West Palm Beach, Fla. — Celebrity actress-pitchwoman-author Suzanne Somers touts the use of bioioidentical hormones in her book "Ageless, The Naked Truth about Bioidentical Hormones" ($25, Crown Publishers).

Somers shared her passion about this controversial hormone-replacement therapy and her own qualifications to write about them.

Q: Why do you think you are qualified to tell women to take bioidenticals?

A: Because I was dissatisfied with the way my health was being treated relative to menopause and hormones. And I looked around me and found women who were feeling terrible and were all (being given) traditional standard of care. I kept thinking, is this the best you have to offer women? It led me on a search to find a doctor to understand this incredible passage we women all will go through. Unless you have this information, you're going down a route, from my perspective, that is not making women well.

Q: Experts in your book are being debunked for a lack of scientific credentials. How do you respond to that?

A: You're talking about one person, so let's (remove her from) needing scientific credentials. She's a thinker, T.S. Wiley. She's published seven scientific papers ... she's written two major books, and she wrote both of them with leading doctors and Ph.D.s. There are two forces at work: those who have done the work, and those who haven't. They debunk it not even knowing what it is. Then what's the solution? The solution of traditional medicine's standard of care is synthetic hormones. The WHI (Women's Health Initiative study) said Premarin can be dangerous, harmful and even fatal (for extended use). When a woman hasn't found what I found, doesn't want synthetics, then the only thing they have to offer her is the menopause cocktail of antidepressants, tranquilizers, painkillers — all of which are rectified by complete hormonal balance.

Q: What would you say to women who say, "Why should we have hormones that our body is no longer producing?"

A: If they would let us die when our bodies WANT to die, we wouldn't need them. Technology is extending our lifetime. ... Without hormones, there's no quality of life, just a constant and progressive deterioration of the total body health without hormones. If we are going to die by 60, 65, by then, you're pretty much out (of hormones) and you have the ailments we subliminally expect in our society. I'm saying, how about going to the doctor now, when you're well, and circumvent getting the diseases of aging.

Restore yourself to optimal health, optimal hormonal levels.

Q: Your breast cancer was after taking bioidenticals. Were you on synthetics?

A: I was never on synthetics. ... They didn't want me to continue on bioidenticals. I knew more about bios than those who were treating me. My tumor was 10 years old. ... Mammograms never picked it up. Ultrasound picked it up. If there was any culprit, it was 22 years of chemicalization from strong hormone pills: birth control pills. Why do so many women of my generation have breast cancer? We are the same women who have been on all these chemicals.

Q: For the record, you have no stock or any investments in any bioidentical company?

A: None.

Q: Your symptoms are detailed in the book. Did you have a light-bulb moment? What was pivotal for you?

A: Finding finally a doctor who got it, that was pivotal to me. She was my first teacher, and I became the best student she ever had.

At this point, bioidenticals are just a piece of the puzzle. You can go further and further into nondrug medicines. ... I'm not trying to be 20; I'm trying to have vitality, energy, a good working brain and love in my life.