By Dr. Josh Redd, Chiropractic Physician, RedRiver Health and Wellness Center
Most cases of hormonal imbalances — PCOS, PMS, infertility, perimenopause symptoms — boil down to three simple things.
People, and their doctors, often don’t know why they develop hormonal imbalances. Many are prescribed birth control pills to regulate their cycles. However, the reasons for hormone imbalances in most people are quite simple: High blood sugar, inflammation, and poor estrogen clearance.
- Chronically high stress and cortisol: When you’re in a chronic stress response from either your lifestyle, high blood sugar, or undiagnosed autoimmune or other immune imbalances — this keeps your stress system running nonstop. The precursor hormones that should go to the reproductive hormones go to making stress hormones instead. We especially see this with low progesterone. Plus chronic stress breaks down immune barriers, keeps the immune system on high alert, and alters hormone physiology.
- Inflammation: Inflammation often goes hand in hand with high blood sugar and chronic stress. Combined these factors can skew female hormones to produce too much testosterone in women (or too much estrogen in men) and too little progesterone. Hormone production and receptor sites are also impacted.
- Poor clearance of estrogen through the liver: Inflammation jams up the detox pathways in the liver. One of the liver’s jobs is to metabolize hormones to clear them from the body. When liver detox is working poorly, the estrogen is metabolized into a more toxic form before being sent back into the bloodstream. This can cause symptoms of estrogen dominance.
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