How
is Bioidentical Progesterone Made?
Bioidentical progesterone is made in the lab with the starting material of either yams or soy. Prior to the lab made progesterone, progesterone was extracted from placenta and perhaps the price of progesterone was thousands of dollars per gram. It was too expensive to use as a therapeutic drug. No one could get enough. Nowadays, there is also the threat of viral diseases like AIDS.
When using progesterone for a medicine, the key is to be able produce it economically and in large quantity.
What you would like to do is to find a raw source of material that is close to progesterone and then chemically modify it in as few as steps as possible, with as little loss to the starting material as possible. It turns out that soy oil and mexican yams have a rich source of this starting material. Now the key was to modify the starting material to bioidentical progesterone in as few steps as possible. Mexican yams are a rich source of diosgenin, the raw material to make progesterone in the laboratory.
See this video on how bioidentical hormone progesterone was discovered and synthesized Start at time 52:00. This is a video by Nova Public Broadcasting. https://video.pbs.org/video/2234722993/ It is about the life of Julian Percy. Julian Percy, PhD was an outstanding chemist that led the research to be able to sythesize progesterone cheaply and in quantity for the mass market.
Here is the synthesis chart to create bioidentical natural progesterone:
Giving yam extract or soy to a human either by mouth or on the skin does NOT increase progesterone. Humans cannot convert yam extract or soy extract to bioidentical progesterone. They do not have the necessary enzymes to do so. Yam extract seems to give people more energy, but that's about it. Yam extract or diosgenin has no progesterone effect.
Back then the pharmaceutical companies were not the giants they are today. They were small start ups. Later natural progesterone that is identical to your own hormone did not have patent protection. So there was price erosion. So the pharmaceutical companies chemically modified progesterone to enable patent protection and give some price stability.
If your molecule is patented, then you can charge what the market will bear for the medicine. Unfortunately, small chemical changes will have large biological effects. Some of these large biological effects include tumors and cancer.
Chemically modified progesterone is NOT the same as bioidentical progesterone in terms of chemical structure and in terms of biological effect as a drug.
For instance, a brand name progestin will cause birth defects. However, a bioidentical natural hormone like progesterone will NOT cause birth defects. In fact, Fertility medical doctors routinely use natural progesterone to stop miscarriage in their test tube babies because it does NOT cause birth defects. However, these same medical doctors will NOT use a brand name prescription progestin during pregnancy because it will cause birth defects.
Bioidentical progesterone is made in the lab with the starting material of either yams or soy. Prior to the lab made progesterone, progesterone was extracted from placenta and perhaps the price of progesterone was thousands of dollars per gram. It was too expensive to use as a therapeutic drug. No one could get enough. Nowadays, there is also the threat of viral diseases like AIDS.
When using progesterone for a medicine, the key is to be able produce it economically and in large quantity.
What you would like to do is to find a raw source of material that is close to progesterone and then chemically modify it in as few as steps as possible, with as little loss to the starting material as possible. It turns out that soy oil and mexican yams have a rich source of this starting material. Now the key was to modify the starting material to bioidentical progesterone in as few steps as possible. Mexican yams are a rich source of diosgenin, the raw material to make progesterone in the laboratory.
See this video on how bioidentical hormone progesterone was discovered and synthesized Start at time 52:00. This is a video by Nova Public Broadcasting. https://video.pbs.org/video/2234722993/ It is about the life of Julian Percy. Julian Percy, PhD was an outstanding chemist that led the research to be able to sythesize progesterone cheaply and in quantity for the mass market.
Here is the synthesis chart to create bioidentical natural progesterone:
Giving yam extract or soy to a human either by mouth or on the skin does NOT increase progesterone. Humans cannot convert yam extract or soy extract to bioidentical progesterone. They do not have the necessary enzymes to do so. Yam extract seems to give people more energy, but that's about it. Yam extract or diosgenin has no progesterone effect.
Back then the pharmaceutical companies were not the giants they are today. They were small start ups. Later natural progesterone that is identical to your own hormone did not have patent protection. So there was price erosion. So the pharmaceutical companies chemically modified progesterone to enable patent protection and give some price stability.
If your molecule is patented, then you can charge what the market will bear for the medicine. Unfortunately, small chemical changes will have large biological effects. Some of these large biological effects include tumors and cancer.
Chemically modified progesterone is NOT the same as bioidentical progesterone in terms of chemical structure and in terms of biological effect as a drug.
For instance, a brand name progestin will cause birth defects. However, a bioidentical natural hormone like progesterone will NOT cause birth defects. In fact, Fertility medical doctors routinely use natural progesterone to stop miscarriage in their test tube babies because it does NOT cause birth defects. However, these same medical doctors will NOT use a brand name prescription progestin during pregnancy because it will cause birth defects.