Fountain of Youth

Suzanne Somers seems to have been blessed with the Dick Clark gene. No matter how old she gets, she never ages. Her skin still radiates, her hair still shines and her body still woos. Most women, regardless of their age, would settle for just one of those attributes. So, what's the 60-year-old bombshell's secret? Somers will reveal it all at her seminar on women's health Saturday at Suncoast.

Until then, the original Chrissy Snow from "Three's Company" provides a bit of a sneak preview. "Keeping your insides young manifests on the outside," she said. "Your bones work better; you walk better; your brain is even working better."

Somers relies on bioidentical hormones to keep her insides -- and outsides -- young. She swears by the natural hormones created by the Menopause Clinics of America, now affiliated with Revage Medical Spa in Summerlin, opening on Saturday.

"Ten years ago I started taking bioidentical hormones," she said. These supplemental doses of steroid hormones have been used to treat menopause and claim to have some anti-aging effects.

"They put back just what you need (in hormones). Not too much, not too little." The customization of the hormones makes all the difference, she says. "It's like going to a symphony and the orchestra leader doesn't show up," she said. "(Customized bioidentical hormones) is putting the orchestra leader back in your symphony."

Somers describes that time as "the seven dwarfs of menopause visit." The brutally honest Somers sums them up as: "Itchy, Bitchy, Sleepy, Sweaty, Bloated, Forgetful and All Dried Up."

For a woman who manages to put her name on and sell everything from appliances to fitness equipment to jewelry, an endorsement for something not baring her name seems unusual. That said, it speaks to her belief in the menopausal hormone treatment.

Passionate endorsements aside, the Revage Medical Spa Web site does offer potential clients this side note: "...there is no long-term studies that have been done to prove the absolute safety or lack of side effects of BHRT (Bioidentical Hormone Replacement Therapy)."

Last November, the American Medical Association asked the Food and Drug Administration to conduct purity and dosage accuracy surveys on bioidentical hormones, adding that it was concerned that patients were receiving potentially misleading or flawed information about custom-compounded bioidentical hormones.

Somers doesn't count on natural hormones alone to keep her looking like she bathes in a fountain of youth every morning. She also relies on a line of organic skin-care products to provide that youthful look that made her famous. She trusts it, and endorses it, to the same degree she does BHRT. The name of the products? Suzanne skin-care line.