Women's Health - Hormonal Changes & Imbalance

Women's Health - Hormonal Changes & Imbalance

Women may naturally have some hormonal ups and downs as they go through life that start from the first menstrual cycle, pregnancy and then during and possibly after menopause. For some these hormonal symptoms can be quite debilitating, and affect fertility and mood. The good news is many symptoms can be improved through lifestyle and dietary changes.

Symptoms and conditions that indicate/suggest hormonal imbalance include:

• PMS (moodiness, sore breasts, irritable, depressed, sugar cravings)
• Menstrual problems (heavy, painful, irregular)
• Fertility issues
• Acne
• PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome)
• Ovarian cysts
• Endometriosis
• Menopausal symptoms (hot flushes, vaginal dryness, insomnia, weight gain around the midriff)
• Fibrocystic breasts
• Excess hair growth on face, chest, stomach
• Thinning hair (male- pattern baldness)

Suspected hormonal imbalance – what to do

Visit your doctor

If some symptoms sound familiar have a chat with your doctor as they can run scans and blood tests to look for imbalances and possible cysts on the ovaries. Once you have a diagnosis, it makes life easier, as you know what you are treating.

Visit a nutritional therapist

They will look at blood sugar, hormonal levels, health history, lifestyle and diet. They may do blood and saliva testing to check when your hormonal levels are high and low. The results can help a nutritional therapist develop a targeted programme to manage or improve your symptoms. If there are fertility issues, you may want to use a combination of natural treatment with medical management.

Self Help

Read Patrick Holford’s Balance Your Hormones book. It provides dietary and lifestyle support and a basic hormonal health questionnaire to use as a guideline to help you make changes.

Try the 100% Health questionnaire - a detailed questionnaire that gives you advice tailored to your individual health goals.

Consider nutritional support - Female Balance is a daily supplement for women that contains Vitamin B6 to support hormonal activity, along with vitamins B12, folic acid, niacin, vitamin C and magnesium to support mind health and reduce fatigue.

Basic 5 top dietary and lifestyle tips

1. Limit alcohol and quit smoking - the two can upset your blood sugar levels and stress response, resulting in menstrual irregularity, depression and early menopause
2. Dietary fibre is crucial to maintaining hormonal balance by binding to and removing unwanted oestrogen from the body. Get your intake from vegetables and oats to benefit from a range of nutrients.
3. Use BPA free plastic or glass. You may have noticed that storage containers labelled ‘free of BPAs’ are becoming more popular. This is because BPAs can mimic oestrogens, causing havoc with your hormones.
4. Weight bearing exercise to improve muscle tone. Muscles act as a glucose sink, which means less is circulating the system to disrupt hormones. Often a small amount of weight loss when overweight can make a huge difference to the regularity of menstruation and mood.
5. Consider if you need to use contraceptives and HRT - ask your doctor about natural ways to prevent conception and manage menopausal symptoms. Hormonal medications can cause havoc and confusion to the body, especially when taken for long periods of time.