Wies: "Can hormone supplementation keep you forever young?"

Oestrogen in the body, when its production is balanced, is remarkable stuff. This female hormone is a powerful antioxidant that helps keep you well-preserved. Oestrogens contribute to smooth skin, strong bones, good blood circulation, vaginal moisture balance, and keep artery walls elastic. In other words, they keep you youthful, supple, and soft. Young girls and women naturally produce a lot of oestrogen.

Once you reach menopause, oestrogen production drops drastically, leaving less than five per cent of the original levels. The fact that my skin aged faster due to menopause was reason enough for me to start hormone therapy. I hoped that supplementing oestrogen, in addition to alleviating other symptoms, would help slow down skin ageing.

To some extent, that assumption is correct. Research shows that hormone therapy has a positive effect on skin, hair, bones, and connective tissue. Studies involving identical twins have also shown that women who use hormone therapy look younger than those who don’t.

“But the biological ageing process continues, no matter how much you take,” health scientist Dr Maaike de Vries and gynaecologist Dr Manon Kerkhof explain in their book Ook leuke meisjes worden vijftig (Even Nice Girls Turn Fifty). “The fact that many women who use hormones say they look better is likely because they sleep better, have fewer symptoms, and feel more rested.” The positive effects on the skin and other tissues also disappear once you stop hormone therapy.

Still, there are countries, including the United States, where women use hormones to stay young, beautiful, and energetic for as long as possible. That’s not an option here. In the Netherlands, gynaecologists don’t prescribe hormone therapy as an anti-ageing treatment because they don’t consider it wise. They argue that you would need to use it for the rest of your life, which carries risks.

Now that I’ve been using hormone therapy for about five years, I honestly don’t look younger than my peers. Living a healthy lifestyle and protecting your skin from the sun remain the best strategies.

Wies Verbeek (58) is a journalist, founder of the website BLOW.nl, and author of the book ’n Beetje Leuk Ouder Worden, 101 verrassende en bewezen tips (A Bit of Fun Growing Older: 101 Surprising and Proven Tips). She is currently going through menopause.