Hormones have become a popular topic in the health and wellness world lately, and for good reason. During my previous nationwide tour I found that over 80% of the audience were experiencing hormone health related concerns. 

But what are hormones and what important roles do they play in our body?

Hormones are chemical messengers in the body that tell our cells what to do. We have over 50 different hormones that flow around the body, coordinating our mood, digestion, energy levels, women’s menstruation, fertility and more. Most of the functions that our body perform happen as a result of a hormone!

When our hormones are perfectly balanced, they coordinate our body’s systems like an intricately choreographed dance. Issues arise when our hormones fall out of sync. This effectively turns our beautifully choreographed dance into a disjointed, uncoordinated rhythm and creates a hormonal imbalance. This leads to the likes of mood disorders, weight gain, fatigue and menstrual issues.

I largely contribute increases in hormone imbalance to our modern day environment being completely geared against our hormones in three key ways. Firstly the increase of toxins in the products we use, the food we eat and in our environment. Secondly the prevalence of nutrient deficiencies and lastly our increased lifestyle stressors.

BePure Hormone Health Questionnaire

In the BePure Hormone Health Questionnaire we assessed your progesterone (women only), oestrogen, androgens and cortisol. This was based on the key hormones we see an imbalance in at the BePure Clinic.

Read on below to understand more about each of these hormones, the roles they play in your body, how they become imbalanced and ways you can naturally heal them back to balance.

Progesterone

Progesterone is a female only sex hormone, produced in a woman’s ovaries and adrenal glands, that plays a large role in fertility. It should be the dominant hormone in the second phase of menstruation and is responsible for the thickening of a woman’s endometrial lining, preparing the womb to receive a fertilised egg.

On top of this, progesterone is also important for mood, supporting you in keeping calm and centered.

In the BePure Clinic, we often see cases of low progesterone. To understand why low progesterone is so prevalent, it’s important for us to look at stress levels.

Progesterone is a precursor to cortisol, our main stress hormone. As such, in times of high stress, our body will prioritise making cortisol over progesterone. This is known as the pregnenolone steal and is becoming a big issue with the increasing amount of stressors, both physical and perceived, in our modern day environment.

This is action by the body makes perfect sense. In times of stress it is far more important for the body to create cortisol to ‘run away’ from danger (fight or flight), than to invest in lining the womb for fertility.  When faced with stress, a woman's body is prioritising survival over reproduction.

Low progesterone can result in;

• Agitation, low mood pre-period
• Menstrual migraines
• Irregular bleeding/spotting
• Unhealthy breast tissue
• Low libido
• Bloating, puffiness or water retention
• Anxiety
• Weight gain
• Infertility

Oestrogen

Oestrogen is present in both men and women, but at much higher levels in women.

This female sex hormone is responsible for making you feel confident, extroverted, and in control. Oestrogen is directly tied to serotonin, the feel good hormone, so without it you’re more inclined to enter a depressive state.

In women oestrogen is the dominant hormone in the first half of the menstrual cycle and stimulates the release of a mature egg for fertility.

In our work at the BePure Clinic, we often see women with high levels of oestrogen, or with the wrong form of oestrogen. This is largely attributed to the increase in toxins we are constantly exposed to in the likes of processed foods, plastic, skin care and pesticides. These toxins are mostly xenoestrogens and mimic the action of oestrogen in our body, resulting in a hormonal imbalance called oestrogen dominance.

Excess oestrogen can result in;

• Bloating, puffiness or water retention
• Heavy, painful or clotted bleeding
• Rapid weight gain (especially on your hips and buttocks)
• Endometriosis
• Mood swings
• Migraines or other headaches
• Weepiness
• Trouble sleeping
• Gallbladder problems (or removal)

In men

• Man boobs
• Increase of fat in the upper body and obliques
• Prostate issues

Androgens

Androgens are a group of hormones that include testosterone and its precursors, DHEAS, DHEA and Androstenedione.

Testosterone is the dominant male hormone and is produced in the testicles of men, the ovaries of women and in the adrenal glands of both sexes. Testosterone is closely tied to the dopamine hormone, our pleasure and reward hormone. This makes it important for a sense of get-up-and-go, well-being, confidence, maintaining muscle tone, bone growth, and sexual function.

The main contributing factor to excess androgens is unstable blood sugar levels over a sustained period of time. Food cravings, getting ‘hangry’, and erratic energy levels are all signs that you're not stabilising blood sugar as well as you could be and perhaps are not eating right for your macronutrient profile.

Symptoms of high androgens in women include;

• Inability to build muscle mass
• Excess hair growth on the face, chest, belly button and arms
• Widening of the jaw
• Deepening of the voice
• Acne and oily skin and hair
• Reactivity and/or irritability, excessively aggressive or authoritarian episodes
• PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome)
• Depression or anxiety

Cortisol

Cortisol is the primary stress response hormone, created by the adrenal glands in both men and women.

It is part of your sympathetic nervous system and when elevated it stimulates your body by raising your blood pressure and blood sugars. This stimulation acts as a strong anti-inflammatory, assisting you in responding to danger with the ability to fight or take flight.

Cortisol follows a natural daily rhythm with a peak in the morning at 8am (this gets us out of bed!), that naturally declines through the day.

Quite often, when under chronic stress at work or at home, your cortisol levels remain high and never drop down, not even at night during our time to rest. This results in our adrenal glands never having a chance rest and regenerate. This persistent stress response works to create a dysfunction in the adrenal glands where they struggle to produce cortisol at the right time of day, also known as ‘adrenal fatigue’.

Symptoms of low cortisol include;

• Fatigue or a feeling of being ‘burnt out’
• Especially noticing fatigue around 3pm (3pm slump)
• Finding it hard to get out of bed in the morning
• Lack of hunger first thing in the morning
• Decreased problem solving ability
• Decreased stress tolerance
• Find you get sick easily and recovery is harder
• Increased allergies
• Salt craving
• Thyroid problems

What can you do to balance your hormones?

• Stabalise your blood sugar levels
• Manage stress levels
• Increase your nutrient levels
• Support  and reduce the load on your liver
• Detox your environment and lifestyle
• Seek out more comprehensive testing at the BePure Clinic