This article will provide readers with a comprehensive understanding of estrogen dominance, its impact on health, and effective strategies to manage and reverse the condition.
Introduction
Estrogen dominance is a situation where your body produces increased estrogen levels, such that your estrogen is no longer equal to your progesterone levels. This article will provide information on estrogen dominance, its symptoms, causes, and solutions.
Understanding Estrogen Dominance
Estrogen dominance is when your body produces too much estrogen in relation to other hormones like progesterone.
What estrogen does in the body
Under normal circumstances, your body produces estrogen as a sex hormone, which is responsible for the development of cells in several areas related to reproductive health, like the breasts, uterus, ovaries, and more. However, too much can result in problems with reproductive and sexual health as well as overall mental health.
Estrogen also helps with pivotal body functions like cardiovascular health, the function of your nervous system and your immune system, as well as your bone health and insulin levels. Once you don't have healthy amounts and you end up with too much estrogen it can cause problems throughout your body.
Types of estrogen dominance
There are two main types of estrogen dominance:
- The first is estrogen dominance, which occurs when your body simply produces too much estrogen.
- The second is estrogen dominance where it doesn't produce enough progesterone which makes your estrogen levels seem higher in comparison.
Understanding the difference between these two can help you figure out what dietary or lifestyle changes might be important in correcting your estrogen dominance.
Causes of estrogen dominance
There are several causes of estrogen dominance, including poor diet, cancer, hormonal changes from menopause or aging, poor sleep, and more. Simple things like poor gut health without the right digestive enzymes can cause estrogen levels to get reabsorbed instead of eliminated. Progesterone deficiencies can cause symptoms of weight gain or decreased sex drive.
Symptoms and Health Impacts of Estrogen Dominance
What does estrogen dominance feel like? If you are struggling with estrogen dominance, you might have severe mood swings because of an imbalance in other hormones like dopamine or serotonin. This results in issues like:
- Irritability
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Low sex drive
- Low energy
With help from a medical professional or a hormonal lab test, you can figure out what your hormone panel looks like and whether or not you are struggling with high estrogen.
How to Avoid Estrogen Dominance
There is no guarantee that you'll be able to permanently avoid estrogen dominance, but you can figure out how to avoid estrogen dominance with as many things as are within your control.
Dietary changes
Firstly, you might need to consider dietary changes. What you eat plays a significant role in your overall health, including your thyroid function, metabolism, inflammation, and immune function. All of this can contribute to or exacerbate hormonal imbalances like estrogen dominance.
If you are trying to reduce or avoid estrogen dominance, there are certain foods that can change your estrogen balance.
- Processed foods
- Red meat
- Alcohol
- Saturated fats
- Soy
- Refined carbohydrates
- Flax seeds
Lifestyle modifications
There are also several lifestyle modifications that you can incorporate when you are trying to figure out how to reverse estrogen dominance or how to avoid estrogen dominance in the first place.
In addition to a healthy diet, it's important that you maintain a healthy weight. Being overweight can be a significant factor that contributes to estrogen dominance and other hormonal imbalances. Engaging in moderate exercise on a daily basis can go a long way toward controlling your level of estrogen.
Higher body fat percentages will increase the amount of estrogen that your body produces because your fat cells are responsible for secreting estrogen. By maintaining a healthy body weight through vigorous exercise and a good diet you can control your hormonal balance and learn how to avoid estrogen dominance.
Reducing stress is equally important. Chronic stress contributes significantly to resting changes for things like adrenaline and estrogen. There are things you can do to reduce the hormonal imbalances caused by chronic stress, particularly meditation, mindfulness, and yoga practices.
Your sleep quality and quantity contribute to hormonal balance. While you sleep, your body is able to regulate your hormones. So if you don't get enough sleep, it can lead to imbalances, particularly with higher levels of estrogen.
Environmental considerations
There are environmental considerations that you have to take into account when you are trying to figure out how to control estrogen dominance and this includes limiting your exposure to toxins.
You'll want to look for environmental toxins, particularly xenoestrogens. Xenoestrogens can be found in things like:
- Personal care products
- Food
- Pesticides
- Plastics
Make sure that you use natural cleaning products and avoid cooking or eating with plastic containers to help reduce this exposure.
How to Control Estrogen Dominance
If you are trying to control estrogen dominance, you can do so with a variety of natural supplements, hormone therapy options, and regular monitoring of your symptoms.
Natural supplements and herbs
Natural supplements and herbs can be incorporated into your lifestyle changes and diet. certain supplements that contain compounds located in things like broccoli or cabbage, DIM, can modulate how well your estrogen levels are metabolized.
Hormone therapy options
One way that you can figure out how to reverse estrogen dominance and how to control estrogen dominance is through hormonal imbalance treatment. Hormonal therapy options can help you change things like:
- Get treatment to support your thyroid function so that it's better regulated
- Get a blood test and hormonal tests that help you create effective treatment plans
- Customize your lifestyle and diet to help regulate your hormones
Importance of regular monitoring and adjustments
If you undergo hormone therapy options or you are changing your lifestyle and diet, you'll want to utilize regular monitoring and make adjustments based on hormone panels. With hormonal testing on a regular basis, you will be able to monitor the efficacy of different efforts you are making, starting with things like lifestyle changes or dietary changes and eventually including things like hormone therapy or natural supplements where necessary.
How to Reverse Estrogen Dominance
The ways in which you figure out how to reverse estrogen dominance are very much the same as what you do to control it or prevent it entirely. You want to eliminate or avoid alcohol consumption as your liver won't be able to process estrogen if it is busy processing alcohol.
You'll also want to focus on eating a healthy diet that limits the amount of processed sugar. This is tangentially connected to limiting alcohol consumption in that your liver is responsible for processing sugar, and if there's too much sugar in things like your food or drink, your liver cannot break down estrogen because it's too preoccupied with breaking down sugar.
By limiting the amount of sugar your body is able to allocate the resources your liver needs to break down estrogen and maintain good balance in your hormones.
Summing Up
Estrogen dominance can be a significant problem, especially for women who are postmenopausal, although it can affect men as well. No matter who it affects, it's important that you learn how to control estrogen dominance if you currently have high estrogen or how to reverse estrogen dominance with things like hormonal therapy or at-home modifications.
If you are experiencing symptoms of high estrogen, don't be afraid to get help particularly with things like blood panels that can verify what your levels of hormones are. From there you'll be able to adopt a balanced lifestyle and seek professional guidance on things like food, supplements, and other alternative therapeutic options.
