Progesterone

The student described the theory behind progesterone cream in terms that Aajonus did not explicitly endorse or refute in mechanistic detail: that progesterone cream is supposed to go in and act as a precursor to the body's producing its own estrogen. Aajonus recorded this claim without agreeing with it. His position throughout the conversation was that the appropriate solution to hormonal deficiency in menopausal and perimenopausal women was dietary, not supplemental, and that even natural-seeming hormone preparations were not equivalent to what the body produces on its own.

Aajonus addressed the broader category of so-called natural hormones in his newsletter writings, and his position was unambiguous. He wrote that all hormone and hormone replacement drugs are made of laboratory chemicals, and that the so-called natural hormones have no relationship to hormones in the body. His specific claim was that at best, so-called natural hormones are made from hydrogenated vegetable oils that have the same molecular structure as plastic, or from chemically treated proteins. He did not specifically name progesterone cream in that newsletter passage, but the framing encompasses it entirely, since wild yam progesterone cream is derived from plant sterols that are chemically converted in a laboratory process. Within his framework, a product derived from hydrogenated or chemically processed plant material is a plastic analog, not a bioidentical hormone.

To understand why Aajonus objected to progesterone supplementation even in its "natural" forms, his foundational teaching on the endocrine system is necessary context. He taught consistently that all endocrine glands, including the gonads, the adrenals, the thyroid, and the pituitary, produce hormones for emergency purposes only, not for daily regulation. Estrogen and testosterone from the gonads are, in his view, mainly used for reproduction of cells, for building ovum and sperm, and are not meant to give energy, maintain bone density, or perform any of the daily regulatory functions the pharmaceutical and wellness industries assign to them. The claim that women need sustained estrogen or progesterone to maintain vaginal wall integrity, mood stability, or bone density was, for him, a measurement standard invented by the pharmaceutical community to justify ongoing medication.

He stated this explicitly: "Who decides the measurement? The pharmaceutical community says" what the correct level should be, and then sells the products to reach those levels. The correct response to low hormone production, in his view, was not to add hormones from outside but to eat the foods that allow the body to produce what it needs on its own, when it actually needs it.

Rather than progesterone cream or estrogen therapy, Aajonus pointed toward dietary solutions for the conditions that progesterone cream was commonly used to address. For hormonal production that balances mineral levels after menopause, he recommended drinking one to two cups of raw yam juice with three tablespoons of raw coconut cream with each cup of yam juice, once every three to eight days, consumed within one hour after juicing. This is the raw juice of yam, not the extracted sterol and not a processed cream, and the dosing interval of every three to eight days reflects his general caution about not over-stimulating any glandular process.

He also described the effect of the Primal Diet itself on hormonal function across the menopausal transition. In a discussion of women who had returned to hormonal cycling after years without a period, he said that women in their late fifties were having periods every three to six months after some time on the diet, having previously gone three or four years without menstruating. His explanation was that "back on the diet and the hormones start producing" again. The mechanism, in his framework, was nutritional sufficiency rather than supplementation.

For PMS and the hormonal instability surrounding menstruation, he recommended consuming fat every two hours, stating that fat buffers the effects of toxins that flood the system during the hormonal fluctuations of the menstrual cycle. He specified that any fat would do, whether an ounce, two tablespoons, or half a cup, and that the regularity of the fat intake, every two hours, was the operative factor. This applies to the premenstrual window specifically, when toxins that the body is preparing to discharge through menstruation are circulating in the blood.

For dry vaginal walls and the tissue changes of menopause, he mentioned Estriol cream, derived from more natural sources, as something that brings a certain amount of controlled estrogen to that part of the body, and characterized it as one of the more benign forms available, without endorsing it as part of his dietary framework. He noted it in passing as an option others use, separate from his dietary recommendations.

Aajonus described using raw animal gland tissue as an alternative approach to low hormone production. He said that if a woman has low female hormone productivity, he had utilized the glands of sheep, deer, cow, and buffalo to supplement. He described making a gland shake from a full range of animal glands, including ovaries, adrenal glands, thyroid, thymus, brain, pancreas, and lung, blended with raw milk and a small amount of honey, approximately half milk and half glands, and described the hormonal effect as immediate and significant. The implication, though he did not state it as a protocol specifically for progesterone deficiency, is that consuming raw ovarian tissue from animals provides the same spectrum of compounds the ovary produces, in a form the body can use, without the chemical conversion process that renders plant-derived hormone creams into what he considered plastic analogs.

One questioner raised the subject of wild yam root and licorice root as juiceable herbs for what she described as "that loss of estrogen feeling," including chin hair growth and other familiar symptoms. Aajonus corrected her framing: he said that chin hair on a woman is not an indication of low estrogen but indicates high testosterone. He addressed the herb question by saying that herbs are medicinal and should constitute no more than five percent of juice and no more than two ounces per day, unless suffering severe illness. He confirmed that herb tinctures are cooked and therefore not within his raw framework, and that juicing the raw roots would be preferable if available. He did not provide a specific progesterone-related protocol using wild yam juice beyond this general guidance.

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