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Fertility Education
All About Oestrogen Dominance: Definition, Causes & Treatment | Must listen If Struggling To Lose Weight
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Hello and welcome. I'm Manali Hirani, your host and creator of fertility education, shortly named as Fertilityed. I launched this podcast with a mission which is to educate people and share my knowledge about the subject of fertility. And by doing this, I believe that it will empower women to make an informed decision of their sex life and future family planning. And I'm pretty excited to bring you my next episode of podcast just to introduce myself again. I am a certified embryologist, hypnotherapist, natural family planning practitioner and your fertility advisor. And I have had my presence in this field for over 10 years now and I am using this platform to share my knowledge, experience and empower you on your next step regarding fertility. I will be covering a range of topics through my podcast episode which will educate you further to understand your own body and this broad field. And if you are one of those who are suffering from infertility, I want to tell you that you are not alone in this journey. And as a fertility advisor, I will try my best to educate you so you can keep your fertility health up to the mark. So let's learn, empower and inspire. Right then, here we go. Hello and welcome to Fertility Ed Podcast. This is your host, Manali Harani. We complete it from 50 episodes. I so hope that so far you have enjoyed this journey of fertility education and have learned so much from last 50 episodes. This is like one of the milestones that we have completed in our podcast world. So thank you so much for being so supportive and all I want is please spread the word. Please spread this education. That's what the main motto behind this podcast is. We want to spread the knowledge as much as we can and without you all it's not possible. So please do share this podcast, do comment, send me reviews and send me any topics that you really want me to cover. And with that, today's topic is also one of the most demanded topic. Estrogen. Specifically, I'm going to talk about estrogen dominance. So let's get started. Now, you have likely heard about the hormone estrogen a lot by now. But do you understand the powerful role it plays in a woman's entire body system impacting your mood, energy and weight? Well, estrogen is also known as the feminizer. The feminizer is the hormone that tells females bodies to widen the pelvis and store excess fat reserve in the hips and thighs. And it is what gives women their feminine trait. But like all hormones, when estrogen becomes unbalanced, especially when there is too much estrogen in comparison to progesterone problem arises and a big issue for many women is weight management. But the problem isn't what we have been led to believe. You know, when it comes to weight loss, only about 30% of the puzzle is attributable to to the calories we eat, while the rest is down to hormones. In the female body, estrogen is needed for puberty, for menstrual cycle, for pregnancy, for bone strength and maintaining normal cholesterol level. Estrogen also affect your brain, your heart and skin. So now you know it's not only about your menstrual cycle. It has a lot to do with the entire body system. So how estrogen level changes, like your estrogen level change according to where you are in your menstrual cycle and also in which stage of life you are right now, estrogen levels are the highest in the middle of your cycle, as we know, and lowest during your periods. But it is also lowest during the menopause. At menopause, your estrogen levels begin to fall. In fact, it starts from like perimenopause. So there are three type of estrogen in women produced at different phases of women's life. This is a little bit scientific. So starting with is estrodiol. Estrodiol is produced in women at childbearing age and mostly by the ovaries. The next one is estriol. Estriol is the main estrogen produced during pregnancy and mostly in the placenta. And the third one is estrone. Estrone is produced by the adrenal glands and fatty tissues, is the only type of estrogen that is produced after menopause. So you know, these are three types of estrogen in women which are produced at different phases of women's life. Now what about the medicines that birth control, I mean birth control pills, what do they have? Now estrogen is used in some medicines including of course hormonal birth controls and menopause medications. Now the combined oral contraceptive pill that we call as the pill contains a synthetic version of estrogen and also sometimes progesterone. But that is also synthetic version called progesterone. It is not exactly progesterone. Now another type of contraception is the vaginal ring. Vaginal ring also contains estrogen. Now these contraceptive works mainly by preventing the release of an egg from the ovary. If you are having problems with menopause symptoms such as hot flushes or mood swings, you may choose to go on hormonal replacement therapy, which is hrt. Now HRT includes estrogen that is taken in the form of a tablet or gel or skin patch. And that can be really effective in easing the menopausal symptoms. So estrogen affects many parts of the body and can cause problems when it is off balance. So having too much estrogen can lead to minor problems such as acne and constipations, or sometimes to more serious conditions such as the breast cancer. Having too little estrogen can cause problems such as poor bone growth or of course, menopausal symptoms. So some of the common medical condition I would want to tell you over here, which are linked to estrogen is one of them is adenomyosis. Now, adenomyosis, when cells that are normally lines inside of the uterus womb, okay. Also grows inside its muscular walls. So because it needs estrogen to grow, adenomyosis is usually goes away after menopause. Because after menopause, as we know, the estrogen levels start dropping. The next one is fibroids. Now, fibroids are the lumps of muscle tissues inside the uterus. Fibroids are stimulated to grow by hormones and tend to go away again after menopause. So menopause is coming up to be a very positive stage of life over here. Okay, the next one is osteoporosis. Osteoporosis is a condition where your bone becomes fragile and more easily broken because estrogen helps with bone strength. So women are more at risk after menopause. And the next one is vaginal dryness. Vaginal dryness is of course due to falling estrogen at menopause and can cause the vagina to become dry and thin and causing discomfort and sometimes leading to the other problems. So these are some of the conditions that are linked to estrogen. Estrogen dominance is a term used to describe when a person can have a deficient normal or excessive estrogen, but has little or no counterbalancing hormone to mitigate its effect in the body. So we commonly see estrogen dominant in women nowadays. Like for almost every other issues. You know, many factors that such as stress or food choices or exposure to toxins and or you know, sometimes state of our organs function impact our hormones. You know, there could be many factors. So you never know which one to us until we get until we start looking for the root cause of the problems. So let's see what are the signs of estrogen dominance. Now for estrogen dominance in men is men boobs. You know, the soft tissue or inflammation around the chest and armpits which gives is the appearance of breast. So this could be one of the sign of estrogen dominance. The next one could be is increased in body fat in the upper chest and obliques. The third one could be is a long term associate risk of prostate cancer. So if you have been diagnosed with prostate cancer, it is likely that you are also estrogen dominant. So these are what some couple of signs in men. Now let's talk about women. In women, the early onset of puberty is a sign of hormonal imbalance. Now puberty is happening earlier due to all the xenoestrogen in our environment. So we are also seeing heavy periods in girls who are just like 13 or 14. The next one is use of hormonal birth control. Now use of hormonal birth control to assist with heavy menses. So subsequently this mask the symptom of heavy periods and of course the hormonal imbalance. And that's the reason women coming off the pill in their late 20s to start a family are presenting with endometriosis or PCOS. That's the reason, you know, why we say that no pills try and treat the root cause. The another thing that could be a little bit more serious is infertility or increased PMS or weight gain, especially around the hips and stomach. So these are a couple of signs that you should look for estrogen dominance. Now let's dive a little bit deeper into it. Let's look at the brief look into what a relative estrogen dominance syndrome is, is. So although many of us think of menopause and perimenopause as a phase of a woman's life where hormones begin to decline, it's actually common for some women to experience abnormally high estrogen levels before that phase of life. So when a woman has a deficiency of progesterone during this phase, estrogen is relatively excess which causes a wide range of symptoms. You know, the hormonal fluctuation of perimenopause and menopause are not the only cause of relative estrogen dominance. But many of our day to day lifestyle and dietary choices also play an important role when it comes to this delicate hormonal imbalance. So what could be the exact cause of estrogen dominance syndrome? So I have been talking about the lifestyle choices and dietary choices. Just let's look at a little bit more deeper into that. So let's start with environment, our environment. The thing that surround us can play a role in relative estrogen dominance. You know, xenoestrogen is any, is, you know, they are called like any of various chemical compound that imitate the natural estrogen and then it cause these estrogenic effects. So chemical like polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which we call as PAH pesticides or polychlorinated biphenyl which is pcb, which is so common nowadays. Or sometimes they are dichloride phenyl and trichloroethine which is also called as ddt. And some kind of drugs like anti epileptic drugs, fungicides or you know, phytoestrogens or mycotoxins, Bisphenol A, which is which we usually found in plastics. There's an entire list which harms our body in three ways. Either they mimic as estrogen actions or they affect estrogen level or they bind to estrogen receptors. Not only that, not only these chemicals, I mean, I mean hormones residues that are found in conventionally raised meat and conventional dairy products may also contribute to estrogenic effects within our bodies. So lurking around every corner, xenoestrogens are also present in a number of things such as cigarettes, smoke, automobile exhaust or chemical industry pollutant water and even cosmetic products. So there are so many things around us which is practically nowadays is impossible to avoid them. Like we are surrounded by xenoestrogen all the time. All we can do is try and minimalize it consciously by avoiding the products that you think could be damaging for you or for your body. But I know it's practically it's getting nowadays really impossible. But starting looking for the clean environment is first whether you can start with because it's one of the most important cause of xenoestrogens. And of course for the estrogen dominant, the next one is low fiber and high fat diet. So studies have now demonstrated that a diet low in fiber causes estrogen levels to be higher since excess estrogen is excreted in the bowel. But if stool remains there for a longer periods of time due to constipation, estrogen will be reabsorbed. So consequently, women on a high fiber diet have a lower level of circulating estrogen. Similarly, studies have also demonstrated the relationship between high fat diet and higher level of estrogens circulating in the bloodstream. So always remember is you make sure you have a good fiber diet. And when I say fiber, I'm talking about lots and lots of leafy green vegetables. Okay, let's look at the next cause. The next cause could be the burden on our liver. Now our liver is a wondrous organ. Seriously, you know, it takes a numerous functions. I think it takes up 306 functions or something I forgot now. But it takes numerous functions from detoxifying harmful chemicals to clearing excess estrogen. It is responsible for filtering a lot of what goes in our body. So you can only imagine then that if liver is overwhelmed and can't perform its job optimally, one of the outcome will indeed be excess estrogen level. So when estrogen is not broken down adequately, higher levels of estrogen build up. So what burdens our liver and limit its capacity to cleanse this blood of estrogen? What are they? Well, anything that is taxing to the liver, which is environmental toxins or drugs or alcohol. You know, our liver is so busy sorting these things and filtering these things that it push away the estrogen and it doesn't look at the estrogen because the body thinks that too much of estrogen is not a problem. But environmental toxins is my first priority. So think you may be suffering from estrogen dominance syndrome, then it's really important that you look into the issues and the disease that may be related to this. And issues that I'm talking about is weight gain. Now, weight gain secondary to insulin resistance, especially weight in hips, thighs and lower abdomen, which we are calling about the pouch. Think about that. Are you estrogen dominant? The other thing I can think of is of course fibrocystic breast disease, as we know too much of estrogen can also cause breast cancer, migraine, menstrual disturbances, endometriosis, fibroids, utrine cancer, ovarian cyst, cystic acne, pms, low libido, depression. The list is long. So there are so many things to look into and the answer could come down to just one, is your body is having excess of estrogen. So what to do? Start restore the balance. So if you suspect that, you know, if you have any of these issues that I just mentioned, okay. Or you may be suffering from this relative estrogen dominance syndrome, or perhaps your diet or the thing that you came in contact with each day may be potentially causing you health, health concerns. You may want to reconsider and measuring your hormone levels. Hormone levels can be measured via the blood or even in the saliva in case of progesterone. Okay. But in order to reset the estrogen balance, limiting environmental exposure to xenoestrogens and along with implementing an adequate diet and exercise needs to be considered most importantly as like a first line of treatment. So in addition to specific supplementations can also benefit in these cases. However, dietary modification is my favorite. Now of course, it shouldn't come you as a surprise that one of the dietary recommendation for these cases is to guarantee the adequate amount of fiber in the daily diet as I just mentioned. So bile regularity will ensure that excess estrogen is eliminated. In addition, maintaining a diet that is relatively low in saturated fat may also be beneficial. So the use of dietary supplements is also further arsenal to be taken. The next I could think of is exercise and weight optimizations. Now physical activity will ensure you that you optimize your weight since excess body fat results in conversion of estrogen. And the ideal BMI is what we want. So especially when dealing with relatively estrogen dominant stuff syndrome. So physical activity on its own also helps prevent the overproduction of estrogen within the body. So get out there and get active. Okay, so the another one I could think is botanical support. Now as I said that there are numerous herbs that may be useful in helping your liver detoxify. So the one the one more indicated for you will be depend on your unique complaints. So traditionally milk, this salad and black radish and beet are excellent for liver stimulating herbs. So the best thing is that you go to a herbalist and get yourself checked and get yourself prescribed some good herbs to help you to detoxify your liver. The next come is hormonal aid. Now in order to further help balance the excess estrogen seen in this pattern, the use of bioidentical progesterone cream may be an option for you. However, I am not that great in support for this because I think if all of the other steps that I have mentioned, if you really look into those steps, I don't think so, you really have to take this one. So while relative estrogen dominance may be accompanied with a variety of signs and symptoms and associated with various diseases, there are plenty of things that you can be doing to curtail some of those effects. The underlying key is to decrease your exposure to to xenoestrogen and help your body process estrogen appropriately. And if you have excess of estrogen, just get that out of the body either with dietary modifications or with exercise or with herbs or with dietary supplements and you should be sorted. I hope you have enjoyed today's episode. I hope it has given you a couple of ideas that what estrogen does and what happens if it gets out of balance which area of your body is mostly affected by estrogen dominant? And to be honest, this is the estrogen dominance is like a new epidemic. So you never know, you might be having some estrogen dominance or your daughter might be having it or your sister. It's like you, you just look around, you know, if you just remember this list that what estrogen dominance could do like those migraine weight gains. So I hope by far you have really understood well that what it is all about. If you think that you have one, I would really recommend you to go and get tested asap. This is all I have for you today. Hope you enjoyed. Take home a fair bit of knowledge and thank you so much for listening. I would highly appreciate if you can please leave your reviews, feedback, suggestions and questions. If you have any. We would love to hear from you. So you can drop us an email on infoertilityed.com you can also follow me on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube on the name of Fertilityed. I would urge you to share this knowledge among your friends and relatives, be it girls or boys, doesn't matter. Just spread the word and awareness and yay. Don't forget to subscribe. See you next time. Until then, stay fertile, stay healthy. Bye bye.