Estrogen dominance affects about 80% of women in the U.S. This condition happens when there’s too much estrogen and not enough progesterone. Knowing signs that you’re estrogen-dominant is important for taking steps to restore your health.
Estrogen dominance means your estrogen levels are high while progesterone levels are low. It can lead to many symptoms that affect your health and how you feel. Understanding what causes this is important to treating it.
Key Takeaways
- Estrogen dominance affects up to 80% of women.
- Signs like heavy periods, acne, and breast pain show this imbalance.
- This condition can also cause weight gain and mood changes.
- Knowing its causes, such as aging and stress, helps in finding solutions.
- Lifestyle changes can help to restore your hormone balance and health.
What Does It Mean to be Estrogen Dominant?
Understanding Estrogen Dominance
Estrogen dominance occurs when estrogen levels are too high or when there’s not enough progesterone. This imbalance can cause many symptoms and health problems.
This imbalance may affect your daily life and health.
The Role of Estrogen in the Body
Estrogen is key for your body’s functions, with the ovaries being its main producer. It helps regulate your menstrual cycle and keeps your mood stable.
It is also critical for strong bones. Yet, too much estrogen can disrupt these processes and lead to health risks, especially in women.
The Importance of Progesterone Balance
Progesterone acts as a counterbalance to estrogen. It plays a vital role in preventing estrogen from becoming too dominant.
If progesterone is low, it creates what’s called “unopposed estrogen.” This can result in many health problems. Maintaining a good balance of these hormones is crucial for your well-being.
5 Signs You’re Estrogen Dominant
Knowing the signs of high estrogen is crucial. This helps in dealing with hormonal imbalances.
Heavy or Irregular Periods
Heavy or irregular periods often signal estrogen dominance. When estrogen builds the uterine lining too much, you can have heavier bleeding. This can also cause periods to be irregular.
Acne Breakouts
Too much estrogen might make you break out in acne. It boosts sebum, which then clogs pores. The result? Pimples and inflamed skin.
Mood Disorders and PMS
Estrogen and progesterone imbalances might worsen PMS. If your body doesn’t process estrogen well, you might get too much of the stronger types.
This makes hormone balance worse. This can cause irritability, mood swings, anxiety, and depression, making PMS symptoms harder to deal with.
You might even feel more anxious or sad. It’s key to check if there are other reasons behind these feelings. They could be signs of other hormone issues or health problems.
Cyclic Breast Tenderness or Fibrocystic Breasts
Estrogen might cause breast tenderness or lead to fibrocystic breasts. It accelerates breast tissue growth, causing pain, swelling, or cysts.
Uterine Fibroids
Estrogen dominance is associated with uterine fibroids. These benign uterine growths can lead to heavy bleeding and pelvic pain.
Health Impacts When You’re Estrogen Dominant
Weight Gain and Obesity
Estrogen dominance can lead to weight gain and obesity. It plays a big role in storing fat. High estrogen levels make your body store more fat, mostly around your hips and waist.
This starts a cycle where more fat creates more estrogen, causing more weight gain.
Fertility Issues and PCOS
High estrogen levels can affect fertility and cause PCOS. It messes with ovulation and other hormones.
This often happens to people with PCOS, making their periods irregular and causing acne. It can also make it hard for them to get pregnant.
Poor Estrogen Metabolism
Estrogen dominance can impair estrogen metabolism by overwhelming the body’s ability to process and eliminate the hormone efficiently.
This imbalance can strain the liver, the primary organ responsible for estrogen detoxification, and the gut microbiome, which plays a crucial role in estrogen metabolism.
A disrupted gut microbiome can lead to improper recycling of estrogen, further contributing to the accumulation of harmful estrogen metabolites and exacerbating symptoms such as weight gain, mood swings, and increased risk of estrogen-related cancers.
Considering Other Causes for Signs That You’re Estrogen Dominant
Remember, symptoms of estrogen dominance might signal other issues, like thyroid or adrenal problems. If you have any of the symptoms we talked about, discuss them with your health practitioner.
They can help find any underlying issues so you can plan the best way to tackle them.
What Causes Women To Be Estrogen Dominant?
Estrogen dominance has many causes, both from inside and outside our bodies.
Age and Hormonal Shifts
As we age, hormonal balance shifts. This happens more at menopause when progesterone decreases faster than estrogen. This imbalance boosts estrogen’s effect, leading to estrogen dominance.
Stress and Cortisol Levels
Stress plays a big role in estrogen dominance. The hormone cortisol, linked to stress, can throw off the hormonal balance. It lowers progesterone and raises estrogen levels.
To combat this, try stress-reducing methods like relaxation, exercise, and tweaking your lifestyle.
External Sources of Estrogen
Estrogen from outside sources can also be a problem. It’s in certain foods that contain pesticides, personal products that contain paraben or endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs), and plastics, particularly BPA and phthalates.
These estrogens act like the estrogen in our bodies. They can make the estrogen imbalance worse.
It’s key to know what causes estrogen dominance to treat it well. By dealing with these causes, you can handle your symptoms better. This helps your health and overall well-being.
Diagnosing and Supporting Estrogen Dominance
Identifying and handling estrogen dominance is key to good health. It starts with tests to check your hormone levels.
Hormone Testing and Evaluation
Lab testing can help confirm the diagnosis by measuring hormone levels, including estrogen and progesterone. While you can test hormones through blood or saliva, dried urine testing is our test of choice to see where your hormones are at.
Other tests, such as a thyroid function test or a cortisol test, may also be performed to rule out other hormonal imbalances that could be contributing to symptoms.
Lifestyle Modifications When You’re Estrogen Dominant
Changing your lifestyle can help, too.
Eating healthy can help bring your body back to balance. Be sure to include whole grains, lots of veggies, fruits, proteins, and supplements that can support hormonal balance.
This can also involve avoiding food that contains high levels of phytoestrogens, pesticides, or BPA-containing foods.
Staying active has been proven to reduce estrogen levels and increase progesterone. It can also help promote weight loss, reduce inflammation, and improve sleep patterns.
Managing stress is important for individuals who are estrogen-dominant because stress can exacerbate hormonal imbalances, including estrogen dominance.
Signs You’re Estrogen Dominant– Conclusion
Estrogen dominance is a common hormonal issue that affects your health and mood. By identifying the signs that you’re estrogen dominant and causes, you can fix it. Treatments like hormone therapy and lifestyle changes can help get your body back in balance. This leads to a better life overall.
It’s important to keep your estrogen and progesterone balanced for good health.
Working with a Nutritional Therapy Practitioner can be just what you need to get to the root of your problem and restore your hormonal health.
At Wild Muse Wellness, our goal is to help you with sustainable, nourishing guidance that addresses fundamental feminine needs.
Schedule a consultation today!
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