One morning after she’d turned 37, Dr. Jessica Nazarro looked in the mirror and saw “changes on my face that I’ve never seen before.” There were, she told me, new fine lines, a rough texture, a dullness that was “just sort of blah.”
Nazarro, now 38, had blazed through med school and residency in her 20s. Then there was the blur of years of a high-stress job and breastfeeding and chasing kids. Like Sleeping Beauty, her vanity awoke with a start. Nazarro is an Ohio-based obstetrician/gynecologist, so her first thought wasn’t a peel or Botox. It was estrogen, formulated into a face cream.
“I use it every night, and I feel like my skin is more hydrated, less red, and my fine lines have softened. Estrogen is our key to aging well,” she says. This is what she tells viewers of a social media video she made for the telehealth company Musely, which sells topical beauty products that require a doctor’s prescription because they contain estrogen.
Nazarro is at the vanguard of the latest skirmish in the long-running estrogen wars. At issue is whether this hormone can enhance and extend a woman’s feeling of vitality, or whether it is a dangerous molecule that can hasten disease, even death.
If you are a woman of a certain age, and the algorithm has found you, estrogen’s comeback won’t be news. You’ll have already encountered countless testimonials that estrogen doesn’t just provide relief from hot flashes and mood disturbances, but overall life enhancement.
