117 | Does wild yam cream increase progesterone?

0:00 Hi there. Welcome to In the Clinic with Camille. My name is Camille Freeman, and this podcast is for herbalists and nutritionists who are in clinical practice with the intention of making things just a little bit easier as you navigate the ups and downs. Today, I have a question that we went over in a recent Q&A call. I host a Q&A call every single month for people in a variety of my programs, and they're really fun because people bring all sorts of questions, anything from business-related questions to specific cases that they're working on two, more general questions about just the flow of how I do things and that sort of thing. So we had a question I thought was interesting. It's sort of a blast from the past, but it clearly still comes up for people.

0:42 So I wanted to just bring my answer here in case it's on other people's minds as well. And the question was related to wild yam cream. This person had a client who was using wild yam cream and felt that it was really helping. And the intention with the wild yam cream was to raise the progesterone. So this client felt that it had really made a difference, and the practitioner was like, it's my understanding that that's not really a thing, so what do we make of this? So here's the deal. Wild yam, the plant, Dyscarea villosa, does have a constituent, Dysgenin, that in a laboratory setting can be converted into progesterone.

1:24 Okay, so that is true. And in some cases, that happens in the lab. The body, the human body, does not have enzymes or processes that do that. So one thing we know is not happening is that when you take wild yam root and you make an oil out of it, or you make a, you know, you do something with it, whatever you're going to do to eventually wind up putting it into a cream, if that's all that's happened, you are not making progesterone from that. Your body is not making progesterone from that. That doesn't mean that the cream is not helpful, but, if we're using it with the intention or the thought telling clients that this is going to support your progesterone directly, that is truly just not a feasible thing that's going to be going on in the human body.

2:11 However, we don't want to negate people's experiences. So what do we think is going on? If somebody is using a wild yam cream and they felt that they had low progesterone for whatever reason and it seems to be really helping them, what's the deal? Well, okay, so there's a couple things to know about. One, it's not totally out of question that the cream actually does have a hormone in it. There are creams on the market where if you look at the label, it will say, you know, it's wild cream on the box, on the packaging, all of that. But then when you look at it, the active ingredients, it includes progesterone. Okay, so in that case, it is a wild yam cream, but it has progesterone, and that may explain some of the effects that it's having.

2:57 In some cases, there are un- You know, undisclosed constituents in a cream. So I would say, you know, we hate to think of this happening, but especially if we're buying lower quality product, we're not totally sure about the company, the origin, all that, it is possible that there is something in that cream that is really helping people that's not displayed on the bottle. We do find that this happens where herbal products, both topical and internal, occasionally are contaminated with hormones and other types of substances that are way outside of what people think they're getting when they purchase these things. So that is one possibility. And if a client came to me and was like, oh, I've been using this wild yam cream, and it's changed my life, it's revolutionary, I would want to ask more about what they're experiencing.

3:42 And I would definitely want to see the packaging, what exactly are they using, and have a look. Because if it seems like it's something that maybe isn't the highest quality, or what have you, I'm going to look that up. I'm Has Consumer Labs done any testing? Does this company have any kind of, you know, USP certification, anything along those lines? Or do we feel pretty confident that it is what it says it is? Okay, so those are things we want to look at. There could be something else in the cream that's helping. Sometimes these creams have other types of ingredients, other herbs, other things. I'm not saying that they're directly influencing progesterone, but they may be doing something in the body. Of course, there is always the placebo effect. Placebo effect is very strong and sometimes just the act of doing something where you have taken a positive action you have purchased something you are taking the time daily to apply it you're considering your symptoms you're noticing what's happening sometimes all of those things together make for, an improvement and i think that's great you know i think that sometimes the placebo effect is a helpful thing and we certainly don't want to yuck anybody's yum if they are, riding the wave of the placebo effect and that's what's going on for them, then amazing.

4:51 I also just, this is a side note, but I do like to point out that progesterone, in general, there are times in a person's lifespan where they may want to use progesterone cream, but I do think that especially, there are certain people who overdo it with the progesterone, and that's something that I would prefer that they have some guidance on from a medical professional as opposed to, I'm just going to go buy a progesterone cream over the counter somewhere and start fiddling around with my hormones. We need to have some sort of verification that, is there a reason to add the progesterone? Are we doing this in the context of fertility, in the context of perimenopause? Why are we trying to add progesterone, and is this the best way to do it?

5:32 Okay. One thing people sometimes get wrapped up in, which kind of hurts my heart when this happens, is looking at progesterone. I see this a lot in my fertility clients, but people will look at progesterone levels after they ovulate and they'll be like, oh my gosh, I, you know, it's in the normal range, but it's way low within the normal range. So I probably need to take some progesterone I need to take some herbs that boost my progesterone or you know use this progesterone cream or la-di-da-di-da whatever else and what I think people don't realize about these progesterone tests, when you go in you know usually they want to they want you to go in about a week after you think you've ovulated and again in the fertility context and look to see how's your estrogen how's your progesterone etc, and really all the progesterone is telling us in that context is that the person ovulated.

6:21 It is not telling us, oh, you have amazing progesterone, because here's the deal with progesterone. Progesterone levels are pulsatile, meaning they go up and down pretty quickly, about every 45 minutes to an hour. So just depending on when you happen to go in and have the test done, you might be on the low side, But then 45 minutes later, you might be on the high side. So we really don't want to read too much into a single blood-drawn progesterone reading in the second part of somebody's menstrual cycle to think that, oh, they have low progesterone. And I see that happening all the time. People just are not understanding this. They are getting bad information from, providers, from friends, from, you know, whatever. They're looking at the test themselves and thinking, oh, it's low.

7:07 You know, what should I do? I'm just going to go try to boost my progesterone. Again, there are times when we may want to think about progesterone, but talk to your medical provider, make sure that it makes sense, and make sure you're not basing it on just a single lab reading. Okay, so that's my little thing about progesterone-containing wild-yam creams. It's just wild-yam isn't going to be turned into progesterone in the body. Not to say that the wild-yam cream isn't doing anything. It does have some phytoestrogens in it. Now, are those phytoestrogens absorbed topically in amounts that are big enough to make a difference in the whole body? I don't know. It's certainly not a major part of my clinical practice, but people practice differently than I am.

7:49 But that would be a more feasible mechanism than somehow this diastrogen and the wild yam raising progesterone in the human body, which it doesn't. There's just no reason to think that it does that. Okay, so again, check the other ingredients. Possibly it's a placebo effect. I would certainly want to rule out any kind of contamination issues or undisclosed ingredients. But otherwise, I think there's better ways that we can support overall health throughout a menstrual cycle. And that's my little summary of that. Okay, I hope you find this helpful. If you have a question that you would like me to answer here, I would love to hear it. You can go to intheclinic.com or camillefreeman.com and send it my way.

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