Normal is not optimal. The standard American diet is highly inflammatory and increases our chances of developing most diseases. It’s common, yet far from ideal.
Hormone levels are similar. “Normal” hormone levels are often derived from data on old and sick patients. These levels may be average for this demographic, but they are not optimal, nor are they inevitable. When our hormones are out of balance, we can experience a range of symptoms including sluggishness, anxiety, decreased libido, hair loss, dry skin, palpitations, weight gain, brain fog, insomnia. The list goes on.
Often times, hormone imbalance is due to dysbiosis and permeability in the gut and/or hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal-gonadal axis dysfunction. By addressing these underlying issues, we can reconnect with our energy and resilience. While we focus on root causes, bioidentical hormones are useful, synergistic therapies that help us accelerate our healing and get us back on track, living the life we want to live. With age comes a diminished capacity for cellular protein synthesis, a decline in immune function, an increase in fat mass, a loss of muscle mass and strength, and a decrease in bone mineral density. Age-related disability is synonymous with weakness, impaired mobility, balance, and poor endurance. Again, this is not inevitable.
Contrary to popular belief, inflammation is the primary cause of aging. Inflammation is caused or exacerbated by everything from infections to imbalanced microbiomes to heavy metal toxicity to mold toxicity to toxin exposures to lack of sleep to stress and many others. We need to do everything we can to address our individual causes of inflammation. This, however, takes time and our metabolic processes may suffer in the meantime.
By optimizing our hormones while we address all of the underlying causes, we will feel better and help our bodies to heal.
Hormones can be checked with blood, urine and saliva and there are pros and cons to each. The Dutch test offers a way to check your hormones from the comfort of your home, not requiring a trip to the hospital. You can get results within a week of them receiving your test. If your hormones are not optimal, you can consider supporting them with a combination of bioidentical hormone replacement therapy (BHRT), supplements, herbs and lifestyle changes while searching for the root cause.
The medical landscape is changing very quickly with respect to hormones. Historically, many health care providers have steered clear of prescribing them at all.
Bioidentical hormones are hormones that are identical to the hormones that we have in our bodies. They are often manufactured with yams. Studies point to them being safer and more effective than non-bioidentical hormones.
Some bioidentical hormones, such as Armor thyroid, are manufactured and others are made in compounding pharmacies. Some have expressed concerns that compounding pharmacies are not adequately regulated. Others have pointed to the fact compounding pharmacies threaten the dominance of big pharma, and that conventional pharmaceutical companies are highly invested in invalidating the work of compounding pharmacies. If you are interested in reading more, below are a few studies for you to look at.
The evidence base for HRT: what can we believe?