You are doing everything right. Eating well. Exercising. Getting as much sleep as your body will allow. And still, something is off. The energy is not there. The weight will not move. Sleep is broken, focus is foggy, and you cannot explain why you feel ten years older than you did two years ago. Have you linked Aging and Hormones?
Most people sit with these symptoms for years before doing anything about them, because they assume it is just what aging looks like. Sometimes it is. But in many cases, what feels like aging is actually a hormone imbalance, and that is a very different problem with a very different solution. Dr. Wendy Scinta, MD, MS, a board-certified obesity medicine physician and founder of Medical Weight Loss of New York, has been treating patients with bioidentical hormone replacement therapy for over a decade.
When Should You Start Paying Attention?
For women, testosterone can start to decline in the mid to late 30s. The early signs are often subtle: a drop in energy, a shift in mood, stubborn belly weight that was never there before. For men, similar changes tend to show up a bit later, but the pattern is the same. Fatigue that rest does not fix, decreased strength, brain fog, and changes in sexual function. Aging and hormones changes go hand in hand.
These symptoms rarely arrive all at once. They accumulate gradually, which is exactly why most people attribute them to stress, or age, or just life. The reality is that hormones influence nearly every system in the body, from metabolism and sleep to mood and muscle. Even a small shift can produce effects that ripple outward in ways that are difficult to pin down without testing.
A healthy 20-year-old woman has six to ten times more testosterone than estrogen. Most people are surprised by that number when Dr. Scinta shares it with them, and it helps explain why a decline in testosterone, even in women, can have such a broad effect on how you feel.
What Holds Most People Back From Treatment?
In our experience, the patients who wait the longest to explore hormone therapy are not waiting because they do not believe it could help. They are waiting because they are afraid. Afraid of cancer risk, blood clots, heart problems. These fears are understandable, but they are based on myths that do not hold up under clinical scrutiny.
“Hormone therapy increases breast cancer risk.” Dr. Scinta considers this one of the most damaging misconceptions in the field, because it is the single biggest reason women avoid treatment. When the ovaries produce estrogen naturally, they also produce protective hormones including testosterone and progesterone. The therapy we use provides hormone replacement in the same ratios the young female body produces, not estrogen in isolation. Studies show that using estrogen with testosterone for bioidentical hormone therapy produces a reduction in breast cancer rates compared to the general female population.
“Estrogen causes blood clots.” This is true only when estrogen is given in oral form, because it passes through the liver. The pellets we use bypass the liver entirely and do not carry that risk. The delivery method makes all the difference.
“Testosterone is bad for the heart.” The research shows the opposite. Testosterone boosts nitric oxide production, reduces LDL cholesterol and triglycerides, and has been associated with improvements in conditions ranging from diabetes to traumatic brain injuries.
“Testosterone causes prostate cancer.” Low testosterone can actually triple the risk of prostate cancer. It is often the increased estrogen in men with low testosterone that contributes to that elevated risk. Restoring testosterone to healthy levels is protective.
“Testosterone is only for men.” Testosterone is the dominant hormone for both sexes. Bioidentical testosterone is a significant part of hormone therapy for our female patients. When administered, approximately 85 percent of women naturally convert a portion of the testosterone into estrogen through aromatization, which is often sufficient on its own to address hot flashes and night sweats.
What Does the Process To Align Hormones with Aging Actually Look Like?
Dr. Scinta and her team use small pellets that are certified organic and plant based, derived from yams. They contain natural vegetable substance sterols essential for synthesizing estrogen and testosterone. The only additional ingredient is stearic acid, which holds the pellets together. Each pellet is about the size of a grain of rice.
The insertion takes two to five minutes under local anesthetic through a tiny incision. The pellets then release hormones steadily over three to five months for women and six to eight months for men, bringing levels back to the range you experienced in your twenties. Every patient is dosed individually based on bloodwork, hormone levels, and weight. We recheck bloodwork at four weeks and evaluate at six weeks to see if a booster is needed. Many patients feel a noticeable difference within the first week.
Why Hormones and Weight Loss Go Hand in Hand
This is something we see every day in our practice. A patient is following their nutrition plan, exercising consistently, and doing everything we ask, but the results have stalled. When we test their hormone levels, the picture often becomes clear. Hormone imbalances can slow metabolism, increase fat storage, and block the body from responding to diet and exercise the way it should.
Addressing those imbalances does not replace the work a patient is already doing. It removes the obstacle that has been making that work less effective. For many of our patients, hormone therapy is the piece that allows everything else to start working again. Hormones and aging
Dr. Wendy Scinta, MD, MS, is the founder of Medical Weight Loss of New York in Fayetteville, NY. She was recently featured in Syracuse Woman Magazine discussing bioidentical hormone replacement therapy.