From the Desk of Carolyn Dean MD ND
Most people (including mainstream medical doctors) don’t understand the incredible orchestration of hormones in the body and the many ways that balance can be disrupted. Here, I hope to give women a better understanding of our hormones, let you know why they may be out of balance, and provide you with some ways to achieve hormone harmony.
What Dr. Google or an MD might say about Hormone Balance
The human body has more than 50 hormones in its endocrine system and the balance of these hormones is essential to optimal health because they tell all parts of your body what to do and when to do it. Hormones are created and released by several glands, organs and tissues, regulating bodily processes in complex chain reactions. The top 8 hormones are estrogen, progesterone, insulin, cortisol, testosterone, growth hormone, adrenaline (epinephrine), and thyroid hormones.
Hormonal imbalance occurs when one or more these chemical messengers is too high or too low, resulting in mixed or inaccurate signals being sent through the bloodstream to the organs, skin, muscles and tissues involved with the hormones.
Every system in the body is regulated by hormones and their imbalance can dramatically affect our:
- Metabolism
- Homeostasis – blood pressure and blood sugar and body temperature regulation
- Sexual function and reproduction
- Growth and development
- Mood and behavior
- Sleep cycle
Symptoms associated with hormone imbalance
With hundreds of processes directed by our hormones, the most common symptoms of an imbalance for women include:
- Irregular menstruation, heavy or missed periods
- Hot flashes, night sweats
- Low libido, vaginal dryness, painful sex
- Difficulty falling asleep and staying asleep, inadequate restful sleep
- Mood fluctuations, anxiety, depression, irritability
- Hair loss, excess hair growth
- Unexplained weight changes
What causes hormone imbalances?
I was surprised to see that Google AI presented environmental factors as contributors to hormone imbalance. Exposure to toxins like pesticides, BPA plastic (xeno estrogens), synthetic chemicals in household and personal care products are said to disrupt the endocrine system.
Other causes of hormone imbalance:
- Lifestyle factors including stress, poor diet, being overweight, being sedentary, excessive caffeine or alcohol
- Medications like birth control pills, steroids, antidepressants
- Fertility treatments
- Hormonal cancer treatments
- Medical conditions affecting the endocrine glands including type 1 diabetes, Graves’ disease, Hashimoto’s disease
Dr. Google might suggest medical testing
If you’re dealing with any of this myriad of symptoms for an extended period of time, or in a way that affects your daily life, your doctor might suggest blood tests to determine hormone levels or refer you to an endocrinologist.
Dr. Google might … I mean, Will, suggest drugs
You may be prescribed a hormone replacement (usually synthetic) if certain hormones are out of balance. In my experience, and according to what I’ve learned from patients and clients over the years, prescriptions are written with little mention of diet, lifestyle and supplementation changes.
For a thyroid hormone imbalance, you may be prescribed synthetic thyroid hormone.
Menopausal women are given replacement estrogen and progesterone.
Women and girls with irregular, painful periods are given birth control pills (whether or not they are sexually active)
What I say about Hormone Balance
You can see that balancing more than 50 hormones is a monumental undertaking for your body, and women, in particular can struggle with hormone balancing from menses to menopause. To think that doctors can insert synthetic hormones into this biochemical galaxy is almost absurd.
Where does it all begin. Hormone imbalance starts when we have irregular periods in our teens. . . in our twenties when we’re hit with PMS or endometriosis . . . during pregnancy when mood swings and food cravings are easily blamed on rocketing hormones . . . and again in menopause when any and all symptoms are blamed on “the change.” But nobody seems to know what’s really going on.
Young women on “the pill”
Medical interference with women’s hormones starts with the birth control pill (BCP)– and it goes downhill from there. Girls as young as 12 years old are given the birth control pill, a synthetic hormone, to help alleviate painful, irregular periods.
Note: Although cramping and painful periods may be due to a deficiency of progesterone and an excess of estrogen, many doctors prescribe the pill (which is usually estrogen-dominant) to alleviate painful symptoms. That’s why some women have intolerable estrogen-induced side effects on the pill – such as weight gain, mood swings, and breast tenderness – even though their painful periods may have been effectively suppressed.
Dr. Google gives many different answers about how long a woman is safe to stay on the BCP. Some sources say 10 years, other sources say that it’s unsafe after age 35. I saw several sources saying that as long as you don’t smoke you can stay on BCP as long as you like. But that theory is a vast generalization and means nothing to the individual who suffers a stroke due to the BCP.
BCP side effects
What is never mentioned is that the metabolism of BCPs by the liver requires extra amounts of the methylating B-complex vitamins, vitamin C, magnesium, and zinc. (I know, you were waiting for me to mention supplements!) This means that during all the years we took BCPs, we were creating nutrient deficiencies. Weight gain, fluid retention, mood changes, depression, and even heart disease can all arise from such nutrient imbalances.
Is infertility a side effect of the BCP?
While Dr. Google says an emphatic no, even though they have yet to study this associated, I am convinced that taking the BCP for ten and fifteen years is obviously contributing to the epidemic of infertility in young women. With a medical diagnosis of infertility invariably comes “fertility drugs.” The perfect “create the disease and offer the cure scenario.” When I was in practice I had very few patients come to me with problems of infertility. When they did, diet, supplements, treating both partners, and emotional support usually did the trick.
When gynecologists are asked if the BCP is a factor in infertility, they hedge and say probably not. Some will say that there are no studies to show that the BCP is associated with infertility…like I said, because they haven’t even done them.
Let’s look at what we do know. If a young girl has irregular periods, she is often offered the BCP to “regulate” them before she has even established a normal cycle. Ten years later, when that young woman and her partner want to become pregnant, she is simply told to go off the pill but wait three to six months for her own cycles to become regulated even though they never had a chance to regulate naturally in the first place.
If she doesn’t become pregnant – without ever being given suggestions for an improved lifestyle, a better diet, or supplementary nutrients – the couple is sent to a “fertility” expert who begins a long series of tests and treatments that usually culminate in fertility drugs. Incidentally such treatments are very costly.
These very strong fertility hormones may have long-term effects that are not yet recognized. For example, I’m hearing from women who have been treated with fertility drugs and are now experiencing extremely early menopause.
Menopause – more interference with natural hormones!
Menopause is another normal life event that has been labelled a disease and medicated with hormone replacement therapy (HRT) since the 1960s. Early drugs put women’s health at considerable risk and rather than steering women towards natural options, they continue to be prescribed synthetic hormones to alleviate the symptoms of their “disease”.
You can read my historical account of hormone replacement therapy from the 1960’s to the present in my book, Total Body Reset for Women. Women’s lives were put at risk for 40 years so that drug companies could flourish from the sale of HRT.
Supplements for Hormone Balance:
For women of any age who suspect they have hormonal imbalance, the first order of business is to correct the vitamin and mineral deficiencies that have been brought on by years of hormonal interference from the BCP, fertility treatments and HRT.
The following supplements can be considered, in addition to a clean diet and regular exercise, to support hormonal balancing:
Magnesium should be in the picometer, stabilized ionic form. And the dose should be around 600mg per day. This liquid magnesium is diluted in a liter of sea-salted water and sipped throughout the day. Magnesium is necessary for the proper function of 80% of known metabolic functions. Those functions include hormone production and detoxification.
Vitamin D is a prohormone, which regulates the production of hormones as well aiding the absorption of calcium to protect our bones. Most vitamin D blood tests show that we may need about 5,000iu a day along with a dose of vitamin K2.
Vitamin B Complex – methylated and food based proves several B vitamins that are necessary for adrenal support and detoxification.
Multiple Minerals – picometer, stabilized mineral ions support thyroid hormone production as well as adrenal and sex hormone balance.
I know you’re reading this blog because you’re already tapped into the kind of information I share about illness and disease and their underlying explanations, solutions and interventions. And I know you’re likely frustrated because you’re in possession of this information that could help someone you care about. Please forward this blog to someone you care about who has questions and concerns about their hormones.
Carolyn Dean MD ND
The Doctor of the Future
