Can Hormones Cause Weight Gain
Unfortunately, hormone imbalances can cause weight gain in a myriad of ways. For example, low testosterone levels in men is associated with increased body fat , while abnormalities with leptin can cause excessive eating and, of course, weight gain . Something similar happens to people who have high levels of asprosin, a hormone that makes you feel hungry .
Women are also susceptible of weight gain due to hormone imbalances, especially during menopause. During this stage of life, theres a sharp drop in estrogen levels, which is associated with metabolic dysfunction . Other medical conditions, like polycystic ovarian syndrome or diabetes can also disrupt the natural balance of your hormones and modify your body weight . Pregnancy, taking certain medications, undergoing a lot of stress, and many other factors can also influence your hormone levels and, as a result, your weight.
Should You Speak With A Doctor Before Using These Supplements
Yes. You should absolutely speak with your primary care physician before starting any dietary supplement, particularly if you are undergoing BHRT or you are trying to lose weight for the sake of your health. Depending on your biology, your gender, and medications you may be taking, the efficacy of supplements to aid weight loss are all different. Balancing your hormones to lose weight means being cautious about the supplements you are using.
Being Tired All The Time
Hormonal imbalances like high cortisol, low testosterone, and hypothyroidism can make you feel tired all the time.
Its normal to feel tired after a long day but if you wake up tired, your hormones could be unbalanced. However, tiredness can be a sign of many other health issues. Instead of guessing, see a doctor and find out what the problem might be.
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How To Get Your Life Back
Have you struggled with weight gain, depression, low libido, fatigue, and other seemingly un-related symptoms?Just dont feel like your old self
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Hot Flashes And Night Sweats
One of the most common symptoms of perimenopause is hot flashes, which often coexists with night sweats. Almost 80 percent of people who are in perimenopause or transitioning into menopause have hot flashes. Also, most women who receive chemotherapy or undergo surgery to remove their ovaries will experience hot flashes.
Scientists know that hot flashes occur as a result of low estrogen levels. Each hot flash involves a sensation of heat that starts in the chest area and travels to the neck and the head. It can last for a few minutes and may cause sweating. Some women also develop a faster heart rate during hot flashes.
If a hot flash happens during sleep, they are called night sweats. Women who have night sweats often wake up in the morning feeling tired.
Some people experience redness along their neck and face during a hot flash. This is called a hot flush.
On average, each hot flash lasts for about three to four minutes. Hot flashes can occur for a few months to several years. In a few rare cases, some people had hot flashes for 10 years.
Other signs of hormonal imbalance include:
- Heavy or irregular periods, missed periods, frequent periods, or stopped periods
- Vaginal dryness and itching
- Weakened muscles
- Pain in the muscles, tenderness, and stiffness
- Pain and swelling in the joints
- Cancer treatments
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Can Hormones Make You Gain Weight
Can hormones make you gain weight?
Hormones can play a role in weight gain. Certain hormones, such as insulin and cortisol, can affect your bodys ability to regulate appetite and metabolism. When these hormones are out of balance, it can lead to weight gain.
For example, insulin is a hormone that helps regulate blood sugar levels. When you eat, your body releases insulin to help your cells use glucose for energy. If you have too much insulin in your body, it can cause your cells to take up too much glucose from the bloodstream. This can lead to low blood sugar levels, which can trigger hunger and cravings for sugary or high-fat foods. Over time, this can contribute to weight gain.
Cortisol is a hormone that is released in response to stress. High levels of cortisol can increase appetite and cravings for high-fat and high-sugar foods. This can lead to weight gain, particularly in the abdominal area.
Other hormones that can affect weight include estrogen, testosterone, and thyroid hormones. Imbalances in these hormones can affect appetite, metabolism, and body composition.
Estrogen is a hormone that is produced in the ovaries and other glands in the body. It plays a role in the menstrual cycle, pregnancy, and other reproductive functions. High levels of estrogen can lead to weight gain, particularly in the hips and thighs. On the other hand, low levels of estrogen can lead to weight loss.
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Progesterone Helps You Sleep Better
If you canât sleep or you donât get good quality sleep, hormone balance may be to blame. Progesterone is one compound released by the ovaries that helps you sleep. Low levels may make it difficult to fall and stay asleep. A small study in postmenopausal women found that 300 milligrams of progesterone restored normal sleep when sleep was disturbed. Estrogen levels decrease in perimenopause and after menopause. This may contribute to night sweats and hot flashes, which often disrupt a womanâs ability to sleep. See your doctor if you believe an imbalance in hormones is contributing to sleep problems.
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Does Ovarian Cyst Make Stomach Big
But some cysts can grow to be very big, like the size of a watermelon, says Dr Eloise Chapman-Davis, a gynaecological oncologist at Weill Cornell Medicine and New York-Presbyterian. Many women will write that off as weight gain, but abdominal pain and bloating could be the result of a mass growing in the stomach.
Why Are You Gaining Weight Hormones Might Be The Problem
If youre gaining weight, chances are poor diet and a sedentary lifestyle are the reasons. But thats not always the case. A hormonal imbalance also can cause you to pack on the pounds.
Obesity continues to be an issue in the United States, bringing with it an increase in chronic health issues such as coronary heart disease and many forms of cancer.
When hormones are the culprit, losing weight poses additional challenges.
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Keeping Ghrelin In Check
Although ghrelin is a useful hormone, abnormally high levels can make someone more prone to weight gain. Make these healthy lifestyle adjustments to help keep ghrelin levels in the normal range and ward off unwanted weight gain:
- Manage stress. Studies show that stress increases ghrelin. Deep breathing, meditation, yoga, or relaxing music can be helpful if you have chronic high levels of stress. Find something you enjoy that helps you respond to stress in a healthy way.
- Get proper sleep. Just as sleep deprivation decreases leptin, lack of sleep is associated with higher ghrelin levels. Aim for seven to nine hours per night. If you think you have a sleep disorder, talk to a doctor about a sleep study.
- Avoid extreme or yo-yo diets. Losing weight frequently through repeated dieting is associated with higher levels of the hunger hormone.
- Dont eat processed foods. Not only are processed foods less nutritious than real, whole foods, but they may also be linked to higher ghrelin levels. Processed foods activate the reward center in the brain , and may actually trigger the stomach to produce more ghrelin.
How Can I Fix My Hormonal Imbalance
Conventional medicine relies on a frustrating band-aid approach to treating womens hormonal symptoms the use of prescription synthetic hormones that carry serious health risks is still the norm.
Natural health, however, has a very different understanding of the best solutions for hormonal imbalances in women. It starts with finding the root cause of the imbalance then supporting healthy hormone production with effective diet and lifestyle changes and supplementing with vitamins, minerals, herbs and other nutritional compounds that help restore hormonal balance.
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Youre Skimping On Quality Sleep
This still remains tried and true your hormones need sleep. Your brain needs it, your muscles, bones and every cell in your body needs it for repair and restoration. The two hormones that are key in the relationship between sleep and weight loss are ghrelin and leptin. Ghrelin is the so-called hunger hormone that tells you when to eat, and leptin its counterpart, the satiety hormone tells you when to stop. But when youre sleep-deprived , you have more ghrelin and thus more appetite.
At the same time you have less leptin, so you never get the signal that you are full, and continue to feel hungry all the time. These key appetite hormones operate on the sleep-wake cycle, so anything that disrupts that cycle, such as a high night cortisol level can upset the balance leading to overeating and cravings. Testing your melatonin in concert with cortisol stress hormones can reveal an imbalance that can ultimately impact weight.
People having sleep disturbances or jet lag often use melatonin and magnesium as supplements to get back on the right track, but dealing with the stress that is disrupting your sleep and eliminating sources of light in your bedroom that can interfere with natural melatonin secretion are good places to start.
What Causes Hormonal Weight Gain
Chronic Stress
Stress can be either beneficial or detrimental, depending on whether it helps you catch up with deadlines at work or negatively impacts your productivity. However, too much stress, or chronic stress, can only harm your health, particularly your body shape, by the presence of a hormone called cortisol.
Cortisol is a hormone that your body produces when its stressed. Although cortisol is essential as it sends you into fight-or-flight mode, preparing your body to react to a danger or a stressful situation, it can become harmful in excess amounts.
Cortisol boosts your energy levels by stimulating your fat and carbohydrate metabolism. While this process is necessary for stress management, cortisol also stimulates your appetite, leading to persistent cravings for sweet and fatty foods.
In addition, increased cortisol levels due to stress can also drive you to eat more than usual. You might constantly look for snacks throughout the day to temporarily relieve stress. As a result, you might end up noticing an increase in weight around the waist.
Hormonal Imbalances
Extra weight around the arms, thighs, and chest are all symptoms of hormonal weight gain due to estrogen. According to research, the absence of estrogens may be a crucial factor in obesity. On the other hand, estrogen dominance, which occurs when the body has too much estrogen, might also be another culprit of hormone-related weight gain.
Hypothyroidism
PCOS
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Can I Lose Hormone Weight
The first step is always to work with your doctor to diagnose the underlying cause. This often includes a blood or urine test to check current hormone levels and identify any inconsistencies.
Should test results reveal your weight gain is related to estrogen or testosterone deficiencies, hormone replacement therapy can be a viable option, but comes with risks and side effects. For example:
Testosterone replacement therapy , while able to correct some physical issues, is also linked to an increase in sleep apnea, acne and raised red blood cell counts, which can raise your risk of blood clots and heart attacks.
Estrogen replacement is not safe for women who have had cancer, liver disease or issues with vaginal bleeding. Treatment risks include blood clots, heart attacks, strokes, breast cancer and gallbladder disease.
Thyroid issues like hyperthyroidism or hypothyroidism can stem from autoimmune thyroid disorders, inflammation or be hereditary. Treatment is a lifelong, daily medication regimen designed to replace your missing or imbalanced hormones. If the hormone imbalance is caused by an autoimmune condition like Hashimoto’s disease or Graves disease, your doctor will advise you on the risk of side effects from iodine and supplements, food and medicines to avoid.
Losing hormonal weight is possible, and together with your doctor you can develop a program that works best for you.
Hormone Imbalances In Men
Low testosterone may be causing weight gain in men who have a lower metabolism and get poor sleep. Supplementing testosterone through hormone replacement therapy initially leads to more weight gain because it increases muscle mass, but this is only temporary.
Muscle naturally weighs more than fat. You might go through an awkward stage during treatment where your weight increases until, of course, the muscle youre developing becomes more metabolically active and burns more calories at rest. At that point, your weight should decrease.
Of course, supplemented testosterone comes with risks particularly, a higher risk of developing prostate cancer and poor cardiovascular health.
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What Conditions Are Caused By Hormonal Imbalances
Dozens of medical conditions are caused by hormone issues. For most hormones, having too much or too little of them causes symptoms and issues with your health. While many of these imbalances require treatment, some can be temporary and may go away on their own. Some of the most common hormone-related conditions include:
What Is Biest Cream Made From
Currently, products such as Biest containing 20% estradiol and 80% estriol, and Triest containing 10% estradiol, 10% estrone and 80% estriol, expressed on a mg per mg basis, are prepared by compounding pharmacies for patients.
What are the side effects of bi-est?
Other side effects include: abdominal pain, limb pain, pruritus, sinusitis, nausea, skin rash, and vaginitis.
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Mood Swings Anxiety And Depression
A hormonal imbalance can cause you to experience mood swings and heightened anxiety just before your period or during the menopause.
Estrogen levels constantly fluctuate during the reproductive cycle. Researchers from Harvard found that women with low estrogen levels are more prone to feeling the effects of emotional stress. They found that in clinical trials, higher levels of estrogen helped to calm the fear response helping you to be less fearful.8
Other studies have found that fluctuations in the hormone cortisol and hormones produced by the pituitary, hypothalamic, and gonadal glands can cause depressive symptoms. Researchers found that low levels of the cortisol hormone were found in women who have fibromyalgia and symptoms of depression.9
If you suffer from mood swings and anxiety during the menopause, you can find some helpful advice in my article on 10 herbs and supplements for menopause. If depression and anxiety is a result of hormonal imbalances, then you can help relieve these symptoms naturally by trying some natural treatments for depression after consulting with your doctor.
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Causes Of Hormonal Weight Gain And How To Prevent It
Have you been losing and gaining the same 10-20 pounds for the past couple of years? Its now halfway into 2020 and if your New Years Resolution was lose weight and you havent quite reached your goal yet, dont feel too discouraged.
Weight gain and weight loss are influenced by a lot of factors, some of which you may not know about and are out of your control.Keep reading to learn more about the reasons for hormonal weight gain and the steps you can take to prevent it.
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Painful Or Heavy Periods
If you are still having periods, you may find that they are worryingly heavy or irregular.
Pain in the stomach, lower back or during sex can indicate you may have fibroids. Fibroids seem to be stimulated by Estrogen. Although non-cancerous, fibroids can impact your quality of life severely. Make sure you see you Doctor to get them checked out and treated.
Poor Quality Sleep And Insomnia
Do you go to sleep only to be wide awake at 3am with a racing mind, unable to snooze back off?
This may be due to lowered levels of Estrogen and Progesterone, especially around menopause. Low Estrogen can also contribute to night sweats which will keep you awake and lead to you feeling exhausted and fatigued.
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What Does Hormonal Weight Gain Look Like
Since hormonal weight gain is different from weight gain due to excess caloric intake, its symptoms are also distinctive. While body weight and fat are distributed equally in weight gain due to excess caloric intake, people with hormonal weight gain usually notice increased weight around specific body parts, such as the waist, arms, thighs, chest, and lower body.
Youre Not Getting Enough Vitamin D
Possibly due to our awareness of skin cancer and the use of sunscreen, our levels of vitamin D are lower than they were decades ago. Not to mention that we are spending more time working indoors in front of computers, or exercising inside vs. in the great outdoors. Vitamin D, synthesized by the action of sunlight upon the skin, is converted to a vital hormone in our bodies, and deficiency has been linked to allergies including food allergies, asthma, weight gain, fatigue, diabetes, and even cancer. Vitamin D levels can be tested through your provider with our Weight Management Profile and if testing uncovers a deficiency, supplemental vitamin D is cheap and readily available.
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