Why gut health is important in eliminating estrogen dominance
Estrogen is an important female and male hormone and belongs to a group called Androgens (sex hormones). Around Day 14 in your cycle, estrogen naturally rises and helps release a matured ovum from the follicle. At the same time, it makes it all nice and juicy down there for the sperm to have a smooth journey. Estrogen is responsible for all 2nd sex characteristics like breast, pubic hair, wider hips.
So many of us women experience mild or severe imbalances that unfortunately are left unattended. PMS, painful periods, breast tenderness just to mentioned a few, are mostly perceived as ‘normal’ and never treated.
I’m saying: It's time to pay attention to what our bodies have to say!
What is estrogen dominance and what is at the root of this hormonal imbalance?
Estrogen plays an important role in the female menstrual cycle, reproduction, growing a baby, it’s needed for bone and heart health, energy and vitality, and it’s the hormone that drops off after menopause when so many women start to feel awful. Estrogen is what makes us sexy, attractive and un-stoppable.
However, too much estrogen can throw us off our horse and can lead to unwanted things like:
Breast cancer
Endometriosis
Fibrocystic Breasts
Painful Periods
Low Libido
Mood Swings
Weight Gain
Fatigue
Migraines
Many Other Symptoms
When we experience any of these symptoms, most of them are very unpleasant, our body is actually communicating with us. It is letting us know that something is not right and we get to ask the right questions, look in the right places, and correct the imbalance it is highlighting.
Again, thank estrogen!
What causes estrogen dominance?
Hormonal imbalances can be depend on your genetic makeup, environmental exposure and toxicity, liver detoxification processes, what kind of estrogen your body prefers, dietary choice and your GUT health.
Let's dive in...
There are two ways how estrogen can build up:
One way is how much is coming in through diet and environment and how much is produced in your body
The other way is estrogen not leaving the body and being recycled back into the blood stream
And this is where it gets interesting – our gut health is crucial to our overall health for many, many reasons and why I am mentioning it in regards to hormonal imbalance, its because of this reason:
Our gut helps to eliminate excess estrogen.
So it’s important how well your microbiome and daily elimination is.
Your liver does a big part in processing, or conjugating (excess) estrogen. It essentially takes what it needs and sends the rest to the digestive tract, where it can be eliminated.
Unfortunately, if the microbiome is not doing so well and the “estrobolome’, a group of bacteria that impacts estrogen metabolism, produces too much of an enzyme called beta-glucuronidase, the transfer can not happen and estrogen is send right back to where it came from and causes trouble.
On the other hand, if the transfer happens but you are not pooping regularly, estrogen hangs out and is most often getting reabsorbed, in a more toxic form. These not-so good forms of estrogen have implications in conditions such as breast cancer and endometriosis, and this adds to the overall estrogen burden we do not want.
This sounds like a lot, but if you have a daily bowel movement you are on the right path!
Here are some tips to improve your microbiome and bowel movement:
Every morning upon waking drink 8oz of room temp water with lemon juice
Drink at least 2L of water everyday to help move your bowel
Eat probiotic and prebiotic rich food daily, like organic natural yogurt, kefir, sauerkraut, kimchi
Get enough fibre (at least 40g). It adds bulk to the stool and binds to excess estrogen.
Exercise! regular exercise helps to move the bowl
To Better Hormonal Health,
Xx Mareike