Sixty-year-old Suzanne Somers, beloved sitcom star, inventor of the Thigh Master and the Face Master (the former which compelled millions of women to squeeze a machine in search of their inner sexy thighs), and author of more than 20 books (including 'Somersize' and 'The Sexy Years') is back with 'Ageless: The Naked Truth About Bio-Identical Hormones.' AOL Coaches interviewed Suzanne about the new books. Read on for her answers to some of our questions.

On Menopause and Doctors:

...I'd been going from doctor to doctor, [and] finally found a qualified, western-trained endocrinologist who understood real hormone replacement with bioidenticals, and that's when I got my life back…the true meaning of ageless [is] that we are susceptible to hormonal imbalance at any point in our lives, whether we be male, female, teenager, a 30-year-old, 40-year-old, or 90-year-old—we are our hormones. And so the fact that hormones have not been taken seriously in our medical schools, in our medical protocols, has created a very bad scenario for women my age.

Women my age can wait until we're 85, when the double-blind studies may be in, but in the meantime, we're going to feel awful. All the doctors that I talked to said, “We have to go by how our patients are feeling. When we have them pharmaceuticalized, and on synthetic hormones, there are a myriad of complaints, and discomforts, and irritations, and disease states. We notice that our patients, men and women alike, who rebalance out perfectly with bioidentical hormones have a vitality, have energy, have quality of life, have a libido, have smoother skin—have a better outlook on life.”

 

What Are Bio-Identical Hormones?

They are biologically identical to the human hormone, an exact replica of what our bodies make or once made. And they're made from soy and plant extracts, and synthesized into a lab into an exact replica, non-drug exact replica.

What Do Bioidentical Hormones Feel Like?

Like hand lotion. So by putting hormones in a cream form, and then giving you a spoon or a syringe or whatever the delivery system is, so that you measure out exactly what you need, you rub it into the fat base, like under our arm even skinny people have fat on the back side of their arm, or the back side of your thigh, where you have a fat base, to that with every pulse of your blood, these hormones are coursing through your body, just as it once did when you were making them.

What Are the Side Effects?

The only side effects are if you're not taking the right amount. If you're taking too much, say you're taking too much estrogen. You're going to know right away. You're going to back off right away, because you're going to be bloating, you're going to get headaches – well, actually, that would be if you don't have enough. It would be if you have too much progesterone. So you start learning how to tweak with your doctor, when you give your doctor your symptoms – I've got a headache, or I'm bloating this, or I'm itching a little, or my sex drive isn't what I want it to be, then they know that your dose still needs tweaking. You know, it takes a long time to lose hormones. It's going to take a while to slowly build up to optimal levels. You can't just throw it all in all at once.

The Doctor’s Role

I work with my doctors, of course. But on any given day, if I've had a stressful morning that I know has really – I've allowed it to get to me or something, I know that it's going to affect my estrogen levels, and then I will go up just a milliliter, just to top it off a little bit. And you learn to understand your body that way.

Is This for Rich People Only?

Well, I mean, eventually our healthcare system should pay for this. It's crazy that our healthcare will pay for synthetic, proven dangerous hormones, and won't pay for bioidenticals. But bioidenticals are generally somewhere in the vicinity of $50-$65 a month, and there are some -- in the resource section of my book, you can see that there's the Menopause Institute--that's for women who can't afford the elite medicine…it's a $39 walk-in-the-door kind of situation, and I think their hormones are less expensive than others. So it's available.
 

Right now, come mid-age, we're in such poor health, we're not very productive, so that we are a drain on society and the economy. But imagine if everybody was in excellent health and vitality. It's possible. You know, look at young people. Young people don't get the diseases that older people get. What's the difference?

Are We Just Obsessed With Youth?

…I don't want to be 20, 30, 40, even 50. I love my age. This is the happiest I've ever been. The other choice is do nothing, and follow traditional medicine the way it's going, and expect, as it was said in Fantastic Voyage, that we are the last generation, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, who will have to die the old-fashioned way, which is heart disease, cancer, or Alzheimer's--unless we're willing to jump on this fast-moving train and embrace this new cutting-edge Western medicine, which involves restoring the body to perfect hormonal balance, strengthening the weakest glands and organs, and detoxing the liver, mainly, and the body, of the chemicals that are all around us. It kind of makes sense, if you connect the dots.

Are You Afraid of Aging and Death?

No. Imagine – imagine– if I had to assess my energy, I'd say it's 35-year-old energy. I just have the energy to do anything I want to do, and my bones are strong. When I first started on bioidentical hormone replacement 10 years ago, my bone density test indicated some bone loss, not terrible, but some. My most recent bone density test indicates no bone loss, which means, by restoring my hormones to youthful levels, my bones have gone back to regenerating themselves. This is incredible. Think of all the disease that will circumvent.

This is a way – the most inexpensive way to improve the overall health of the nation, and yet there's all this resistance, and they'd rather pay for all these drugs that people are taking for conditions that are hormonal – according to these doctors, not according to Suzanne Somers – that are hormonal in origin. Fibromyalgia, half the women I know my age who are severely menopausal also have fibromyalgia. Know what that's from – according to these doctors, not according to Suzanne Somers?