Meet Sherrill Sellman, ND WOMEN’S HEALTH ADVOCATE(for all ages)
by totalhealth editors
 Dr. Sherrill Sellman is a doctor of traditional naturopathy and natural health. She is internationally respected as a dynamic lecturer, authoritative writer and investigative journalist, assisting women to access truthful information and safe holistic solutions regarding the many aspects of their hormonal health and well-being. She is the author the best selling book Hormone Heresy: What Women MUST Know About Their Hormones and her latest book What Women MUST Know to Protect Their Daughters From Breast Cancer.
Sherrill is also a psychotherapist, health journalist and hormone wellness coach. She teaches, lectures and consults worldwide. She is a sought after keynote speaker and educator, providing classes, seminars and lectures in the U.S., Canada, Ireland, the U.K., Australia and New Zealand. Her areas of expertise include: the myths and truths of menopause, hysterectomies, perimenopause, menstrual wisdom, practical holistic solutions for regaining hormonal balance, osteoporosis, breast cancer prevention, permanent weight loss, food as medicine, and stress management.
She maintains a private practice in Tulsa, Oklahoma as well as counseling women via her phone consultation services worldwide. Sherrill is also a popular guest on radio and hosts her own weekly radio program for women.
TH: What were the reasons you began researching female hormones?
SS: It all began because of my own personal experience. When I was in my mid-forties, I was working very hard in my job as a psychotherapist, working about 70 hours a week and burning the candle at both ends. I started having persistent anxiety attacks early in the morning. These attacks would last for a couple of hours. Every night I would wake-up with these anxiety attacks. They were debilitating. Nothing seemed to be able to resolve them. Fatigue and depression had also been a lifelong struggle. I also suffered with a range of other symptoms—memory loss, weight gain, no libido. Women often dismiss many of these symptoms as part of the aging process. I knew something was really wrong and I set out to find out what to do so that I could get my life back.
Society has certainly bought into commercialization of disease. Unfortunately, I had been ignoring my symptoms. I finally woke up to the fact that I had to do something when my night sweats became unbearable. At this point, I began to do my own investigation into hormones, menopause and natural solutions.
I found out that the night sweats were probably related to an excess of estrogen and exhausted adrenal glands. After using bio-identical progesterone for about a month the night sweats totally disappeared. This was pretty amazing. After about three months, my anxiety and fatigue disappeared; my libido increased and I lost weight. I was also sleeping better. All of these improvements were phenomenal. It was quite profound to realize that all my symptoms were related to underlying imbalances, which were affecting my hormones.
TH: What are some of the other solutions you write about?
SS: There are a variety of herbs that I like to recommend. Responses vary from case to case, but generally women tend to do well with Vitex (chaste tree berry), Maca and Rhodiola Rosea. When a woman is feeling out of balance due to her hormones, she needs to address all of her hormones (not just estrogen and progesterone). There are some amazing nutrients that can help support the hormonal structure (vitamin C, vitamin E, B vitamins, essential fatty acids, etc.). Few women understand that hormonal imbalances are indications of root causes that are affecting hormonal balance. They may include imbalances with the adrenal thyroid, blood sugar regulation, the liver and digestion. Stress is also a major contributor to all variety of hormonal problems.
For thousands of years, women have been perceived as having flawed bodies. Women are being told that their body parts are bad or dangerous and that they must be removed. In so doing, doctors remove their entire essence. With regards to menopause, the perception is that women will simply fall apart as they arrive into this phase of their lives. Menopause is certainly not a disease. In fact, it is a stage of a woman’s life cycle when she is able to express her real power. It is truly an empowering time.
TH: In What Women Must Know to Protect Their Daughters From Breast Cancer, you write about the growing incidence of breast cancer in younger women, what made you focus on this issue?
SS: During my travels I began to meet more and more younger women who were diagnosed with breast cancer. Initially this was absolutely shocking to me. I felt compelled to not only warn women of this growing trend but also more importantly, offer women an understanding of the many factors driving this trend. But it’s not enough to become aware of the problem; we must also have strategies, actions and solutions. Therefore, the majority of the information found in the book addresses the many proactive steps we can take on a daily basis to literally alter the fate of ourselves and our children.
TH: You express concerns in both your book about the widespread use of the birth control pill. Why is this?
SS: Initially, the Pill was designed for birth control. Now, the Pill has become a popular therapeutic treatment for many of women’s ills. It has also become a treatment to help regulate periods, for PMS, for lack of periods, for heavy periods, for painful periods, for ovarian cysts, for PCOS, for endometriosis and perimenopause. It is even being prescribed to girls as young as 13 to treat acne. There is even a popular trend to convince women they can completely eliminate menstrual cycles by taking a version of the Pill.
What few women understand about the Pill is that the action of the Pill shuts off the ovaries by mimicking pregnancy. The medical term is chemical castration. As long as your ovaries are shut off while you are on the Pill, you will never have a menstrual cycle. It is a terrible mistake for doctors to lead women to believe that the Pill helps regulate their menstrual cycle. The vast majority of women who take the Pill do not understand that they never get a period as long as they are on the Pill. They have what is called a forced bleed not a natural menstrual bleed. Most women, however, believe that they are menstruating every month. The Pill also depletes the body of key nutrients (vitamins, minerals, etc.)—affecting her thyroid, compromising her bones, affecting her pH, and making her very acidic. The Pill is also made up of two recognized carcinogenic ingredients, progestin and estradiol. The high rates of infertility and decreased libido in women can be directly related to the Pill.
There is a recognized connection between the use of the Pill, especially in young women and an increased incidence in breast cancer (as there is a known relationship between use of HRT and breast cancer in older women). Presently one out of every 288 women that are diagnosed with breast cancer are under the age of 40. That means that 20 and 30-year-olds are now being diagnosed with breast cancer. Younger women tend to have a more aggressive form of breast cancer and a worse prognosis.
TH: In your book, you state that we are bombarded with many different sources of estrogen not just through pharmaceuticals, but also through other environmental sources. What are your concerns?
SS: It is known that 70 percent of all breast cancers are estrogen dependent. In other words, it is caused or fueled by estrogen. Estrogen’s job is to proliferate cell growth...so that’s what cancer is—out of control cell growth. You’re right; there are many sources that have this estrogenic effect (the Pill, hormone replacement therapy, fertility drugs, pesticides and plastics). Phthalates are in everyday products like nail polish, hairspray, perfume, the backing of carpets, spray paints, lubricants and solvents, and are found in medical equipment, paints and packaging. Phthalates are known to be major hormone disruptors, which have also been linked to damage to the reproductive system, and an increased risk of asthma and cancer.
Plastics contain Bisphenol A, a potent estrogenic chemical that is used to harden plastics. Dentists often put sealant called Composite Resin over children’s teeth that actually is made with Bisphenol A. This chemical is leaching right into the body of children. The plastic in water bottles also contain Bisphenol, A which leaches into the water.
The chemical, Bisphenol A, (BPA), is an artificial estrogen used to create the plastic polycarbonate. It is also used in resins to line some metal cans. It is commonly found in hard plastic drinking glasses, some microwavable food containers and plastic baby bottles. Geneticists at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland showed that even low doses of BPA in adult female mice caused chromosomal changes that could lead to birth defects. It is a very toxic hormone disruptor which can alter development of the reproductive tract, the immune system, increase prostate tumor proliferation, change brain chemistry and structure and affect an array of behaviors, including hyperactivity.
Synthetic chemicals, including endocrine disrupting chemicals, are so pervasive that they have literally saturated our world. Presently every child in the U.S. is born with hundreds of chemicals already in their bodies!
TH: In your books, you provide a tremendous number of solutions for the many challenges to the health of us all, especially children. What thought would you like to share with our readers?
SS: The more I, personally, learn about the many challenges to our health and well-being, the more I also seek out solutions incorporating that choices we can all make.
In my books and in my lectures, my real intention is to inspire people to change and to make change happen.
Far from a doom and gloom message, my real desire is to awaken people into action. We each have phenomenal inner resources that can guide us out of a toxic world. I always say that keeping one’s head in the sand will never make us safer or healthier. We MUST see what is going on all around us and then get angry enough to do something about it. That’s the purpose of anger—to get us into action. If that means you will choose organic foods to feed your family well, that’s a step into greater responsibility. If it means that parents get together to demand toxic-free cleaning products in their children’s school…that’s another empowering action. Profound transformations have occurred when we quit looking around for someone else or something else to make the changes and realize that your finger is pointing right back at you!
Our children…and generations yet to be born…are waiting for us to get into action NOW.
Dr. Sherrill Sellman is a naturopathic doctor, psychotherapist, writer, best-selling author and international lecturer. Her Web site is www.whatwomenmustknow.com.
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