I’ve seen women in their 70’s and 80’s with saliva hormone levels comparable to women on HRT.
No one is talking about this because they aren’t doing testing.
Many doctors are telling patients that testing isn’t valid during perimenopause and that it doesn’t matter after menopause.
Truth is, blood hormone testing varies a lot in perimenopause and is low almost all of the time post menopausal.
However, saliva testing can tell a different story because it shows the hormones stored in your body fat.
The more body fat you have the more likely you are to store hormones.
Depending on how much you eat out, consume processed foods, use plastic, and drink city water on top of the exposures you can’t control, it’s possible you’re reabsorbing hormones and storing them in fat.
These stored hormones from life exposures are xenoestrogens, chemical estrogens.
At the same time you store environmental estrogen, you’re likely to store estrone, inflammatory estrogen in your fat.
The heavier you are the more this is the case.
Good news is estrone can convert to estradiol, the useful estrogen you want for all the benefits.
Bad news is there’s no regulation in the body to carry out this conversion.
Weight gain over 40 is actually a sign of your body’s intelligence as it knows it needs to store estrogens when the ovaries slow their production.
I don’t know if anyone has studied the “healthy” amount of weight gain over 40 to sustain hormone levels and I’m certain it would be hard to find women to sign up for that study!
Either way you look at it your body fat is where you’ll process the hormones your adrenal glands make after your ovaries cease hormone production.
So if your body fat is the hormone factory and your adrenals create the precursors then it’s best to take good care of your adrenals and ensure your body fat is not storing excessive amounts of environmental chemicals to optimize your health in perimenopause and beyond.
These women in my practice who’ve kept their hormone levels optimal in their 70’s and 80’s?
Focus on eating as closest to nature as possible, use glass and nontoxic cookware, have reverse osmosis with charcoal filtration for their water.
They have a daily movement practice and have supported their adrenal glands with adaptogenic herbs for years.
All of them carry about 5-10 pounds extra of body weight.
So what do you do if you don’t want the extra weight but don’t want to use hormones for life or at all?
Take care of your adrenal glands and optimize your metabolism.
If you’re not in menopause yet and you’re over 40, it’s time to focus on this to optimize your health.
In menopause? It’s never to late to help support your body’s natural production of hormones, even if you are taking HRT.
Test out adaptogenic herbs and find which one has you feeling calm if you have anxiety or stress reactions or if you’re more on the fatigued size see which help for boosting energy.
The key here is to find an adaptogenic herb known to work with your predominant mood (if you’re prone to anxiety, worry, fear or depression) and energy levels.
Consider a Chinese Herbal formula to help support those things that you consider low level quirks about yourself that aren’t bad enough to get help but are things you would describe about your body like digestive complaints, aches, pains, insomnia, brain function and more.
Tomorrow, I’ll dive deeper into how your environment impacts your hormones and Thursday I’ll be talking about Chinese Herbal formulas to consider to support your body’s natural hormone production.
Because I’m getting so many questions on HRT and if you need it, how long to be on it and more I decided to create a 3 month program called “Hormone School” where I’ll teach you the exact process I use with clients to help them learn how to support their hormones naturally or in conjunction with HRT.
Think of it as everything you should have learned in high school health class about your body and how to take care of it for life!
Hormone School is for women over 40 seeing changes in her health and her doctor isn’t helping or telling her to try birth control or “it’s normal aging”, is on HRT and not getting support to understand how to adjust or determine how long to be on hormones.
It’s for women who are curious about supporting their hormones but not sure if they need HRT.
I decided it’s time to create a community where hormone questions can be answered and not dismissed.
Awkward questions about sexual health and vaginal dryness can be freely discussed.
So if you’re experiencing heavy or unpredictable periods, low libido, weird stuff happening down below, incontinence, mood swings, insomnia, weight gain, brain fog, fatigue and digestive changes this is for you!
Next week, I’ll share more on Hormone School.
Here’s to healthy hormones for life,
Dr. J
