When we hear the word "hormones", often we think of "female" hormones, and female "issues",and cranky, emotional women at "certain times of the month". It's not exactly a compliment to be referred to as "hormonal", now is it?
In reality, hormones are serious business. They are critical components of our body's master communication systems, transmitting messages from various glands to the appropriate receptor sites on cells in order to create the desired outcome. Each hormone has a very specific receptor site on the cell membrane made just for it. It's like a little garage made especially for one kind of car.
It's an incredibly intricate and brilliant design.
Hormones are involved in every physical, mental, and emotional function, not just the feisty female ones. Boys and men wouldn't exist without hormones. (Some say the same is true of boys and men without women,but I digress.)
Anyhow, the point of this little article IS actually related to "female" hormones and hormonal imbalances. It's estimated that close to 90% of the women in this country experience some type of hormonal imbalance or dis-regulation. Wow! You'd think, with that many of us afflicted, that medicine would have come up with some solid solutions by now.
Conventional medical treatment often involves hormone replacement therapy, or giving birth control pills, or removing parts of the female reproductive system, or some other way of altering hormone production. For some, this might be the solution.
Some women opt to forgo these treatment approaches and, instead, choose seemingly safer options like bio-identical hormone replacement or over-the-counter progesterone creams or various self-medicating options. Most are still attempting to alter or balance the hormones themselves (estrogen and progesterone being the two biggies).
Here's a twist to the plot: What if our hormonal issues weren't actually "hormonal" at all? What if the cause of the hormone imbalance was actually deeper,or "higher upstream", so to speak? What if the vast majority of them were actually related to toxicity?
In that case, how would artificially tweaking our hormone levels have any real, or lasting success? Right. It wouldn't for an overwhelming number of women. In fact, if you're not addressing the cause of the hormonal dis-regulation in the first place, you could be creating even more trouble for yourself.
Here's a brief physiology lesson that will help explain why toxicity must be considered as a potential cause of hormone issues (and countless additional health issues):
Your endocrine system is the system responsible for secreting various hormones throughout the body. This system is under the control of the pituitary, which is under the control of the hypothalamus - both in your brain. Your pituitary also regulates other major endocrine glands such as your thyroid and adrenal glands. Your hypothalamus/pituitary is like the "Houston Control Center"!
There are some toxins that are capable of crossing your "blood brain barrier" and can wreak havoc on this control center. One prevalent example is mercury. In case you didn't know, mercury has no business being in our bodies, let alone our brains! Unfortunately, anyone who has silver dental fillings/amalgams (or if your mother had them while you were in the womb), who has been vaccinated, who has received the flu shot, who has worked in a dental office for a long period of time, etc. most likely has mercury in their system. Studies demonstrate that this mercury has an affinity for the hypothalamus/pituitary area of the brain. When mercury tweaks the integrity of your "control center", the output from that control center is altered. i.e. hormone production and balance.
Additional research has shown that biotoxins from mold or Lyme's, for example, cause a decrease in certain hormones that are essentially at the top of the hormone cascade, thus affecting the production of every other hormone down the road.
Toxins don't just 'swim upstream' and negatively affect the brain. They affect various tissues and glands throughout the body, as well. For example, mercury can bind to the specific receptor site for selenium on your thyroid. Remember I mentioned that those receptor sites are supposed to be reserved for the specific hormone it was made for in order for the desired outcome to happen? The garage is made for only one kind of car.
Well, toxins sneak in and take over the garages, so the intended car (hormone) has nowhere to go. Can you imagine how these freely circulating hormones might throw off your laboratory results?
Worse yet, your immune system may begin to (accurately) see this new bond that has been created as something foreign and unwelcome,and therefore begin to attack your body's own thyroid tissue. When the immune system does this, it's known as an "autoimmune" condition.
When it comes to "female" hormones, estrogen balance is of critical importance, particularly in our modern day lifestyle. Several environmental toxins alter our estrogen balance and negatively effect the ratio of "good" to "bad" estrogens. One example,is plastics. The BPA and phthalates found in plastics both mimic estrogen and can lead to estrogen dominance. Does this sound all-too-common when it comes to breast cancer?
Other common environmental triggers for estrogen and other hormonal imbalances are: pesticides, steroids, and antibiotics, to name just a few. We are exposed to more toxins now than at any other time in our known history.
Estrogen dominant cancers are growing in number. Yet, are we properly addressing the underlying causes of hormonal imbalance in the first place?
Although I've only scratched the surface here, I believe any approach to hormonal issues, whether it's a conventional medical approach, or a more holistic/natural approach, is woefully incomplete if it's not addressing toxicity. This, of course, is true of any health condition or challenge.
(I haven't even addressed the chronic toxicity from physical, mental & emotional, and other chemical sources, such as nutrition!
In addition to addressing toxicity (starting at the level of the cell), we can also be more accurate with testing. For example, leading researchers now know that it's the balance of estrogens in the body that is key to better understanding these hormonally-driven cancers, not just isolated hormonal levels. For example, one valuable test is an estrogen metabolism test that looks at the ratio of "good to bad" estrogens and which toxins are potentially causing the imbalance.
Of course, nothing in the body works in isolation. Therefore, you can't just look at estrogen and think you've got a complete picture of what's going on. It's important to know the functional levels of your thyroid, adrenals, and pituitary for starters.
Are you beginning to see why adding hormones to the mix or applying a hormonal cream may not be your wisest choice? When you alter your hormones, whether it's synthetically or "naturally", you end up creating a cascade of events in the body in response. Plus, you may be barking up the wrong tree,in the wrong park,quite possibly in a completely different city!
I understand that there's a "time and a place" for some intervention,especially if it's just intended to be temporary until you really get down to the business of addressing and correcting the cause. I hear you. However, just adding hormones, especially without identifying the cause of imbalance, can essentially be like throwing gasoline on an already raging fire! You know what they say about playing with fire, right?
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