Avoid Falling For Sugar Cravings
That donut may look like it has your name on it, but the research shows that insulin resistance – a common side effect of diets high in sugar- is directly related to hot flashes and other menopause symptoms.
Our Tip: Find a low-sugar alternative to satisfy your sweet tooth, like fresh strawberries or bananas.
How Are Hormonal Imbalances Diagnosed
Healthcare providers typically order blood tests to check hormone levels since your endocrine glands release hormones directly into your bloodstream.
Certain hormone levels vary drastically throughout the day, so providers may order other tests to measure your levels, such as a glucose tolerance test or insulin tolerance test.
Your provider will also ask you about your medical history and symptoms and perform a physical exam.
To Boost Muscle Strength Add Whey
When we were teens, our adrenal glands produced lots of DHEA, a hormone that builds muscle and burns fat, says endocrinologist Alex Forster, M.D. Fortunately, Australian researchers say you can boost DHEA production doubling your ability to build muscle and speeding fat loss by as much as 65 percent just by adding four tablespoons of whey protein powder to your daily diet.
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This Program Changed My Life
I suffered constant fatigue, daily stomach pain, arthritis, insomnia, and bowel movements 7-8 times a day that precluded me from doing what I wanted. I was on several daily medications. This program changed my life. I have much more energy, especially in the morning, I sleep much better, no more stomach pain, I can walk 9 miles now, and dont need any medications. This program gave me the opportunity to enjoy life, instead of constant struggle.
The Power Of Hormones
Theprocess of aging happens in the life of every organism, but the changes are notalways easy to adjust to, especially when they affect your quality of life. Asbody processes slow, it becomes more difficult to keep up the pace you are usedto. You may also begin experiencing specific, disruptive symptoms associatedwith age-related hormonal shiftsand it may happen earlier than you think.Women often anticipate the hormonal changes associated with menopause but maynot recognize the symptoms when they first appear.
Throughout a womans reproductive life, estrogen and progesterone levels interact with each other in a cyclic opposition, spurring each phase of the reproductive cycle. But as women approach the menopause transition, these natural hormonal fluctuations can become more pronounced and less predictable, causing a host of physical and emotional effects. This transitional period before menopause is known as perimenopause, and it can begin long before you enter menopause. For many women, this means struggling with symptoms like menstrual irregularity, moodiness, irritability, vaginal dryness, hot flashes, and night sweats for years.
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How To Balance Your Hormones Naturally
Ultimately, consistency and commitment are key. How to balance your hormones, naturally, is all-encompassing. Here are the Cliffs Notes: Focus on an anti-inflammatory, nutrient-dense diet, remove endocrine disruptors, incorporate stress relief habits, and take the necessary steps to get your gut health on track. Finding a balance with exercise is important, too. If youre feeling overwhelmed, start small. Begin with daily meditation practice. Next week, take a stab at a 3-day hormone-balancing meal plan. One step at a time.
The Most Common Menopause Symptoms
Women can experience a variety of symptoms and conditions related to changes in sex hormone levels and aging. Some of the most common menopause symptoms include:
- Irregular periods: As perimenopause begins , periods can come and go, plus get heavier or lighter at times. This can sometimes continue for several years during menopause
- Hot flashes and night sweats
- Mood swings, irritability, anxiety or depressive symptoms
- Vaginal dryness and decreased sex drive
- Increased abdominal fat and weight gain
- Insomnia and changes in sleep quality
- Thinning hair and dryer skin
- Going to the bathroom more often
- Breast changes
- Changes in the uterus, ovaries and cervix
- For some, a higher risk for certain other age-related diseases
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What Are Hormonal Imbalances
Your body secretes about 50 hormones that control many critical functions including metabolism, homeostasis , sexual activity, and contraction of the heart muscle.
Think of hormones as messenger molecules that one part of your body makes and then transports elsewhere. Your pancreas, for instance, secretes insulin, a hormone that helps your body utilize glucose for energy.
Hormonal imbalances occur when too much or too little of a hormone exists in your bloodstream. Even small hormonal imbalances can create side effects that resonate throughout your body.
Consider insulin. Eating too many sugary, processed foods can elevate this hormone, overwhelming your cells so they dont hear its call. Your pancreas continues to secrete insulin, but your cells cant easily take up glucose from your blood.
In other words, your cells become resistant to insulins message, so your pancreas tries to make more of this hormone, in hopes the increased production will cause the message to get through. Insulin resistance can eventually lead totype 2 diabetes with all its related symptoms including disease, disability, and early death.
Insulin resistance, like any hormonal imbalance, doesnt exist in a vacuum. It can knock other hormones like cortisol out of balance. Elevated levels of this stress hormone contribute to obesity, lead to adrenal burnout, and trigger inflammatory diseases including chronic fatigue syndrome.
Achieve Optimal Health During Menopause
Balancing hormones during the menopausal stage is achievable with functional medicine and thorough hormone testing. Book a free discovery call today to find out how we can help you! By supporting your overall health with food and lifestyle strategies, we can reverse the root causes of your symptoms and restore your natural balance. Contact us today to schedule your consultation.
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How To Balance Hormones With Diet During Menopause
Hormones are your bodys chemical messengers. When kept in check they control practically every physiological process in your body. Therefore, balance is the key to optimal functioning.
Hormones require a harmonious existence body systems that are stable and proportional.
While hormones have individual effects on the body, they also interact with each other to produce dramatic effects, and when balance is lost, hormone deficiencies and excesses can cause chronic symptoms and disorders, as well as increase disease risk.
The good news is that while keeping hormones in balance during menopause can be difficult, the Australian Menopause Centre offer a more natural, individualised program to treat hormone imbalance.
Along with this, hormones can be kept in check with attention to diet. Certain foods in your diet can throw off the balance of your hormones, but they can also be used to restore balance when it is lost.
When it comes to eating for menopause, five simple rules will support you in keeping your hormones balanced.
Common Symptoms Of Estrogen Dominance
- Irregular or heavy periods
- Painful periods
- PMS is often caused by too much estrogen
Estrogen dominance can impact sugar metabolism, fat build up and break down, energy level, and neurotransmitter production leading to anxiety and depression. It can also put you at higher risk of thyroid dysfunction, breast cancer, uterine fibroids, and autoimmune disease.
If this resonates with you, request a free 20-minute consultation to see if Functional Medicine might be right for you.
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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:
How To Balance Hormones
Hormones are the chemical messengers that affect your mental, physical, and emotional health. They are your bodys chemical messengers, traveling to tissues or organs in your bloodstream. Hormones work overtime and affect several different processes throughout the body, including growth and development, metabolism, sexual function, mood, and more. Typically, the body produces a precise amount of each hormone needed for various processes to stay healthy. Contact our obgyn in Lake Success for help with hormone balancing.
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How To Increase Estrogen
This article was medically reviewed by Lacy Windham, MD. Dr. Windham is a board certified Obstetrician & Gynecologist in Tennessee. She attended medical school at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis and completed her residency at the Eastern Virginia Medical School in 2010, where she was awarded the Most Outstanding Resident in Maternal Fetal Medicine, Most Outstanding Resident in Oncology, and Most Outstanding Resident Overall.There are 20 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page.wikiHow marks an article as reader-approved once it receives enough positive feedback. This article has 14 testimonials from our readers, earning it our reader-approved status. This article has been viewed 2,899,504 times.
Estrogen is a natural hormone found in both men and women. Keeping estrogen at a healthy level is important for both sexes, but women need more estrogen for normal bodily functions, such as conceiving children. During menopause, estrogen levels in women decrease significantly. Learn about how simple changes to your lifestyle and diet may increase your estrogen.
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Start Or Continue To Exercise
Research shows that women who exercise and are physically active experience fewer body and mental menopause symptoms compared to those who are sedentary.
Our Tip: Help balance hormones naturally doing something you actually enjoy and that doesnt challenge your symptoms. Maybe skip the Bikram yoga and Five-Rhythms class if youre struggling with hot flashes a lot.
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Support The Adrenal System With Herbs Roots And More
Consider a hormone balancing diet that includes naturally calming herbs, adaptogen mushrooms, and relaxing root extracts. Some options:
- Licorice root: could help manage cortisol.
- Curcumin: one of the benefits of turmeric is that it may lower anxiety and treat depression.
- Valerian root: a natural sleep and relaxation aid.
- Reishi and Cordyceps mushrooms: both adaptogens that naturally manage stress and energy expenditure.
- Rhodiola: An adaptogenic herb that may reduce cortisol levels.
- Ashwagandha: another adaptogenic herb with calming effects.
- Holy basil leaf: not the regular basil, also known as tulsi or Ocimum sanctum L its been linked to neuroprotective, cognition-enhancing and stress-relieving effects
Our Tip: Try Organifi Gold a maximum strength turmeric tea, featuring Reishi mushroom benefits, and lemon balm the calming herb among other seven relaxing superfoods, to balance hormones naturally.
Ways To Improve Your Gut Bacteria Based On Science
There are around 40 trillion bacteria in your body, most of which are found in your gut.
Collectively, they are known as your gut microbiome, and theyre incredibly important for overall health. However, certain types of bacteria in your intestines can also contribute to many diseases.
Many factors, including the foods you eat, can impact the type of bacteria found in your digestive tract.
Here are 9 science-based ways to improve your gut bacteria.
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Natural Treatment For Menopause
1. Eat Foods that Help Manage Menopause Symptoms
When trying to balance hormones and reduce menopause symptoms, your diet should include plenty of essential minerals and healthy fats. Filling up on the following foods which are hormone-balancing, nutrient-dense and unprocessed can help you eliminate your intake of empty calories and manage weight gain.
Keep in mind that you might need to consume less calories overall in order to maintain your weight as you get older. Due to a decrease in muscle mass and slowing of your metabolism, its more important than ever to limit processed foods and focus on eating a clean diet.
Foods that can help manage menopause symptoms include:
2. Avoid Foods that Make Menopause Worse
3. Take These Supplements for Menopause Relief
Although less commonly used at home on your own, other botanicals/herbs can also help manage symptoms including: evening primrose oil, licorice root, wild yams, red raspberry leaves, chaste tree and sarsaparilla. Each one has a specific symptom that they are able to help treat, so it can be very helpful to talk with a trained naturopath doctor to help guide you into using proper dosages and combinations.
4. Reduce & Manage Stress
Many women experience increased anxiety, moodiness and even episodes of depression during the menopause years. Managing stress in your life is one important way to reduce behaviors or symptoms like emotional eating and weight gain, fatigue, getting poor sleep and low libido.
Bioidentical Hormone Replacement Therapy :
For my women who have more severe symptoms supplements to balance hormones may not be enough and in this case Bioidentical Hormone Replacement Therapy can be a great option. With proper labs, follow-up, and customized dosing, this can be a safe step up in a patients therapy from more natural treatments. Remember, its all about safety first, so using the lowest level of therapy to provide adequate symptom relief is ideal!
There is no one herb, nutritional plan, product, or therapy that is good for everything hormones related. It is vital to determine what type of hormone imbalance you have and why. Finding the root cause to your health issues can bring you back to long-lasting optimal health herbals, nutrition, and medications can help you there. A qualified health care professional can offer testing, interpretation, diagnosis, and treatment for your unique needs and goals!
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Diet Rich In Nutrients
A diet rich in fruits and vegetables can reduce menopausal symptoms. It also aids in the development of strong bones, the prevention of bone loss, and the maintenance of a healthy weight. It can also help prevent heart disease, which is significantly more likely in women after menopause.
We can help you adopt a nutrient-dense diet that includes:
- Grass-fed meats
- Red meat and shellfish
What Happens To Our Bodies After Menopause
In truth, menopause, while it is usually thought of as a discrete period in our 50s, has long-lasting effects on our bodies. Many of the hormonal changes that take place, stay with us for the rest of our lives.
In my recent conversation with , a naturopath and nurse, we discuss some natural ways to get your hormones back in balance after menopause. I hope that Julies tips help you to understand what is going on in your body.
More importantly, I hope that her comments inspire you to give your aging body the nutrition and exercise that it deserves.
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A Healthy Diet Is Key
When it comes to getting all the essential macronutrients and micronutrients necessary to balance hormones, we should always turn to food first. Supplements are great, but theres no substitute for good, whole foods the ones that come directly from the Earth, just as nature intended. Your endocrine system needs certain foods, which contain specific nutrients, to do its job. Lets see which ones those are!
Vitamins To Naturally Treat Menopause Symptoms And Balance Out Hormone Levels
No matter how much you do not like the period of menopause, face it it cannot be avoided. Menopause is an unbendable period of every womans life. And it seems that no amount of information can prepare us for what is coming during and after menopause. Sure, you might be familiar with the symptoms and different stories told by women who like to share their experiences with menopause, but when it comes to dealing with the symptoms you need all the help that you can get.
Hearing a professional opinion on the matter is always welcomed, and you can use the opportunity to acknowledge the different menopause treatment options that can help you deal with the hormonal imbalance that is happening during menopause. We will show you the importance of different vitamins that can help you balance your hormones during this hard period in your life. But before we proceed, it is always a good idea to refresh our memory with some key facts about menopause.
What happens during the period of menopause? What are the symptoms that you need to expect?
The first sign that you are experiencing menopause is usually your period that seems to step out from its regular schedule. In the beginning, the periods become less and less frequent until you no longer experience periods. This is when the other common symptoms of menopause start to show u, such as. menopause, hot flashes , trouble sleeping, decreased libido, and mood swings.
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What Are Typical Hormone Fluctuations During Perimenopause And Menopause
KARA: All these hormones are intertwined, so one of them changes and the others can get out of balance. Perimenopause might start for women in their early thirties and continue on until menopause. And we were just talking on break that the average age of menopause is around 50. At some point during those perimenopausal years, a woman will miss a period or several periods and then will finally stop obsoleting. So taking into account that women make progesterone when they ovulate, it just means that a woman is no longer producing that hormone called progesterone. And so many times, even when there’s no ovulation occurring and no progesterone secreted, that menstrual cycle will proceed and a period will occur. So it’s kinda confusing.
KARA: It’s biochemistry. So some of you listeners know that for the past several months I’ve taken a break from working individually with clients. So for the rest of the format for the show today, I wanted like pick Marcie’s brain. Kind of an interview type format. She has the same type of knowledge as our other nutritionist as well when it comes to hormones. So Marcie, I’m just going to ask you when you’re working with a client, what would you do to eliminate or even just reduce those uncomfortable perimenopausal symptoms? The ones we’ve been talking about. Night sweats, sleep issues, mood swings, and weight gain.
BREAK