Slowed metabolism, fatigue, dry skin, hair loss, insomnia and constipation are common symptoms for adults over 30.
These symptoms are either put in a bucket of slow thyroid issues, if you’re younger or hormone imbalances if you’re over 40.
Yet, you don’t hear many people talking about how they are connected!
When estrogen levels are elevated or on a roller coaster of ups and downs during peri-menopause they can slow down thyroid hormone conversion.
This shows up as low thyroid hormone T3 levels.
It also presents as low thyroid hormone T3 uptake into the cells.
If you’ve been reading my emails for a while you may be saying, low T3 and low T3 uptake equal cellular hypothyroidism.
Exactly!
Elevated estrogen levels compared to progesterone impacts your thyroid function on a cellular level!
In menopause, if your estrogens are in a low range compared to your progesterone, meaning your estrogen to progesterone ratio is off, you’re also more prone to have reduced thyroid hormone conversion.
This is a common phenomenon that I see and it’s related to a few factors…
- excessive consumption of foods that contain hormones – dairy in particular
- increased exposure to environmental hormone disruptors
- slow or impaired estrogen detox through the liver or cells
- mineral deficiencies
- increased stress
Reducing estrogen excess in the body helps to improve thyroid hormone balance.
How do you know if you have this going on?
- blood or saliva hormone testing
- blood testing of thyroid hormones
- blood testing of thyroid antibodies
What do you do?
Optimize how your body clears excess hormones by eating 1/4 cup broccoli sprouts, 2 cups of cabbage family veggies or beets daily.
Or take a supplement called Di-indole Methane (DIM) with Calcium D-Glucarate (CDG) to clear hormones more effectively.
Ensure you’re eating enough foods rich in B12 and folate or supplement with these as well.
B12 rich foods I recommend are… organic grass fed meats and game meats as well as wild caught fish and folate is dark leafy greens.
Use mineral rich sea salt like Celtic Sea Salt or Redmond’s Salt.
Or for a bit more support consider adding a liquid trace mineral to your water daily like Concentrace.
Iodine is a key helper here as well as it offsets estrogen excess and supports thyroid hormone T4 to T3 conversion.
Metabolism often slows down when there’s an excess of estrogen compared to progesterone.
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You can have both levels low and if your progesterone is close to zero and you have a little estrogen this can be a cause of the slowed metabolism.
When both your estrogen and progesterone are low, often in menopause and beyond, this is not the time to take tons of supplements to detox hormones.
This is the time to take a little progesterone and support your thyroid with minerals and iodine, not to boost estrogen levels.
Unfortunately, this is why many women do not tolerate bio-identical estrogen.
When the ratio of estrogen to progesterone is too high, thyroid hormone conversion becomes reduced and symptoms of hypothyroidism surface or worsen.
Fully testing thyroid function is crucial to understand the complete picture when it comes to hormones and metabolism.
If you’re struggling with symptoms of a slowed thyroid and are over 30 it’s key to have more than just standard TSH and free T4 tested.
Your doctor may be hesitant to look at T3 and T3 uptake and the good news is, you can order these tests yourself now (ultalabtests.com).
The more you know about your hormone function the more you can take control of your metabolic and hormone health!
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