Signs & Symptoms That Respond To Progesterone

Home | Print

Author: Dr. Ray Peat

Many people found the list of signs and symptoms either useful or interesting; at least it is an emphatic way of pointing out that progesterone has so many functions it can't be considered to be just a "reproductive hormone." Since I now understand better the biological meaning of these signs, I want to emphasize more strongly the importance of normalizing nutrition, thyroid function, light exposure, and bowel action in correcting the problems behind these signs and symptoms. It is really a kind of index of physiological disorders, and it happens that progesterone is a major tool for physiological adaptation.

Abdominal bloating

Accident proneness

Acne (cyclic)

Accident proneness

Aggressiveness

Alcohol or drug addiction

Allergic rhinitis

Appetite disturbance

Arthritis(1)

Asthma especially in adolescence & menopause

Bleeding gums

Breast symptoms(2)

Bruising spontaneously, Capillary fragility

Carpal tunnel syndrome

Cold hands & feet

Conjunctival or retinal hemorrhage

Constipation, colicky pain

Colitis, regional enteritis

Depression

Diabetic vascular problems

Edema

Endometriosis, cervical dysplasia

Epilepsy, vertigo

Facial hair

Facial pallor, puffiness, darkening

Fainting

Fatigue, lethargy

Fibroids

Formication (crawling sensation on the skin)

Gall bladder symptoms

Glaucoma (high eye pressure)

Goiter

Headache, eye pain, flashes of light, photophobia

Heart murmur

High blood pressure

Hypoglycemia

Hysteria (many emotional symptoms)

Infertility

Inflammatory and "fibrous" disease

Inner ear dizziness

Insomnia

Irritability

Low blood pressure

Lethargy and clumsiness

Menopause

Mittelschmerz(3)

Migraine

Nymphomania, loss of libido

Optic neuritis

Panic, weepiness, nightworry

Palpitations or paroxysmal tachycardia

Paraesthesias

Pituitary abnormalities

Porphyria

Sciatica

Skin disorders: facial pigmentation, under the eyes erythema, urticaria

Stroke symptoms

Sweat glands: fewer functional

Toxemia of pregnancy

Fluctuations in weight

Urinary frequency, etc.

Varicose veins, tired leg

Vascular abnormalities: flushing, capillary fragility, clotting, kidney underfunction, varicosities

Antibodies to joint material are found after even a mechanical or thermal injury to the joint; twisting cartilage makes it antigenic; autoimmune disease is probably nothing very special, and estrogen is now known to be responsible for many forms of it, including osteroarthritis. "Rheumatism: is an early sign of stress damage to the joints. See H. Selye's book on arthritis and scleroderma.
See Annales d'Endocrinologie 37, p. 309; Cancer 33, p. 1506; Ann. NY Acad. Sci., 1977. Progesterone deficiency predisposes to cancer.
Cramping at ovulation often mistakes for appendicitis: in a 1962 study, 62% of all appendices removed from girls ages 11-20 were normal.

References


  Katharina Dalton, The Premenstrual Syndrome and Progesterone Therapy, Year Book Medical Publishers, Inc., Chicago, 1977.
  Ashley Montagu, Human Heredity, New American Library, New York, 1963.
  R. F. Peat and A. L. Soderwall, "Estrogen stimulated pathway changes," Physiological Chemistry and Physics, 4 (3), 295, 1972.
  R. F. Peat, "A biophysical approach to altered consciousness," J. of Orthomolecular Psychiatry, September, 1975.
  S. Rose, "Environmental effects on brain and behavior," chapter in Race and Intelligence, edited by Richardson and Spears, Penguin Books, Baltimore, 1972.
  A. E. Needham, The Growth Process in Animals, Van Noatrand, Princeton, NJ 1964.
  Max Reiss, Psychendocrinology, Grune and Stratton, New York, 1958.