Most of us think of progesterone as a women’s hormone. Carol Petersen has spent decades correcting that misconception. But even within the world of progressive hormone medicine, one story has gone largely untold: the role of progesterone’s late-life collapse in men as a potential key driver of Alzheimer’s disease.
Hormones and your face: these are closely linked. Your reflection can reveal signs of imbalance if you know what to look for. Let’s start at the top to see what you might find.
A few days after publishing my piece on progesterone and weight gain, I received a thoughtful email from Dr. Jerilynn C. Prior, MD, FRCPC, Professor Emerita of Medicine and a leading researcher in women’s reproductive health and menstrual cycle science. She kindly gave me permission to share her comments here.
If you’ve recently started progesterone therapy—whether for menopause, IVF, perimenopause, or cycle regulation—you might have noticed a shift on the scale and asked yourself: does progesterone cause weight gain? The relationship between progesterone and weight gain is more nuanced than a simple “yes” or “no,” and the answer is highly dose-dependent.
🧠 A note from Carol
I’m a functional medicine practitioner, and I’ve spent years helping women separate hormone fact from hormone fiction. Here’s what surprises most of my new patients: the thing they’ve been blaming for their weight gain (progesterone) is often not the real problem at all. I wrote this article to give you the data — and a fresh perspective.
If something here resonates with your own experience, let’s talk.
👉 Book a 15-minute consult
What comes to mind when you think of stress? For most of us, it’s adrenaline — the hormone that primes our body for “fight or flight,” increasing heart rate and sharpening our senses. But what counterbalances this powerful system? The answer, lies in an unexpected source: progesterone. This article explores the fascinating science of how progesterone and adrenaline interact, creating a dynamic interplay that affects mood, anxiety, and overall resilience.