I’ve been doing my advanced functional medicine Hormone course the last week or so (hence the dearth of posts, sorry!) I’ve sort of avoided it as I’ve suffered with my hormones my whole life – thanks PCOS – and hormones are flippin’ complicated!
One thing I have learned is just how much impact PCOS has likely had on my life right from puberty – I underestimated it massively, I think. No more. I shall be working out a PCOS Plan shortly so others don’t get as affected by it as me. I was (sort of) heartened by Dr K saying unravelling PCOS is really tough and it’s the most difficult hormone condition to deal with (thanks whoever genetically gave it to me!).
Anyway, two things I did pick up this week that, again, I had underestimated in any hormone imbalance are:
- The importance of BMI and body weight
- Phyto-oestrogens act like adaptogens to give more or less oestrogen depending on body needs, you need to take the right ones and enough
Body fat is no longer thought of as just storage of fat cells, as it used to be, but we now know it releases hormones and has a massive effect on the whole endocrine system. I won’t go into how – it’s complicated, as I said! – but the takeaway message I got from this section of the course was helping a person lose 10lb or as much weight as they can turns out to be much more important than any supplement.
The trick, of course, is how to achieve that weight loss when the hormones are messing about – I have gained loads in perimenopause by doing absolutely nothing different – even on my very restricted diet and getting more exercise than ever.
Why?
Well, there are several mechanisms at play, including insulin resistance, but an important one is: as we lose ovarian function, we have to make a lot more of our oestrogen, progesterone and testosterone from our adrenals – they sort of take over. What happens if a person’s adrenals already have too much to cope with (infection, allergy, stress etc)? They have to produce more body fat to stimulate the pituitary to release more of the steroid hormones. Females NEED fat to keep hormones at a healthy level.
But the trick here would be to make sure my adrenals are working better. I get mad at my body changing, but it is actually only trying to help me – and it’s a clue that other mechanisms are not working well enough for me (go figure, story of my life!). Guess what I am now working much harder on? Yup – adrenals! Still can’t do supplements so I am back to vagus and meditation to help calm my systems down so there is less pressure on my adrenals at least.
Anyway, this is precisely why I have always encouraged women to test and treat adrenals, preferably long before menopause so they don’t need the body fat gain.
With men, the process is quite different as their loss of testosterone is very gradual and not like women’s oestrogen which suddenly falls off a cliff! In men, body fat also produces more oestrogen but that’s not what men need at all – and we end up with man boobs and maybe men becoming demotivated, grumpy, even more emotional and tearful as the oestrogen level becomes dominant over testosterone. You can read more about this here: https://purehealthclinic.co.uk/health-a-z/oestrogen-dominance/
Moral of the story: test and treat your adrenals if needed long before middle-age! Lose weight if you have a hormone condition – see the Belly Fat book to help you control insulin resistance: https://purehealthshop.company.site/Belly-Fat-Plan-p49365759.
One thing I did also learn is that in some women – and men to some degree – to lose enough weight, they may need actual oestrogen or testosterone to be boosted first – they may have dropped so low that the body will have trouble turning things around without meds. You might need only a smallish boost (see phyto-oestrogens below for women) or you may need at least short-term HRT or TRT.
Bonus important tip: there is really no evidence to suggest that people should stay on hormone therapy longer term for health, despite what many people are told. The aim should be the lowest dose for the shortest time.
So, what about phyto-oestrogens. In menopause, many women turn to eg. isoflavones from soy or other plants like hops because of the elements like genistein and daidzein which are thought of as a form of plant oestrogen. They are actually SERMs (selective estrogen receptor modulators), which means that they compete with real oestrogens at the receptors. That means they can either augment the amount of oestrogen docking at the receptors and therefore increase oestrogen in the body OR they can dock at the receptors and block excess ‘real’ oestrogens, therefore reducing the overall level of oestrogen in the body. How clever is that?! I knew this already but just sharing it as a lot of people are confused by information out there suggesting you can get too much oestrogen from them – very unlikely because of their adaptogenic nature.
Another useful couple of tips on these is to take a mixture of phyto-oestrogens preferably as they seem to work synergistically together, you need to take enough to get the job done, and to take them with a little carb – studies show they are absorbed better.
There you go – hope those tips help. I’ve tons of them now! It’s an awful lot more complex than that – like a web of hormone interactions – but hopefully that’s enough there to give you the gist. Just working out what to do with all of this lovely information for you – how can I help you best, do let me know?
Retiring, but loads of help still here!
I have now retired from Purehealth, but I have left my site, books, newsletters etc all up so that you can still access all this lovely info from the last 30 years! I won’t be updating it now, but there is a LOT of really good info here still. Check My Favourites page for where to find info, supplements, tests, practitioners, courses and more. Anything I think could help. And Start Here if you’re not sure where to start with your symptom or condition.
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Bless your cotton socks from me. Thanks for all your love, support and fun over the past 30-odd years. I will miss you, Micki x
Interesting. I would love to know how you do it lose weight, body fat and bloat is there a plan
The Belly Fat Plan is the place to start, Janet, and combine it with the Gut Plan for bloating etc. Often people do the Gut Plan asa foundational step, then the Belly Fat Plan if still needed. Hope that helps x