I can’t tell the different between a Wild Yam cream and a Natural Progesterone cream?

To make a Wild Yam Extract cream, plant sterols (oils & fats) are extracted from the Mexican Wild Yam and Soy plants.

We know that Wild Yam creams have a ‘estrogenic’ effect on the body, but there is no scientific proof that when cream is applied to the skin (or ingested in tablet or powder form) the active ingredient (diosgenin) derived from Wild Yam creams can be converted by the body into progesterone.

Why is this so? Because the active ingredient - diosgenin - is not bioidentical to the progesterone molecule found in the body, hence Wild Yam Extract creams cannot do the work of progesterone.

Wild Yam Extract creams can exert estrogenic benefits on the body but it is not the same estrogen that our body makes. The active ingredient can latch onto estrogen receptor sites, hence the estrogen benefits, but cannot latch onto progesterone sites.

When women understand the differences between these two molecules, and that there are two individual hormones - estrogen and progesterone - performing separate roles in the body, they then appreciate that one active ingredient cannot be touted as performing two different hormonal roles.

The argument goes that using Wild Yam Extract creams are more ‘natural’ because the molecule is unaltered and, therefore, safer to use as progesterone therapy, being a precursor (which we’ve just explained above is incorrect). However, we point out that a chemical process is still required to extract these saponins from the Wild Yam and Soy plants. Chemicals ARE involved in the extraction process of Wild Yam Extract. By definition, an EXTRACT means that a chemical process is involved.

We clarify this point now because many women have been encouraged to stop using natural progesterone by their natural therapists stating the natural progesterone creams have involved chemical processes that could be harmful. But they omit to mention that a chemical extraction process is involved even with the ‘purist’ of natural Wild Yam Extract creams. Discern for yourself, and check the motivation behind these statements.

The very fact that progesterone is derived from Mexican Wild Yam is coincidental. Since the 1940’s scientists have been using soya beans, wild yams and other plants from the tuber family to make progesterone. To make natural progesterone, Wild Yam Extract must be taken into the laboratory and synthesised with the aid of an enzyme, rendering it a hormone. This laboratory conversion is necessary because, as we stated above, the body has no means by which to convert the raw plant sterols into progesterone.

You can, at this stage, safely introduce synthesised progesterone into the body because your body sees this ‘real’ progesterone as having the same molecular configuration. No further conversion is necessary by the body. It’s a perfect match. The key fits the lock. Because it’s such a perfect match, the body recognises it as natural, and you don’t experience any nasty side-effects that occur with some synthetic hormones. Further still, because it IS real progesterone, the body can use it to make other steroid hormones.

Women get very confused, largely because Dr John Lee?s work on progesterone has been promoted alongside Wild Yam creams. If you do see Wild Yam creams being marketed as a precursor of progesterone, steer clear (if you are after a genuine progesterone cream) because it does not contain real progesterone. It’s just another way of confusing women into buying a product they didn’t ask for in the first place.

Feel free to use a wild yam cream if you wish to, however, be aware you are NOT going to get any progesterone benefits. It’s more likely Wild Yam cream will have a estogenic effect on your body. Of some benefit, certainly, but not in the same league as natural progesterone.

Many a marketing sales pitch will tell you that diosgenin is a precursor to progesterone and the body is capable of converting. You’ll remember in a previous chapter we outlined how diosgenin, derived from Wild Yam and/or Soy, is synthesised in the laboratory with the aid of an enzyme to render it a modecule your body can interrupt. How then can the body convert this raw substance into a human hormone once it enters the body? The fact is it cannot. There is no enzyme in the body to do this.

One popular brand of Wild Yam Extract cream making these claims here in Australia was put to the test by a reputed research institute and found that there was no evidence that the body could convert diosgenin into natural progesterone.

Yet a significant number of herbalists or naturopaths believe in the body’s ability to do the conversion, resulting in a flood of questions from women claiming that their homoeopathic and herbalist remedies will increase or supplement the body’s progesterone levels ‘naturally’. Again, a play on words. Yes, Wild Yam Extract is a building block in the manufacture of progesterone. But NOT in the body - in the laboratory. Wild Yam constituents cannot be converted into progesterone by the human body. It does not happen.

“…Claims have arisen in the popular literature that the female body can manufacture progesterone from diosgenin, particularly if a wild yam cream is applied to the skin… No evidence exits for mammalian enzymes which are capable of effecting what is a difficult chemical conversion.

The evidence that does exist strongly disputes the possiblity of this conversion. In fact, diosgenin appears to have estogenic properties in mice and lacks progesteronic effects.” (Herbal Medicine, Principles and Practice of Phytotherapy, Modern Herbal Medicine, Simon Mills, Kerry Bone, Published Churchill Livingstone)

This confusion arises out of the fact that all our steriod hormones are made in our body from cholesterol. And the oils and fats extracted from the Wild Yam and Soy plants are very similar to our body’s cholesterol molecule. That’s where the similarity ends and the arguments stop. On this hypothesis Wild Yam creams would be a precursor to ALL the steriod hormone, not just progesterone.

Clearly, it’s more complex than that. However, if you introduce natural progesterone into the body, your body WILL ‘naturally’ manufacture other steriod hormones as required.