Like other major body hormones, there are a number of significant tasks carried out by progesterone. Progesterone is present both in male and female and performs different activities in the body, but its primal role in maintaining pregnancy made it known as the hormone of pregnancy although it is also present in ovulating but non-conceiving women. Generally this hormone has well established functions in the female menstrual cycle, pregnancy and embryonic development of humans and other species. The benefits of natural progesterone being produced in the body especially in women makes this hormone essential in keeping a good health, and when it secretion halts, there may be some need for hormonal replacement therapy.
Although progesterone is not directly involved in the development of secondary sex characteristics, it is a precursor of androstenedione which can be converted to testosterone, estrone and estradiol, the ones straightly causing the sex characteristics. Therefore, progesterone being a precursor to more hormones has an enormous role to play. The following are benefits of progesterone: protects against fibrocystic breasts diseases, helps utilize fat for energy, a natural diuretic, natural anti-depressant, facilitates thyroid hormone action, normalizes blood clotting, blood sugar levels, blood zinc and copper levels, restores sex drive and proper cell oxygen levels, prevents uterine cancer, signals osteoblast for bone building, restores normal vascular tone, needed for embryo survival, modulates other hormones helping to restore balance, and promotes sleep.
Certainly the long list of benefits of progesterone in the body defines its importance and also suggests of what can possibly happen if it depletes and halts in production in time. The major producer of progesterone in women is the ovaries and the placenta when a woman is pregnant, but it stops when a woman begins to menopause. This is the time when women would need hormone replacement therapy to continue supplying the body with progesterone and keep a healthy functioning despite age and menopausal.
More Sites You May Enjoy
Menopause and menopause treatments fact sheet | womenshealth ...
Introduction to Menopause
Menopause - Cedars-Sinai
