Video summarized in article below.
Normally your body’s estrogen and progesterone is maintained by itself. When you have either too much estrogen or not enough progesterone, you have basically upset the normal balance. So, in the case for example of a normal woman, when you hit menopause, your estrogen level goes down. However, the progesterone level goes down even more. So, if you look at that, it creates an imbalance. This imbalance is oftentimes called estrogen dominance.
Meaning, when you look at the lab values, it’s normal, but if you look at the relative ratio, it’s actually too much estrogen versus progesterone, because progesterone just drops. In fact, it can drop over an amount of 99 percent.
So, when you have estrogen dominance, you have a whole set of symptoms that are unexplainable by laboratory numbers alone. It could be sweating, PMS, irritability. There’s a lot of these issues that can come on.
Some of the causes of estrogen dominance are things you might not even have known.
Some animal products are actually very hormone laced as that’s what they give the animals when they feed them. That, along with pesticides in the factory farms, actually could produce more estrogen-like properties when you eat the meat and even plant pesticides.
Many pesticides are known to be hormone disrupters. In addition to these chemicals lingering on the plant foods when you eat it, they are also added in the environment and you don’t even know when you pass by maybe an orchard.
So, we’re all flooded in the sea of estrogen from food, from the environment. On one hand, we have more estrogen, and on the other hand, our progesterone drops. So, it creates this automatic response of estrogen dominance sometimes.
Actually, some other causes of estrogen dominance can be xenoestrogens, which are actually found in a multitude of products and environmental toxins around people every day, sometimes industrial solvents. Commonly used products in our household such as fingernail polish remover, paint thinners, carpet cleaning products, and insect sprays are just a few sources of these xenoestrogens. So, make sure you do your research on what you’re using in your house, as it could be leading to estrogen dominance.
There’s an app called Think Dirty, and you can actually scan the barcode of your cosmetics, of your detergents, of the soaps. They give you a grade to see if it’s actually good, and it doesn’t have any hormone disruptors. I use it all the time.
Another cause of estrogen dominance is sometimes chronic stress. Over time, the effects of chronic stress can lead to exhausted adrenal glands and reduce the production of progesterone. With the decreased levels of progesterone, then you have that relative increase of estrogen.
Another reason for estrogen dominance is obesity. What other cells other than your adrenals make estrogen? Your fat cells also make estrogen, and that’s why obesity can cause estrogen dominance.
Other causes include vitamin D deficiency and caffeine excess, which can lead to estrogen dominance.
We’ve already mentioned some of them such as PMS, swollen or tender breasts. You might find that you might be more impatient. Sometimes you’re having clots during your period. You might have irregular or missed periods as well, and you might be overweight from estrogen excess as well.
Estrogen deficiency is not as common, but it can still exist.
You know, about 30 or 40 years ago as a woman entered menopause, the estrogen level would go down, but at that time—during the past two generations—there was no excess estrogen in the environment. People were thinner. They were skinnier. They didn’t have the excess estrogen from the adipose tissue. So, indeed, they would go into estrogen deficiency symptoms.
We can include things like hot flashes, dry skin, and irritability. Very much similar to estrogen dominance. So, estrogen deficiency and estrogen dominance can present with very similar symptoms.
Now, this is a big problem because as the society changes and as we gain in size and our environment becomes more toxic, we actually shifted from the estrogen weakness or estrogen deficiency to estrogen dominance.
Now, if you have an estrogen deficiency, you want to give estrogen, and that’s why for many years we put a woman on estrogen replacement, and it works fantastically. But as bodies changed, as the society changed, now the body itself becomes estrogen dominant, and you still give even more estrogen.
We didn’t change fast enough. Then guess what? The cells become bathed in estrogen and what does estrogen do? Excessive estrogen can cause cancer.
Therefore, you’re basically putting more fuel into the fire. So, the deficiency of estrogen can be similar to estrogen dominance, edema, weight gain, headache, appetite changes, sleeplessness, irregular menstrual cycle, stop and go. All these things are all part of it.
So, how would you know? It’s not just the labs. You have to look at the body. Look at the history and look at all the pieces that go along with it. Then you’ll be able to tell with relative certainty whether it is estrogen deficient or estrogen dominant because the two are opposing. You don’t want to step on the wrong path because it can become very unpleasant.
So now we’re going to learn how to actually balance the estrogen. So, if you’re having a lot of estrogen dominance, what you can use is natural progesterone. Other ways to really combat this estrogen dominance would be to make some dietary adjustments, meaning you want to have a low-fat high fiber plant-based diet. Meaning if you do eat meat, make sure it’s organic and not fed hormones.
You want to cut down on the amount of coffee and tea and caffeine that you’re taking in and reduce any phytoestrogens that you’re taking in. Another way you can also work to decrease the amount of estrogen is by helping detox your liver. That can be done through supplements. The other way will be to maintain a good weight and exercise.
Some of the supplements that you can use to balance estrogen are vitamin C, quercetin, fish oil, and pregnenolone. DHEA is also common in balancing estrogen, and also pyridoxine can be used to balance estrogen.
However, you have to be very careful. While these have good estrogen balancing effects, they also can be disruptive. Remember, if you have adrenal fatigue and your body internally is compromised, then even, for example, pregnenolone. It flows down, but sometimes it flows in the wrong way. Therefore, you don’t get the desired effect for yourself. So, you can get a paradoxical effect. You can get acne. You can get hair loss. You can have all kind of symptoms that is not normally present in people.
First of all, estrogen deficiency, the estrogen-progesterone ratio, is already complex. You throw in adrenal fatigue on top of that, and it just becomes so convoluted for most people. If you’re not fully literate and educated in how to decipher the intricacies, you can get thrown off very easily.
We also didn’t really talk about the supplements that would be able to help your liver. Things like calcium-d-glucarate or milk thistle will actually help metabolize your hormones better, whether it’s the estrogen or the progesterone. That’s why having a good, strong, non-congested liver is important to hormone balance also.
Unfortunately, in the case of adrenal fatigue, but the problem is that some of these with best intentions, they can actually cause things to get worse, because if you have an adrenal disruptor and the body’s already full of metabolites and you throw more metabolites by removing toxins with the greatest of intentions, you can actually cause a retoxification reaction. So, these are things that we have to be very careful of.
© Copyright 2021 Michael Lam, M.D. All Rights Reserved.
