Too Much Estrogen?

www.NorthgateLivingCA.com

@NorthgateLivingCA

By Carolyn Krieg, D.O. and Paul H. Kim, M.D.

Estrogen is a beautiful thing. It’s what gives us our female characteristics, controls our monthly cycle, maintains bone health, and more. But sometimes you can get too much of a good thing. For you to feel your best, you want your estrogen and progesterone to be balanced. If these two hormones are out of balance, you can experience unpleasant symptoms.

An all-too-common imbalance is when estrogen levels are higher than progesterone. We refer to this as Estrogen Dominance. This causes symptoms such as severe PMS, painful and heavy periods, mood swings, anxiety, migraines, breast tenderness, endometriosis, fibrocystic breasts, uterine fibroids, water retention and bloating. It can even increase the risk of certain estrogen-related cancers such breast or endometrial cancer.

Common things I hear from patients:

• “My periods are heavier with clots. My recent period lasted 2 weeks …”

• “I’ve always had heavy periods and struggle with anemia …”

• “My breasts feel swollen. It hurts sometimes when I get a hug …”

• “My hands are swollen and I can’t wear my rings …”

• “My PMS symptoms have gotten so much worse …”

What Causes Estrogen Dominance? The main causes of estrogen dominance are:

Perimenopause As we approach menopause (during perimenopause which typically starts in your 40s, five to ten years prior to menopause), hormone production by our ovaries starts to taper off. Progesterone levels can start to decline before estrogen levels do, causing an imbalance. Estrogen levels in the body are now elevated relative to progesterone causing this “dominance” of estrogen.

Overproduction Some women make too much estrogen. Aromatase is an enzyme in our fat cells. This enzyme makes estrogen out of other hormones in our body (progesterone, DHEA, and testosterone). Women with a lot of body fat have more aromatase and are said to “aromatize” these other hormones into estrogen, causing the estrogen excess or dominance.

Difficulty getting rid of estrogen Estrogen is metabolized through the detoxification pathways in the liver, similar to how toxins and other substances are metabolized (or cleared) from our body. Many of us don’t process estrogen well through the liver, and/or process estrogen through pathways that are less than optimal. This can be due to genetics — some of us are inherently poor detoxifiers — or due to a high toxic burden, which affects the ability of our liver to properly do its job to get rid of estrogen.

Furthermore, we are increasingly exposed to xenoestrogens. These are toxins in our environment that get into our body and mimic estrogen. They cause unwanted side effects such as those listed above for estrogen dominance. Xenoestrogens are also referred to as endocrine disrupting compounds and affect men, children, fetuses, and wildlife too. Therefore, it’s important to do whatever we can to limit our exposure to toxins.

What Can You Do to Treat Estrogen Dominance? There is so much that you can do naturally to reduce or eliminate the symptoms of Estrogen Dominance. Detoxifying your estrogen is key, both to reduce circulating estrogen levels and to metabolize it through the “good” pathways in the liver. Diet and lifestyle play a big part in this. Also, taking targeted supplements will help decrease estrogen levels and clear it from your body. We frequently recommend specific supplements to our patients with good results.

Please contact Previ at 925-979-0979 if you want to learn more.