ilovewriting
Member
- Joined
- Jul 29, 2014
- Messages
- 25
From Ray Peat:
"The progesterone in tocopherols absorbs by itself, but rubbing a little olive oil in with it greatly speeds the absorption. Thinning it that much in the bottle makes it crystallize out.
People usually wash before the solution has finished absorbing, so in practice the thinner/quicker solution gets more progesterone into the body."
[and]
In the powder form, direct and intimate contact with a mucous
membrane allows lipid phase to lipid phase transfer of progesterone
molecules. Instead of by-passing the liver, much of the progesterone is
picked up in the portal circulation, where a major part of it is
glucuronidated, and made water soluble for prompt excretion. Since this
glucuronide form cross-reacts to some extent with ordinary progesterone in
the assay process, and since 50% of the ordinary free progesterone is
carried inside the red blood cells,(10, 11) and 50% is associated with
proteins in the plasma, while the glucuronide hardly enters the red blood
cells at all, it is better to judge by clinical efficacy when comparing
different oral forms. My comparisons show several times higher potency in
the tocopherol composition than in powder form.
[also:]
While both animal studies and human studies have
shown that natural and synthetic progestins protect against
estrogen-induced cancers, and some other diseases, only
natural progesterone is recognized as having general value in
the treatment of the premenstrual syndrome. This is
apparently because natural progesterone has a broad spectrum
of intrinsic effects, and is easily metabolized into other active
hormones as needed, that is, it is a basic precursor substance.
It has been tested in isolation on practically every type of
tissue, where it seems to have a stabilizing action: nerve,
smooth muscle, cardiac muscle, epithelial cells, cells of the
immune system, etc. It is anti-spasmodic, anti-inflammatory,
anti-mitotic in certain tissues, and (at high concentration)
anesthetic. Its use before and during pregnancy has been
associated with a lower than normal incidence of birth defects.
Although natural progesterone has a broad spectrum of
action and is remarkably free of side effects, the use of natural
progesterone has been limited by the expense and inconvenience
of the forms commonly used. Some women continue to
use suppositories, because they do offer some relief of
symptoms, even though they are very messy, and they are
necessarily expensive, since only 5% or less of their progesterone
content can be absorbed.
Injectable progesterone is both inconvenient and
expensive. The form commonly used contains 10% benzyl
alcohol, as a solvent and as a local anesthetic, since
progesterone is not sufficiently soluble in ordinary vegetable
oil, and can be painful when injected as an aqueous
suspension. However, benzyl alcohol has significant toxicity
to nerves, and can produce anaphylaxis.(1) Benzyl alcohol, in
contact with tissue, combines with water, causing
progesterone to be deposited as crystals. Even if oils needed a
"bacteriostatic agent," the quantity used with progesterone has
no justification except as a solvent, but it is not described as
such. The fact that injected progesterone has been beneficial,
in spite of the neurotoxicity and instability of the solvent, is
another illustration of the protective action of progesterone.
Micropulverized progesterone is expensive when taken
orally, since it is poorly absorbed, and when absorbed it is
quickly inactivated by glucuronidation, since it is exposed to
enzyme action in the wall of the intestine itself and in the
liver, if the individually absorbed molecules get that far before
being inactivated.
Substances, even including peptides, which are
absorbed by the chylomicron pathway, reach the general
circulation without being exposed to the inactivating
glucuronide-transfer enzymes of the intestine or liver. People
often speak of "avoiding the liver on the first pass," but in fact chylomicrons
pass through the liver many times before they are destroyed;
after an hour, 10% of the chylomicrons are still circulating. If
progesterone is taken orally in oil in a truly solvated state, in a
monomolecular dispersion, it will enter the blood via the protected
chylomicron route. Merely mixing finely powdered
progesterone crystals with oil will not allow it to enter as chylomicrons;
the size of chylomicrons is very small. They are
usually about 4000 Angstrom units in diameter.
Fats taken orally are almost 100% absorbed by the small
intestine. Like other hydrophobic substances, progesterone
will be absorbed by adipose tissue and by the brain, but,
unlike other steroid hormones, it also tends to be absorbed by
red blood cells. Typically, the concentration of progesterone
in red blood cells is twice that of the serum.(2) (And the brain
contains a still higher concentration.) These intracellular
reservoirs of progesterone tend to prolong the elevated blood
levels resulting from the absorbed chylomicron-progesterone,
so that the observed hormone levels after a single oral dose
are much more stable than are the triglyceride levels after a
single fatty meal. Typically, after a single oral dose of 100
mg. of perfectly dispersed progesterone, a post-menopausal
woman's serum progesterone level will still be in the "normal
luteal phase range" 24 hours later. The difference in
efficiency--and therefore in cost--between this form and the
various crystalline dispersions is very large.