Estrogen Dominance - What You Need to Know

The hormone that controls a woman's monthly cycle, estrogen, gets a lot of attention in women's lives, but it is actually a hormone that affects both men and women.  We all need estrogen, but we need it in the right amounts in order to maintain hormone harmony within the body.  Unfortunately, we live in a time when toxins and other environmental hazards can throw estrogen levels out of balance.  More often than not, we see estrogen levels become excessive and overpowering other important hormones such as progesterone and testosterone leading to a condition called Estrogen Dominance.  When this happens, we can see a number of unpleasant health conditions come along, some of which are potentially life threatening.

What Is Estrogen?

Estrogen is the hormone that causes a girl to develop into an adult during puberty. It creates the changes that cause growth of the breasts, hair in the pubic area and under the arms and the beginning of menstruation. Once puberty is complete, estrogen continues to work, helping control the menstrual cycle, and protect bone health and keep cholesterol in control. Estrogen is also crucial to a woman's fertility.

Estrogen is produced primarily in the ovaries, the reproductive organ that produces the woman's eggs. Adrenal glands also make estrogen, which is why men will have estrogen in small amounts. Fat also creates estrogen. Once it is created, estrogen is transported to the body's tissues through the blood.

During the menstrual cycle, estrogen levels change. In the middle of the cycle, estrogen levels are at their highest. Women will have lower estrogen levels during their periods. Because menstruation ceases in menopause, estrogen levels also drop at this time.

Types of Estrogen

Believe it or not, there are three types of estrogens made by the human body.  These are referred to as "endogenous" estrogens:

1. Estrone - made by the adrenal glands
   
2. Estriol - a weaker form of estrogen, made by the adrenal glands as well as the ovaries
3. Estradiol - the most common estrogen, produced by the ovaries during childbearing years

But that's not all.. We also are exposed to "exogenous" estrogens, or estrogens through our environment.  There are also three types:

1. Phytoestrogens - estrogens found in plant sources.  These are only 1/1000x as strong as human made estrogens.
   
   
2. Xeno-estrogens - estrogens found in our environment - hormones in animal products, our drinking water (municipal filtration systems do not filter the estrogens in birth control pills that women excrete through their urine and bowel movements), estrogen-mimicking compounds added to personal care and cleaning products, pesticides, etc..  These estrogens are everywhere and are 1000x stronger than human made estrogens..
   
   
3. Synthetic Estrogens - found in birth control pills, hormone replacement therapy and estrogen replacement therapy.  These estrogens range in potency from 5-50-500x stronger than human made estrogens.
   

Metabolism of Estrogens

How estrogens are metabolized is a complex and lengthy discussion, but to simplify things, research shows that Estrone, Estriol and Estradiol are broken down by the liver into estrogen metabolites - or daughter compounds - called 2-hydroxyestrone, 4-hydroxyestrone and 16-hydroxyestrone.  These metabolites can have stronger or weaker estrogenic activity within the body, and thus can increase a woman's risk of breast, uterine, and other cancers, depending on how they are metabolized.  What we want to see is a higher amount of the 2-hydroxyestrone metabolite as it is the one shown to have a lower estsrogenic effect on the body, meaning it results in a lower risk of cancer.  The 4 and 16-hyrdoxyestrone metabolites work very differently within the body leading to an elevated risk of breast cancer and association with direct genotoxic effects and carcinogenicity.

How Does Estrogen Become Dominant?

Estrogen dominance (too much estrogen in relation to progesterone or testosterone) can be created in a number of ways but is generally caused by just a few factors including:

• Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and Birth Control Pills
• Hormonal imbalance
• Foods that have had hormones added to them, such as commercially produced meat, milk, eggs and other dairy products
• Herbs that have an estrogenic effect on the body, such as licorice, black cohosh and damiana
• Glandular dysfunction (i.e. a congested liver that is unable to properly detoxify the body)
• Environmental estrogens (xeno-estrogens) that mimic the actions of estrogen. The biggest source of xeno-estrogens is pesticides
  
• Chronic constipation which interferes with the body's ability to excrete excess estrogen properly - estrogen then builds up in the colon and is reabsorbed into the body
• Obesity - the more fat cells you have, the more estrogen you make

Symptoms of Estrogen Dominance

Estrogen dominance can wreak havoc on our bodies, cause a number of unpleasant conditions and/or make other pre-existing conditions worse. 

Women's Issues:

• Uterine fibroids
• Endometriosis
• Night sweats
• Vaginal dryness
• Weight gain - especially around the stomach, hips and thighs
• Tender breasts
• Fibrocystic breasts
• Mood swings and irritability
• Insomnia
• Memory loss
• Dry skin
• Irregular periods
• Infertility
• Fibromyalgia symptoms
• PMS
• Fatigue
• Heavy menstrual bleeding, with clotting
• Depression
• Symptoms of low thyroid
• Adrenal gland fatigue
• Water retention/bloating
• Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS)
• Cyclical migraine headaches
• Atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries0

Men's Issues:

• Prostate problems
• Inappropriate growth of mammary tissues (aka "man boobs")
• Impotency
• Male patterned baldness
• Weight gain - especially around the stomach, hips and thighs
• Low libido
  

How to Support Healthy Estrogen Balance

There is no getting away from estrogens in our environment but there are a number of things that we can do to minimize our exposure and to help support our body in having a healthy balance of estrogens and their metabolites.

1. Eat a clean diet rich in organic fruits and vegetables.  If organic does not work into your budget, make sure you wash all fruits and vegetables with a good fruit and veggie wash to remove any pesticide residues.  Include plenty of fiber like flax, beans and legumes and whole grains to help promote healthy bowel movements so excess estrogens can be released through he colon.  Keep saturated fats, especially animal sourced, to a bare minimum.  I serving a day, no bigger than the size of a deck of cards.  Any animal products consumed should ideally be organic, antibiotic and growth-hormone free if your budget will allow for it.
   
   
2. Consume organic coffee.  Coffee has long been known to be the most heavily pesticided crop on the planet.  And who doesn't love a good cup of java?  Or multiple cups in a day?  If you are a coffee drinker, and especially if you drink many coffees in a day, the investment in purchasing good organic and fair-trade coffee is a wise and important change to make.
   
   
3. Use all natural personal care and cleaning products that do not contain additives like parabens, pthalates and other compounds that mimic estrogen within the body.  What goes onto our skin is in our bloodstream in a matter of minutes!  Many cleaning products are easy to make on your own, as are some personal care products.  Otherwise, visit your local health food stores for the best variety of clean and safe products.
   
   
4. Show your liver some love.  The liver is our best friend when it comes to detoxifying excess estrogens from the body.  Not sure how to best support your second largest organ?  Check out my blog from May of 2016 on foods to help support liver detoxification.   Herbal supplements specifically geared to support the liver and metabolism of estrogens can help as well.
   
   
5. Eat cruciferous vegetables every day - bok choy, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, kale, kohlrabi, mustard greens, turnip, etc..  These vegetables contain a powerful phytonutrient called I3C (indole-3-carbinol) which helps to support estrogen metabolism to the preferred 2-hydroxyestrone rather than the dangerous 16-hydroxyestrone.
   
   
6. Nutritional supplementation under the guidance and supervision of a qualified practitioner.
   
   
7. Invest in a good water filtration system for your home.  Municipal water treatment facilities do not filter out the estrogens that are peed out by women who are taking the birth control pill or hormone replacement therapy.  This means, it ends up in our drinking water and, unless we have an effective filtration system in place at home, we end up drinking this estrogen in.  I am a fan of reverse osmosis systems as well as the Berkey filtration systems.   Brita, while it may remove some chlorine and other additives to water, does not remove estrogens.  Shop around and be sure to ask questions to be certain the system you are interested in will also remove estrogens and other items that the municipal water system does not remove.
   
   
8. Make appropriate lifestyle changes to minimize stress.  Stress plays a role in disrupting every system of our body, including hormonal balance.  Determine what your stressors are, eliminate those that you can, and put stress management coping strategies into place for the stressors that cannot be eliminated.
   
   
9. Achieve and maintain a healthy body weight. 

We live in a time where our bodies are being exposed to toxins like they never have before, through our food, the day-to-day products that we use and our external environment.  Trying to maintain balance, especially when it comes to hormones, is getting harder and harder.  By being aware of how estrogen can become imbalanced, what the symptoms are and how we can make appropriate changes in our lives to reduce our risk and mitigate any imbalance that is already present, we can go a long way to feeling well and staying healthy.