Help Hormones with Food!

The liver and the gastrointestinal tract are pivotal in clearing your hormones. Because we live in a world inundated with estrogenic contamination and hormone disruption (plastics, make-up, pesticides, alcohol, herbicides, dioxins, etc.) hormone balance is challenging.

At some point in our lives, this catches up and symptoms express. For women, this may be heavy menstrual periods, PMS, cramps, inability to lose weight, fertility challenges, abnormal breast tissue and increased risks for breast cancer. For men, these include gynecomastia, low sperm count, erectile dysfunction, low energy, mood disturbance, inability to lose weight, and prostate enlargement. Elevated estrogenic activity, coupled with abnormal testosterone metabolism and elevated blood glucose heavily increases risks for prostate cancer in men.

For these reasons, it is imperative that we help the body clear hormones. Estrogen must be cleared by the liver and eliminated through the bowel. Every time you have a bowel movement, you are getting rid of your excess and spent hormones. Therefore, problems with diarrhea, constipation, leaky gut, gas, flora dysfunction, over-burdened liver, lack or bile or having no gallbladder will disrupt this whole system.

Three “doors” for estrogen elimination exist in the liver: 2-OH, 4-OH, and 16-OH. Door 2-OH is the best and safest pathway for estrogen clearance, providing there is no bowel inflammation. The 4-OH is the least favored pathway, creating a “genotoxic” estrogen that does not clear from the system, but in fact increases risks for gene mutation in the breast and uterus. The 16-OH pathway, while not as genotoxic as 4-OH, creates a more “estrogenic” effect leading to an estrogen-dominant system, contributing to PMS, fertility challenges, endometriosis, and heavy or abnormal uterine bleeding.

Estrogen also must be methylated after going through these pathways. Therefore, if people have poor methylation ability (this is often genetic), lack methyltetrahydrofolate (MTHF) and methyl-B12, estrogen elimination will be hindered.

A big question remains, why would your liver ever throw estrogen down a non-preferred and even dangerous pathway? Well, the answer to that question is priorities. If your liver must choose between properly clearing estrogen and utilizing that same pathway for detoxing chemicals, processing inflammation, and working on limited nutritional budget, then it may begin to “rob Peter to pay Paul.” Over time, that priority shifts into a pathology.

Can this be fixed? Yes. For much of our lives, our body is putting up with us - all of our fastfood, icecream, cake, cookies, lattes, beer, wine, and tobacco choices. Our system quietly detoxes this, giving us the impression that we are “healthy”. At that time, our bodies were healthy for the moment because we had the detox capacity to handle that load. For a large portion of our lives, we are accumulating straw, until one day the last straw is obtained. We may think we are healthy, but those choices were never healthy. No health benefit ever comes from inflammatory foods, alcohol, excess sugar or tobacco. Changing these choices will create the biggest impact for health. The health determinant is not if you think you are healthy, but do you make healthy choices?

The first change to make is not what to start taking, it’s what to stop. Don’t outcompete good liver support with inflammatory foods, alcohol, and tobacco. Gluten, dairy, sugar, alcohol, tobacco are 5 most harmful things to consume. Stopping these starts healing.

Listed below are foods and habits that support hormone health in the system. Mind you, sometimes it is not enough to merely change foods, other supplements may be needed. Over time, food will be enough.

In addition, help the liver with exercise - this stimulates blood flow through the liver, vital for all the workings of the liver. “Sedentary is the new smoking” is true. Doing a workout where your heart rate, respiration rate, and body temperature elevate means that the liver just got a boost. Studies show lowering estrogen dominance by merely exercising alone. Also, increasing muscle tone increases testosterone production. I have a wonderful colleague who, when men ask about testosterone prescriptions, is known to write “exercise more” on the script pad and hands it back to them. Don’t underestimate the power of exercise.

 Foods That Help Clear Estrogen (and other hormones)

1.     Seeds: The following seeds improve estrogen clearance by supporting bowel transit time. I have had numerous clients experience relief from hormone-excess symptoms with just ground flaxseed alone. Ground flaxseeds have a lignans that helps bind up estrogen for elimination by the bowels. Chia and hemp do as well, just in smaller amounts. These are easy to mix in dairy-free yogurt, make into pudding, or use on salads. As with all fiber, drink PLENTY of water when consuming - 2-3 liters of water per day. Constipation and abdominal pain may result with taking fiber-rich foods without enough water.

Eat 4 tablespoons to ¼ cup per day:

Ground Flaxseeds - these must be ground otherwise they are not absorbed.

Chia Seeds

Hemp Seeds

2.     Cruciferous Vegetables AKA Brassicas: Indole-3-Carbinol and Diindolemethane come from these vegetables. These compounds help clear estrogen through the liver and support the 2-OH pathway. Eat a portion (1/2-1 cup) at every meal, preferably cooked. People often ask about the goitrogens of these vegetables. A goitrogen is a component that inhibits iodine absorption in the thyroid, thus creating potential for various thyroid enlargements. It takes A LOT of these vegetables to do that - 1-2 cups 3 x per day would NOT achieve a goiter. However, juicing large amounts (over 14 cups) could induce that effect if done daily for several weeks. Cooking deactivates the goitrogens, so if you are still worried, just make sure to cook or steam these vegetables.

Eat ½-1 Cup 2-3 x per day

·       Cabbage                                                                    

·       Cauliflower

·       Brussels Sprouts

·       Bok Choy

·       Broccoli

·       Arugula

·       Radish

·       Kale

3.     Citrus and Berries - Berries and citrus contains the Calcium-D-Glucarate component, useful for hormone clearance and stabilizing bowel inflammation. The majority of Calcium-D-Glucarate exists in citrus peeling. Various recipes exist for making teas out of the dried peeling.

-       Oranges, Lime, Grapefruit

-       Use the dried peels in tea

-       Berries - ¼ cups strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, etc.

4.     Make sure you are having a daily bowel movement. We eliminate excess hormones through the bowel, so not having 1 BM a day means you are not eliminating your hormones

5.     Drink ½ your body weight in ounces

6.     Make sure you are taking your methylated B vitamin. Estrogen’s final elimination step through the liver requires methylation. People who have genetic mutations for not methylating compromise this step.