patients, interviewees present a view of BHRT that reflects the predominant anti-aging rhetoric, yet also explains on a deeper level their relationship to conventional biomedicine and its treatment of menopausal women.

Authors

• Michael Flatt, Case Western Reserve University

• Jennifer R Fishman, McGill University