Audiologist Elizabeth Alsgaard, pictured Oct. 16 outside her home in the Playa Vista area of Los Angeles, tried custom-mixed “bioidentical” hormones to deal with menopause. For years, medical groups have warned against custom-compounded hormones.

Miserable in menopause, Elizabeth Alsgaard pondered an awful choice: Drenching hot flashes or hormone therapies that might raise the risk of cancer. What former actress Suzanne Somers raved about held much more appeal — custom-mixed “bioidentical” hormones, just like ones the body makes.

“Anything I can put into my body that’s natural has to be better,” said Alsgaard, a California audiologist who admitted having “no knowledge base to go on other than fear” when she took Somers’ advice.

Millions of women have tried custom-compounded hormones or herbal supplements like black cohosh and red clover since 2002, when a big federal study found risks from traditional hormone replacement therapy, or HRT.

Alternative remedies are especially popular with upscale, educated women who like to research and find their own solutions to medical problems. They like the idea of personalized treatments versus off-the-shelf prescription drugs.

However, instead of a safer option, they are getting products of unknown risk that still contain the estrogen many of them fear, women’s health experts say.

“Misinformation is rampant” about bioidenticals, said Dr. JoAnn Manson, preventive medicine chief at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. She and other experts explain:

• “Bioidentical” is a marketing term that has no accepted medical meaning. Its implied benefit is not unique to alternative remedies; many prescription drugs contain hormones that chemically match estrogens and progesterones made naturally by the body.

• Custom-compounded hormones are not approved by the federal Food and Drug Administration and have not been proved safe or effective. They may carry the same cancer and heart risks as traditional treatments and have had even less testing to find out.

• Hormone preparations do not need to be customized for each woman; a few standard doses work for almost everyone, medical experts say. The saliva tests that some women are given are of dubious value because hormone levels fluctuate widely throughout the day.

• Compounding pharmacists use such different methods that a customized prescription can contain widely varying amounts of hormones depending on who fills it.

• Many compounders use estriol, a form of estrogen not approved for sale in the United States. The FDA is in a battle with compounding pharmacies over its use.