Dr. William Ferril
I met Dr. Ferril about five years ago at a conference that Dr. Jonathan V. Wright was hosting on the use of bioidentical hormones. The conference was a good mix of theory, clinical diagnostics and therapeutic recommendations – Dr. Wright was focusing on patient lab results, and after working through possible diagnoses, he made recommendations for treatment changes. In other words, the prescribing of hormones was based on the observed measurement of urinary hormone levels, as well as hormone metabolite excretion in the urine. Dr. Ferril spoke at the meeting from a slightly different perspective. Rather than focusing primarily on hormone levels, he was concerned about overall metabolic functioning and the interrelationship of the hormones and insulin on metabolism. From his perspective, it made little sense to prescribe hormones if the net result was an aggravation of the metabolic function. He talked of the example of the doctor’s prescribing estrogen for a menopausal woman who is obese – invariably, the estrogen will lead to a worsening of her obesity. Ferril thinks that such an estrogen prescription would be unjustified unless other hormone factors were addressing the metabolic dysfunctioning.
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