Hormones do not act alone. They interact with each other as if in a soup because they’re not separate from each other. When one hormone is overtly higher or lower that will affect all hormones, all steroid hormones in the body.
They are molecules of communications and they circulate in-between cells. We have hormones circulating all throughout our blood and hormone receptors all over the body. Some parts of the body have more or fewer receptors for various hormones, depending on how much that chemical messenger is needed to optimally regulate the behaviour of that tissue.
The body is shifting the hormone level all the time according to the environment in which we are currently exposed it to. That way people can end up with hormone imbalance because we are not able to give the body what it needs.
It is not surprise that people can end up feeling overwhelmed and not believing that anything they're going to do in their lifestyle choices is going to make enough difference. It may make a difference in one arena but not in another. It may improve disease risk in one space, and maybe exacerbate it in another.
It seems strange to me that some people get treated at the physician's office with no validation of a hormone being overtly low or high and being put on endogenous hormone supplementation. And on top of that, with no look at the interconnectedness with other hormones that might actually be the true root cause of why a person’s e.g. estrogen level may be seemingly out of balance.
Some women will convert testosterone into DHT. They are struggling with this particular type of hormone imbalance, and they may struggle with hair growth on the face, or a loss of scalp hair.
You might think that if a hormone is low then we need more of it. That is unfortunately not how it works with hormones. It is a lot more complex. We have levels of enzymes all throughout the body that are responsible for converting a given hormone into substances, metabolites, that still have hormonal behaviour.
Metabolites from estrogen are still estrogenic in nature, and you never, ever want to supplement with a hormone without making sure that there is healthy balance of how it's going to be metabolized in advance. It is therefore very important to look at the enzymes and what can affect them. Dietary choice, medication, stress and nutrient deficiencies can be some factors that affect enzymes.
It is all about balance. There is nothing in the body that more and more and more is better except joy. There are no nutrients where more and more is better. The body is a very finely tuned system designed to respond and adapt and find balance.
Comments