You’re low on testosterone? Here’s your needle. High on estrogen? Here are your pills. Low on progesterone? We’ll pass the cream. While conventional medical doctors have your best interest in mind, this is often their starting point—and the end of a deeper investigation. Now, you’re stuck taking hormones for who knows how long, without discovering if you actually do have the ability to produce your own.

It’s important to find the cause before treating your symptoms (Photo: Photo by Jonathan Simcoe via Unsplash)

Why isn’t your body producing hormones? Why is it producing too many? Is there a systematic issue that’s tripping it up and getting you down? These are the questions to ask from the start. The same questions help determine whether you do, in fact, have a hormone disorder—and they might enable you to dispense with the medication. Wouldn’t that be nice?

So, You Have a Hormone Disorder… Now What?

As we discussed in our previous blog post, many patients think they have a hormone issue before they even visit a doctor. From a symptom standpoint, multiple health conditions can manifest as a hormonal imbalance, so it’s important to confirm this first. Once diagnosed through a series of saliva tests, the real magic happens.

Step 1. Find the Cause of the Hormone Disorder

Whether it’s your adrenal glands, metabolic damage, nutritional deficiencies, biochemical stress, PCOS, or intestinal inflammation from food allergies or yeast overgrowth, something is holding back your hormone potential. Once you get to the root of the issue through additional testing, it’s easier to address it.

Step 2. Don’t Be So Quick to Medicate

Turning to medication first is a bad choice for hormone issues (Photo: pixabay.com via Pexels)

If you’re like Suzanne Somers, you’re into a quick fix. She even has her own brand of bio-identical hormone products—medication and supplements that are chemically identical to what our bodies are capable of producing. But easy isn’t necessarily best when it comes to your health. Who wants to live a life popping pills or coating themselves with creams, when you can uncover the cause and take care of your health concerns for good?

Even worse, many of these “solutions” have potential ramifications. As late-night infomercials show the night owls, there are a number of class-action lawsuits related to testosterone replacement and the risk of heart attacks, strokes, and blood clots. That’s a risk we hope you’re not eager to take.

Step 3. Treat the Cause

Once you’ve identified the cause of your hormone imbalance, it’s time to eliminate it—naturally. The most common cause/treatment plans include:

• Metabolic Damage – Get a hold of your weight and nutrition with a personalized plan.
• Chemical Stress – Actively minimize exposure (i.e., stop heating your food in plastic and drinking out of plastic water bottles left in a hot car).
• Nutritional Deficiency – Identify the minerals and vitamins you’re lacking, and infuse them into your diet.
• PCOS – Stabilize ovarian function and limit impact.
• Liver Function – Detox and sweep out toxins for enhanced liver function.

Step 4. Turn to Conventional Medicine if Needed

At Twin Cities Metabolism, we have a resounding success rate with our natural, seek-treat-and-delete hormone solutions. If we’ve identified your health concern and taken all the right steps to correct it, without improvement, you may choose to be referred to a conventional medical practitioner. Whether you need an oral contraceptive to better treat your PCOS or require a more invasive, surgical procedure, you’ll have some peace of mind knowing you took all the right steps beforehand.

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.

“I can’t lose weight… It must be my hormones.”
“My menstrual cycle is abnormal… It must be my hormones.”
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me… It must be my hormones.”

Not a week goes by without a patient coming into our office having already pinned their symptoms on a hormonal problem. And guess what? They’re usually right. Because the big three—sex, thyroid, and stress hormones—wear so many hats, there’s a good chance at least one of them is misfiring, leaving you struggling and confused.

What the Heck Are Hormones Anyway?

The endocrine system works like a symphony to balance hormones (Source: Larisa Birta via Unsplash)

Hormones—such as estrogen, testosterone, and progesterone—are chemical messengers secreted by organs and glands, including the adrenals, thyroid, ovaries, and testicles. Together, they help you sleep, ease your stress, control your sex drive, burn and store fat, and more. Like a symphony, your entire endocrine system works in harmony to control the level of hormones circulating throughout your body—and if there’s even a slight imbalance, your health can fall flat.

But while you may be correct in thinking “It’s my hormones,” there are plenty of other conditions that can mimic the symptoms of a hormone problem. So, let’s look at the five telltale signs that it really is your hormones impacting your health.

The Top 5 Signs You Have a Legitimate Hormone Issue

1. Abnormal Menstrual Cycles

Long, short, heavy, or light, an abnormal menstrual cycle is…well…abnormal. Though it is relatively common, with up to 5 percent of adult women frequently missing periods over an extended length of time, it’s often a sign of a hormonal issue that should not be ignored. When there’s a happy balance between the hypothalamus, pituitary, adrenal, ovarian, and thyroid glands, most women will menstruate once monthly. Irregular cycles, missed periods, or painful and intense PMS symptoms are signs that hormone levels are either lacking or too high.

2. Inability to Burn Fat

A hormone imbalance can affect your ability to burn fat (Source: pixabay)

Some people just don’t eat right or exercise—and, alas, they wind up overweight. Other people stick to a strict diet and practically live at the gym, yet they’re overweight, too. What gives? When we restrict our calories, our metabolism compensates by decreasing our metabolic rate with leptin, the metabolism-regulating hormone. When leptin is high, metabolism is high; when it’s low, our metabolism rate plummets. In the face of this threatening situation, the thyroid and leptin hormones decrease, and stress hormones increase, effectively shutting down your fat-burning ability—known as metabolic adapation. Any attempt to slim down without the proper hormone balance will be in vain.

3. Loss of Libido

Believe it or not, 32 percent of women and 15 percent of men lack the desire to have sex on a regular basis—and for many, they simply don’t bring their hormones to bed. While age certainly has a lot to do with the misfires, a hormone imbalance can occur as early as in your twenties. Whether it’s a decline in DHEA (the “master hormone” that makes estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone), a rise in cortisol (the “stress hormone”), or other hormones like insulin and ghrelin getting in on the act, hormone issues are a huge plot point in the story of low libido.

4. Infertility

Got the sex drive, but can’t get pregnant? Check in with your hormones. For women, the menstrual cycle, egg development, ovulation, and pregnancy all rely on delicately balanced hormones. And the same goes for men and their sperm production. From low progesterone and “low T” to a thyroid disorder or PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome) diagnosis, a hormone imbalance can make it impossible to conceive.

Misfiring hormones can cause skin problems (Source: Isabell Winter via Unsplash).

5. Skin Complaints

Chances are you’ve seen evidence of the acne-hormone connection during puberty, but skin problems can persist well past the teenage years when you have a disorder. Blame your oily cheeks on the boost of DHEA, your redness on excess testosterone, and your chin zits on elevated estrogen.

There Will Be Highs and Lows

So, you were right. It is your hormones. But don’t you want to know why? Look for our next post (next week) about the highs and lows of hormone levels, and how you can balance them out.

Under-eaters can’t lose weight. Over-exercisers aren’t having better luck. Their metabolisms have adapted like Alaskan children plopped onto a tropical island. Except instead of being a good thing, the metabolic adaptation has put them on the brink of metabolic disaster: a destructive hormonal disorder involving the nervous, endocrine, and immune systems. Their hormone imbalances not only fuel their fat-loss resistance, they can cause fatigue, irregular menstrual cycles, low sex drive, and more.

How can misfiring hormones have such a massive effect on metabolism? Like dominoes, when one hormone loses its balance, others soon follow. And any attempt to lose fat without the proper balance of these capable chemical messengers will be in vain.

Hormones Do It All

Hormones wear a lot of hats. They shape the bodies of men and women. They ease stress, help you sleep, regulate your blood pressure and heart rate, help you digest food, control your sex drive, fight infections, control blood sugar, and help you burn and store fat. Sure, the weight-loss struggle involves a balance of calories and exercise, but when you’re facing metabolic damage, hormone imbalance is the bigger culprit. Those dominoes are falling, and you have to take action to set them up again. Here are just a few of the hormone shifts involved in the destruction.

Adrenal Fatigue and Low Cortisol Levels

Humans are hardwired for stress and survival. When you encounter stress, your adrenal glands start to fatigue and produce cortisol (the stress hormone). This hormonal release is a “fight or flight” response designed to prepare you for impending physical challenges. When the stress of your diet gets to be too much and metabolic damage begins, your body starts to produce extra cortisol. When cortisol levels are elevated for quite some time, the adrenals can fatigue causing the cortisol to fall to low levels. This can lead to chronic fatigue, exhaustion, and a disease of the endocrine system called Addison’s disease. Too much cortisol, and you may develop weight gain, depressed immune function, accelerated aging, and stomach ulcers.

Low Leptin/Leptin Resistance

Leptin is the body-fat-locating hormone, charged with the crucial task of keeping you from starving by monitoring how much fat you have stored. When your fat stores are satisfactory, leptin sends a text message to your brain: “Fat’s all good ☺,” and your metabolism and appetite remain at bay. But when your fat stores are insufficient (in the case of the under-eater and over-exerciser), less leptin is produced, sending the brain a “MAYDAY!” text to turn down metabolism, preserve fat, and increase your appetite. When the famine breaks, leptin levels rise, calories go straight to the fat stores, and your metabolism and appetite normalize. But unfortunately, most dieters end up regaining all their lost weight in the process because they simply can’t outsmart leptin.

When the subconscious mind is oblivious to the fact that there’s enough fat to get through a famine, the brain becomes leptin resistant, creating what’s known as “blind fat.” Your brain thinks it’s dealing with a super-thin body, and commands it to slow down metabolism and boost hunger. While ignorance is bliss, in this case, your blinded, leptin-resistant brain causes you to overeat, consume excess carbs, and experience blood sugar spikes, high triglycerides, and chronic stress. Bad brain!

Low Thyroid Levels

Aside from the fact that leptin resistance makes it more difficult to lose weight, it also causes issues with your thyroid gland. As calories are cut and leptin starts to take a dive, the thyroid wants to join the ride. Drops in T4 and T3 (the body’s major fat-burning hormone) can directly (or indirectly) result in a slower metabolism and may cause fatigue, low energy levels, and low sex drive. One study on low-calorie diets showed that when calories stay the same, but carbohydrates are replaced with fat, concentrations of T3 drop significantly. That means that even if you don’t drop your calories too low, cutting carbohydrates too much can affect your metabolism in the same way.

Low Testosterone

Testosterone is the primary male androgenic hormone that’s boosts strength and muscle mass, but it also greatly affects energy production and metabolism. As this hormone slows down protein breakdown and speeds up protein metabolism, your metabolism stays in check. When your fat intake is too low, the fatty acids required to create cholesterol vanish – and thus, cholesterol can’t be converted into testosterone. The stress caused by avoiding all those deliciously fattening foods not only lowers testosterone levels in men and women alike, it also lowers metabolic rates and muscle mass. This can be seen in an ongoing study of wild olive baboons in Kenya, where acute stress has been associated with suppressed testosterone concentrations.

Imbalanced Progesterone to Estrogen Ratio

With long-term stress of any kind, and especially with dieting, progesterone also takes a hit. Estrogen quickly becomes the dominant hormone, creating a fat-loss battle – and most often the hips and thighs are the losers. In time, estrogen can plummet as well, leading to belly fat, breakouts, irregular (or disappearing) menstrual cycles, and PMS.

Immune System Overdrive

While the nervous and endocrine systems are also impacted by metabolic damage, the immune system experiences perhaps the biggest impact. It goes into attack mode, battling your body’s organs, ingested foods, and other everyday chemicals. The increase in intestinal permeability (i.e., Leaky Gut, which we’ll delve into in a future blog post), can lead to gastrointestinal problems, food sensitives, autoimmune diseases.

Don’t Stress … Test

You may be experiencing hormone imbalances and not even know it. Undiagnosed metabolic damage is rampant today because conventional medical providers are simply not testing for them. At Twin Cities Metabolism, we provide the exact tests you need to identify the causes of your stubborn weight loss issues. That includes:

• Blood Tests: to evaluate metabolism, including inflammation, comprehensive thyroid tests (more than just TSH, and T4), liver function, protein levels, blood sugar control, iron levels, and much more.
• Hormone Testing and Adrenal Saliva Tests: to measures the body’s actual active hormones rather than inactive hormones bound to protein which can be found in blood.  
• Stool Tests: to look for infections, fungus and yeast, parasites, intestinal inflammation and how your body is digesting and absorbing nutrients.  
• Urine Tests: to determine if Leaky Gut Syndrome is present.

Once you have concrete test results, you can begin the path to healing your metabolism. By learning about your metabolic issues, following a customized process, and monitoring results, you can take charge of your health once and for all.