Estrogen Dominance & Female Problems

Hormone related problems are a major health concern among women, including PMS, menstrual migraines, cramps, bloating and fibroids. Perhaps you’ve heard this before, but doctors claim that the main cause of these issues is estrogen dominance. This is a rather complex subject because hormonal activity is related to several physiological factors including, but not limited to, liver function, genetics, daily diet, sensitivity to foods, drug intake, etc. And one of the fastest growing areas is in identifying xenoestrogens.

Xenoestrogens are chemicals that are found in a number of sources that mimic estrogen. In other words they fool the body and thereby disrupt or alter natural balances of hormones in a woman’s body.

Following is the most simple-to-understand explanations of estrogen dominance I’ve been able to find to-date, written by Dr. Ben Kim on his website, drbenkim.com…

Estrogen and Progesterone Output During a Healthy Monthly Cycle
From the onset of puberty to menopause, a woman’s body is designed to have estrogen and progesterone work together to fuel and regulate her monthly cycle.

The bulk of estrogen is released into a woman’s blood circulation during the first half of her monthly cycle. Estrogen works to build the lining of a woman’s uterus to prepare it for implantation of a fertilized egg should fertilization occur.

The bulk of progesterone is released into a woman’s blood stream during the second half of a healthy monthly cycle. During this time, progesterone acts to maintain the rich lining of the uterus that estrogen helped to build up during the first two weeks of her cycle.

If a fertilized egg successfully implants into the uterine wall i.e. if a woman becomes pregnant, her body must continue to produce a large amount of progesterone on a continuous basis to maintain a thick and well vascularized uterine wall throughout the course of pregnancy. This job of continuous progesterone production is handled nicely by a healthy placenta.

If there is no implantation/pregnancy, a woman’s body stops producing large amounts of progesterone, which results in sloughing off and elimination of the thickened uterine lining, also known as a woman’s monthly flow.

This cycle repeats itself about once every month until a woman experiences menopause, with estrogen dominating the first half of each cycle, and progesterone dominating the second half.

Estrogen Dominance
Sadly, many women and even teenage girls in industrialized countries have too much estrogen and/or too little progesterone in their systems.

Why is estrogen dominance a problem?

There are many reasons, but the relevant answer for this article is that having estrogen dominance causes a woman’s uterine lining to thicken far more than is healthy during her monthly cycles. This repeated, excessive thickening can result in localized growths in the muscle and connective tissue that line the uterus. We call these growths uterine fibroids.

All of these physiological facts have had me convinced for years that addressing estrogen dominance is essential to shrinking and preventing uterine fibroids.

What causes estrogen dominance?
Exposure to xenoestrogens. Xenoestrogens are estrogens that are produced outside of the body. Here is a list of significant sources of xenoestrogens:

• Birth control pills
• Hormone replacement drugs
• Condom spermicides
• Conventional personal care products, particularly cosmetics
• Plastic cookware
• Growth hormones found in factory-farmed animal products
• Pesticides and herbicides
• DDT
• PCBs – polychlorinated biphenyls
• Foaming agents in soaps and detergents
• Being Overweight
• Estrogen is produced in three different areas of the body:
• Ovaries (testicles in men)
• Adrenal glands
• Fat cells

That’s right. Estrogen is produced by fat cells. The more fat cells a person has, the greater chance he or she has of experiencing estrogen dominance.

Chronic Stress
When a person experiences chronic physical and/or emotional stress, his or her body will begin to convert progesterone into the stress hormone, cortisol. In fact, we now know that a woman who experiences significant stress during pregnancy can actually draw upon her baby’s progesterone stores to manufacture enough cortisol for the mom to deal with her stress. The point is, stress can lead to a depletion of progesterone, which creates the same condition of estrogen dominance that a woman experiences when she has too much estrogen in her system. (drbenkim.com)

Estrogen imbalances, then, should be addressed first with the diet and everything you put on your skin, from make-up to lotions to creams and conditioners and shampoo. Everything. There are good foods and bad foods. As a rule of thumb, processed foods (foods that come in packages, boxes and plastic wrappers) are bad for you, as are altered oils (organic olive oil, evening primrose oil and coconut oil are best). The consensus is that chocolate, coffee and alcohol are not good for you if you’re estrogen dominant. As a general statement we can confidently say that man-made chemicals are bad for people to ingest, for men, women or children, or animals and plants. They disrupt more than just hormonal systems.