My Google-fu seems to be failing me. Do these hormones come from animals, or are they synthesized?
Not sure about birth control pills, but the hormone replacement pill, Premarin, comes from PREgnant MAres’ urINe.
The ethinyl estradiol component is synthetic derivative of estradiol, I believe, and I think that estradiol is, in turn, derived from cholesterol.
The progestin component can have either a vegetable or animal source as the base, I believe, with further modifications done to the source base.
I’ve always assumed these various end products are sort of made from underlying ones, and that the source of the “original” might vary substantially from one manufacturer to another depending upon which compound you are talking about who is producing it.
You might need to ask which particular oral contraceptive you are talking about to find out how that exact one is manufactured.
Perhaps a chemist or a pharmacist will come along and help. For a particular OC, the labeling might tell you what the basic source is.
One common hormone, Premarin (similar family though not an OC), is made from pregnant mare’s urine, as an example…
If I were Googling it, I’d look for progestin and ethinyl estradiol commercial production.
Premarin is actually what made me ask this question. I heard about the pregnant mare urine, but I thought, “Surely not!” I stand corrected.
What I’m personally taking is Norinyl, a combination of norethindrone and ethinyl estradiol.
I’m not 100% sure on this, but I do recall that certain steroids are relatively easy to mass produce using bacteria that have been genetically engineered to over-express them. The molecule of interest is relatively trivially extracted from the vat the bacteria lives in, and then various chemical modifications can be made in a standard chemical lab. Some plants can be engineered the same way - I believe the company Syntex obtained it’s hormones from yams. Sorry I don’t have more details, it’s been a long time since my biochemical production course!
Insulin, also a hormone, is certainly produced in vitro these days by recombinant DNA technology.
Premarin used to be made from actual pregnant mares urine, but in the last few years, they have switched over to using a synthetic base. Improvements in producing the synthetics, and rising costs for pregnant mare care led to this change.
One of the rising costs of pregnant mares was defending against attacks from PETA & similar organizations. The drug industry had been gradually reducing the number of pregnant mares and moving toward synthetics, but this pressure led to a rather sudden & abrupt termination of all* the contracts for pregnant mare urine.
This abrupt switchover left a whole bunch of pregnant mares with no economic reason to exist. And the number of them was much too big to be absorbed by the regular recreational horse industry. So they mostly ceased to exist – they largely ended up as horsemeat in French kitchens, or as canned dogfood. Probably not what PETA intended, but IMO, that organization is not very good at realistic planning.
*Except for a few. There are still some medical situations where the synthetics are not workable, and actual organically-derived premarin is needed. So there are still a few farms out there still collecting pregnant mares urine for this. But only a few, compared to the number a decade ago.
I would not pretend to be an expert at all on this, but I don’t think this is the case. As far as I know (and the Wyeth prescribing info seems to back this up), Premarin is still made from the urine of pregnant mares. Now, of course, there are substitute medications not made that way, but are you sure Premarin itself is no longer manufactured from natural (equine) sources?
“DESCRIPTION
PREMARIN® (conjugated estrogens tablets, USP) for oral administration contains a mixture ofconjugated estrogens obtained exclusively from natural sources, occurring as the sodium salts ofwater-soluble estrogen sulfates blended to represent the average composition of material derivedfrom pregnant mares’ urine.” http://www.wyeth.com/content/showlabeling.asp?id=131
Sorry, I should have been clearer.
Hormone replacement drugs currently prescribed are no longer made from pregnant mares urine, for the most part. Premarin IS still made from that, and is still used in certain medical situations. But it has mostly been replaced by other drugs, which are made from synthetic ingredients.
I’m not so sure Premarin is going away as rapidly as one might think, or for that reason:
“*Premarin sales rose 15 percent to $276 million, continuing to recover somewhat from long-standing concerns that the drugs can increase the risk of breast cancer and stroke. *”
These numbers are, of course, still markedly down from closer to $2B before the big Premarin scare 5 or 6 years ago, but that drop was related more to health concerns and less to competition from viable substitutes, as far as I know. I’m surprised Premarin has hung on as long as it has (health concerns notwithstanding) because it does seem such a primitive product compared with synthesizable substitutes. Sort of reminds me of the old dessicated thyroid days.
I don’t know much about the medical situation; my knowledge is from the other end – the horse operations. Nearly all of them (I’d say 90-95%) have shut down operations rather suddenly within the last few years. It’s had quite an impact on the horse industry in the Midwest, with a big increase in the number of unwanted horses, way more than the existing rescue/retirement operations can handle.