What Causes Hormone Imbalances?

Dr. John Lee is one of the leading medical professionals working on menopause.  He claims that the symptoms women experience during the phases of menopause are not universal.  In order to determine what is happening during the changes women experience, Dr. Lee did a comparison study.  He believes our symptoms are caused by “a combination of poor diet, unhealthy lifestyle, environmental pollutants, cultural attitudes, (and) the incorrect use of synthetic hormones.”

Poor Diet

It is common knowledge that we should eat a healthy diet that is rich in whole grains, leafy greens, fruits and vegetables, and plenty of water everyday.  But many of us have a hard time actually doing it.
Life today demands our time to be torn between raising kids and managing our households, leaving women today little time left to prepare proper meals.  It seems that we tend to rely on fast foods and processed foods.  These foods contain little or no nutritional value and lack the vitamins and minerals we need to make, use and neutralize harmful hormones.

A vital element missing in our fast and processed food diet is fiber.  Without a sufficient amount of fiber to help your body get rid of excess hormones, they can be reabsorbed into the bloodstream.
And while our diets are severely lacking in nutrients, they are surprisingly rich in one of the last things we need when trying to achieve hormone balance: synthetic estrogens. Synthetic hormones are injected into animals, especially cattle, in order to fatten them up quickly.  Unfortunately, this means women can get too much estrogen and not enough nutritional support to be able to make the hormones that counteract estrogen.

Unhealthy Lifestyle

Modern day technology has allowed us to rely daily on computers, televisions and modern day conveniences; we’re becoming an increasingly inactive society.  This results in metabolism slowing down so that we are more likely to retain fat.  And fat stores and releases estrogen, which then further contributes to hormonal imbalances.

Environmental Pollutants

Unfortunately, we are exposed to all kinds of unnatural estrogens in our daily lives, particularly from products derived from petrochemicals, (e.g., plastics, Styrofoam, car exhaust, carpet glue).  These foreign estrogens are absorbed into our systems where they mimic estrogen’s effects, all the while causing harmful side effects.  They also occupy receptor cells and inhibit progesterone production.  This unfortunate event also leads to the contribution of hormone imbalances.

Chronic Stress

Many women today experience chronic stress, which is a major cause of hormone imbalance since it interrupts all the body’s cycles.  When you are stressed, your adrenal glands have to work overtime.  They are in a constant state of fight or flight.  And while this ensures your survival, your body is not built to endure this state for extended periods of time.  Therefore, you end up with hormonal deficiencies—your adrenal glands are constantly taxed to manage stress and the adrenal hormones are not able to contribute to all the hormonal pathways in which they are so intricately involved.

When you are going through menopause, your body is supposed to be in the process of down regulating.  But if you are out of balance, all of your systems will not receive that message because the right messengers are not available to deliver it.

Dr. Lee says that your systems, “in effect, be shouting at each other to try to provoke a response, causing night sweats and hot flashes. Your brain will secrete large amounts of regulatory hormones in an attempt to get the ovaries to release higher levels of hormones. Your ovaries may be asleep for a few months, deaf to the shouts of the brain, and then wake up and respond to the shouting from the brain with a great surge of hormones.”
This surge, usually of estrogen, is just the type of biochemical over-reaction that causes symptoms.  And when estrogen surges, women can experience breast swelling and tenderness, mood swings, sleep disturbances, water retention and a tendency to gain weight.