If your hormones are balanced then menopause is a smooth transition, that means no hot flashes, night sweats, insomnia. And in your reproductive years if your hormones are balanced your periods would be regular and you’d have no other symptoms other than monthly bleeding. Therefore if you’ve got irregular periods, heavy bleeding, menstrual cramps, changes in moods these are all signs that your hormones are out of balance.
The most common hormone imbalance is estrogen levels are too high and progesterone levels are too low.
So you may be wondering how do your estrogen levels get too high. Usually the estrogen levels are increased due to synthetic estrogens in the body. There are 3 main sources of synthetic estrogens:
- Synthetic hormones from animal sources. These are animals that have been injected with hormones and when we consume them, we are also consuming the synthetic hormones.
- Pesticides have estrogen-like properties. When we consume our vegetables and fruits that have been sprayed by pesticides. When the pesticides are inside our bodies they act like estrogens and increase our estrogen levels.
- By taking hormones such as the birth control pill or hormone replacement therapy. These synthetic hormones throw off our natural hormone balance.
Therefore, to balance our hormones we need to reduce these sources of synthetic hormones in our bodies. We can do this by consuming organic animal proteins and organic vegetables and fruits and by not taking synthetic hormone medications. We can also increase consumption of cruciferous vegetables, such as broccoli, which contains indole-3-carbinol that is able to move synthetic estrogens out of the body.
The other problem is progesterone levels being too low. This occurs especially in the menopausal years when the ovaries are no longer the main producer of female hormones and instead the adrenals take over that role. Therefore we need to support adrenal function during menopause, in order to support hormone balance. In your reproductive years, if adrenal function is low, your body will convert progesterone into adrenal hormones, further lowering progesterone levels. Therefore, it is important to support adrenal function in reproductive years as well. We can do that with high-quality supplements or vitamin IVs or be consuming foods that contain B-vitamins and vitamin C.
