You’ve had some acne, a bit of hair loss, and a growing spare tire under your shirt. Could be that you’re eating right, exercising, and not all that stressed out. If that’s the case, it might be time to see if you’re high…on hormones.

Your hormones—particularly your sex hormones—have critical control over many of your body’s functions. When the levels are too high, those functions can diminish, along with your health and self-esteem. While you may feel “hormonal” at certain times of the month, if you have severely elevated levels of estrogen or testosterone, you could be dealing with a more serious condition.

Effects of Estrogen and Testosterone Overload

PCOS

If you’re plagued with acne, male-pattern baldness, or you can’t get rid of that belly pudge, you could be suffering from one of the most common hormonal disorders in women: polycystic ovarian syndrome, or PCOS. This common, yet highly treatable condition causes an overproduction of both the female and male sex hormones with the formation of tiny cysts on the ovaries. Symptoms may include:

PCOS can cause acne, hair loss, and weight gain (Photo: Pixabay)

• Weight gain, often appearing as roundness around the middle
• Menstrual abnormalities, especially heavy, painful periods
• Hair loss from the scalp and hair growth on the face, back, or chest
• Oily skin and acne
• Fertility issues
• Insulin resistance and too much insulin
• Depression or mood swings

Fibroids

Sometimes, that “spare tire” isn’t actually fat—it’s a fibroid. Caused by elevated estrogen levels, these noncancerous tumors grow within the uterine wall and can range in size from a few millimeters to as large as a watermelon. When they’re this big, a woman’s stomach can become so distended that she looks pregnant. You might not have any symptoms at all. If you do, look for:

• Frequent urination
• Bladder or rectum pressure
• Constipation and/or rectal pain
• Lower back and/or abdominal pain

The Chemical Connection

Much of today’s fruit is sprayed with chemical pesticides (Photo: Nancy Folgmann via Pexels)

That fruit that fills your fridge, the spray that cleans your counters, the container you put your couscous in while it cooks. A growing number of synthetic chemicals have been added to our lives in the form of plastics, resins, and pesticide, and they’re silently damaging your health. These chemicals, known as endocrine disruptors, interfere with the actions of hormones by imitating them (known as estrogen mimetics), or increasing or decreasing their production.

Enter Estrogen Dominance

Our increased exposure to chemicals has created an environment that’s threatening our health. Enter estrogen dominance, a hormonal condition that can cause several concerning symptoms in both women and men. Put simply, estrogen dominance is when there’s too much of the female sex hormone floating around in your bloodstream. Everyone—men, women, and children—suffer from it because there’s just so much of it in our environment. You’d have to practically live in a bubble to avoid pesticides, plastics, car exhaust, and cleaners—and unfortunately, they’re all increasing the level of estrogen that surrounds us.

Estrogen dominance manifests as mid-section weight gain, acne, heavy periods, mood disorders, and more. You can especially see it in the increase of men carrying fat in their chest area—a phenomenon rarely seen before the onset of this plasticized generation. At the same time, being overweight itself can also cause estrogen dominance. As your body fat increases, so do your levels of the enzyme aromatase, which converts testosterone to estrogen. More estrogen means more fat, and with more estrogen in the environment, the harmful effects are doubled.

Is Low the Way to Go?

Although high hormone levels are bad for your health, low levels can be equally as detrimental. Next week, we’ll take a look at what happens when yours are in a slump.