Estrogen Excess: Its Roots & Easy Solutions

Hello and welcome to the Ark Woman podcast. This is an exploration of woman kind. Here we discuss what it is to be a woman in the modern world while utilizing ancient and modern modalities in tandem to create a bounty of health for the body, mind and spirit. Hello everyone and welcome back to the pod. It has been a hot minute since I uploaded a podcast. I've just been enjoying some rest. I had a couple of weeks off over Christmas and New Year. If you celebrate, I don't really, but it was nice to just have a bit of time. Getting into the garden, my garden is absolutely fucking pumping. We've had a few chickens hatch, very, very cute. And just lots of fun. Getting into freediving, loving, getting outside, I live in Tasmania. So it has been Wal-mer. Currently sitting here looking out onto fog going through the valley in which I live and the pre-overcast day. We never really expect anything but the unexpected in Tasmania. And I've also finished a masterclass on estrogen dominance. So I just thought maybe I would make a podcast all about estrogen dominance because this is actually something that I see in my clinic. A lot. I would say I see it in about 50% of women. It's pretty systemic, especially in the West. So let's get started. I just wanted to talk about estrogen dominance, how can impact organ systems, and kind of have a shameless plug for that masterclass if you wanted to go forward and you see yourself in some of these symptoms. So let's get started and talking about estrogen. So what is estrogen? I think it's really important just at the very outset to understand and know that estrogen is a blanket term. There are multiple different types of estrogen. For the purpose of this lesson, you really only need to learn about one called estriol, also known as e2. So this is the primary form of estrogen in your body during your reproductive years and it's the most potent form of estrogen. So when estrogen are churches to a receptor site in the body, it has the most estrogenic effect. And the other two that you kind of need to be know about as a woman is estrone, e1. So this is the primary form of estrogen that your body makes after menopause and estriol, e3 is the primary form of estrogen during pregnancy. So estrogen kind of isn't real, it's an umbrella term for lots of different types of estrogens and there are more than that as well. We have lots of different estrogens in the body. And so where are these three estrogen sources made? So there's three types that you need to know about and there's three sources. So first one ovaries, right? So the ovaries are responsible for around 80% of our estradial and about 10% of the lesser estrogens estriol in estrogen. So that E2 is made in the ovaries for the most part and the other 10% the lesser estrogens E1 and E3 are also made in the ovaries. The other place that we see estriol being made is in the adrenal glands. And so it's the second source that's made by the adrenal glands and its precursor is DHEA. And then the third place is actually our body fat. And so that's why it's really important to have some healthy body fat. You need to have, you know, I don't really like talking about BMI unless someone's overweight and we need to kind of use that as a quick calculation in session. I just don't find that it takes into account muscle mass, bone mass, all these other things. But generally fat percentage, you need to have around 18 to, you know, 23 or 24 to have a healthy cycle. And this is because the hypothalamus, which is almost like the grandmother of a body she likes to keep an eye on everything, she gets feedback from the body. And if we have a certain amount of estradial around, that means that we have a certain amount of body fat. And so we need to have a certain amount of body fat to make sure that we have a healthy cycle because what's the whole cycle about? The whole cycle is about reproduction. So why would the hypothalamus release, can add a tripping releasing hormone, which is the precursor for FSH, which starts the cycle? If you don't have enough body fat, or if you have too much, so if you have too much body fat, you're going to be releasing at a baseline higher amounts of estradial. And I do see this in my clinic, women who are obese or overweight, they will have estrogen dominance nine times over 10. The women who are underweight very often can't fall pregnant, don't have cycles, don't have periods. All of these are the health, you know, negative aspects as well. Because estrogen isn't a bad thing. We need estrogen around and we need it for certain body functions. And I thought maybe just at the start of this podcast, we'd go through a few of the amazing things that estrogen does for us just because I don't want anyone to get to the end of this podcast and think, oh my fucking God. Estrogen is the root of all evil because it's absolutely not. So let's just talk about a few of the positive aspects it has on our overall health. First up, let's just talk about the reproductive system because I feel like that's the most obvious one. So it works with progesterone to regulate the menstrual cycle and support ovulation. Also urinary, so it supports your pelvic floor and supports the pelvic floor tone. So you don't have urinary incontinence. It prevents things like vaginal prolapse. If you've listened to my pelvic floor episode with an amazing pelvic floor therapist, Emma, we talk about this aspect and how there's four types of prolapse and three of them are into the vaginal tract. And so how you can avoid that is by maintaining healthy amounts of estrogen in the body. The immune system. So estrogen modulates the immune system. It enhances it. It's so interesting because when estrogen is at its highest, we're ovulating. When we're ovulating, we're at our hornia. So when we're out of hornia, that's when we're going to be having sex. Right. So when estrogen around is around it up regulates our immune system. Preemptively to protect us from STI's from flu's from anything that our partner might give us, right. Because that's when our body knows we're going to be getting down. Also mood. So it helps you balance mood by influencing serotonin and dopamine and up regulates the production of both of those neurotransmitters in the gut. And helps them bind to their receptor sites in the central nervous system for a little bit longer. So that's why you feel happier. And also alongside that cognition is supports brain health, it influences memory, mood, cognitive abilities. And it helps prevent age-related mental decline as well. Skin. So it maintains skin elasticity. It up regulates the production of collagen. And so that also impacts our cardiovascular system because it has a protective effect on the heart and blood vessels by helping maintain healthy cholesterol levels and promoting blood vessel elasticity. So kind of in the same realm. Also bone health is so important for bone health. It up regulates the binding of and the kind of storage of calcium deposits in the bones. So if you have healthy estrogen throughout your reproductive ears, you're going to not be that little lady who falls over and breaks her hip. So you won't have, you know, things like arthritis. You won't have really brittle, tiny bones. You'll have really strong bones. And so also alongside that is lifting weights. I think that's really important. So now that we've got kind of that basis out of the way, what is estrogen dominance? So estrogen dominance occurs when estrogen levels are too high in relation to progesterone. And so we don't really have official global stats, but studies suggest overarchingly that nearly 50% of women in the West experience estrogen dominance. This is a Western thing that we see. We don't really see this in sub-Saharan Africa. We don't really see this in Southeast Asia. We don't really see this in these places, right? Because then they're not fully Westernized, which means they're not, you know, consuming lots of estrogenic foods. Maybe they're not using heat supester sides. We'll talk about all of the estrogenic effects that have an effect on our environment. But basically estrogen dominance can have some pretty nasty like long term negative effects if you don't deal with it. So fibroids, endometriosis and breast cancer. So if you listen to my endometriosis podcast, you would know that estrogen dominance is the driver of endometriosis. And so what are some other symptoms that you might see with estrogen dominance? So fatigue, irritability, thyroid issues, mood swings, eye-indecency, anemia, sore breasts, and like really tender breasts just before you get your period. It might also always be as soon as you've ovulated, you get sore breasts. Heavy periods, cloudy periods, painful periods. That's really what we generally see. Because estrogen and iron is in direct correlation with how heavy your periods are. So if you have lots of estrogen around, you're going to be binding lots of that blood into the endometrium, which means your periods are going to be heavier basically. And that's why my clinic, at least, I always ask so much about the cycle. How long is your cycle? How long is follicular? How long are each of the phases? How much cervical mucus do you see? How much period blood do you have? How long is it? How many tampons and pads are you using? Just because it gives me so much information about what your biomarkers are without doing lab testing. Weight gain, very, very common, irregular cycles because it is in competition with progesterone. Hair thinning, which kind of goes under thyroid issues and also eye-indecency and anemia. Headaches or migraines, u-port thinning, I'm so sorry if that's what's happening and also anxiety. So those are a few things that you can look out for. So what are some genetic factors that might predispose you to this? Because there are about five genes that we know in the literature might predispose women. So there might predispose women to having more of a chance of developing estrogen dominance. So the first one is the CYP1A1 or B1 gene variant. So they're really commonly linked to slow-emetablerisms of estrogen. So you have a normal amount of estrogen in the body, but you can't get rid of it fast enough. So it stays in the body long enough, which means it can bind to receptor sites and have more of an estrogenic effect for longer in the body, which is going to inadvertently lead to estrogen dominance symptoms, right? Also the comp gene, also known as the Val 158 met polymorphism. Stay with me. So this can result in slower estrogen metabolism again. So much like the CYP1A1 gene and B1 gene. And the next one is sex hormone binding globulin gene variant. So this is a globulin that basically puts sex hormones in jail. and stops them from binding to receptor sites. So you might also see that if you have lower amounts of sex hormone binding globulin, you have higher amounts of free estrogen because it's not being bound up. And so this is one of the ways that our liver will produce this enzyme, this globular and release it into the blood system to regulate the amount of sex hormones around. But what we know with estrogen dominance is that we have pretty poor liver digestion and function because it's pretty much overloaded and blocked with estrogen. So with pretty progressed estrogen dominance, we generally do see sex hormone binding globulin down-regulated. The next one we generally see is the ESR1 and R2 receptor gene variants. They make estrogen receptors far more sensitive. So this is where you might be releasing a normal amount of estrogen, but your receptors have a really heavy response and they respond really strongly to circulating estrogen, even more than normal levels. And finally, the FTO gene variants, they influence fat storage. And so we're talking before about how fat storage really heavily influences the predisposition you might have for estrogen dominance. So this is going to contribute to the total amount of additional estrogen in the body because your fats cells, they release their own estrogen in their own way. So how is estrogen metabolized? So you just heard me talk about that. And I'm going to say interchangeably metabolized, metabolism, digestion, it kind of all means the same thing. So estrogen, and when I say estrogen in this case, we're talking about E2, it passes through the liver where it's digested into three metabolites. So 2OH, 4OH and 16OH, 2 and 4OH, they go, they're made into water soluble molecules. And so they go to the kidneys and we actually pee them out. But, and they're not problematic, they're kind of beneficial in a way. But the one that we need to worry about with any type of estrogen dominance is this 16OH type metabolite. So this goes into the gallbladder and it hangs out with the bile there. And then it goes through our digestive system. And then we actually, it comes out in stool. So we actually poo or we out our estrogen, which I think a lot of women are surprised by what we need to get rid of it somehow. And when progesterone's binding to receptor sites to the liver, it's going to tell it, hey, we've ovulated, we don't need this estrogen around anymore. Let's start getting rid of it. And it's going to upregulate these enzymes, like the compt gene, that get rid of these metabolites. But this is the important thing. If you're not drinking enough water, if you don't have enough fiber in your diet, maybe if you don't have enough magnesium, maybe your thyroid is out and you don't have regular passes of stool, then this is going to be a problem. Because if these metabolites stay in the system for longer than they need to, then the body is going to be like, hang on a second, you took a lot of energy to make, you have a cholesterol backbone. You know, you took a lot of energy to produce. What are you doing here? We're going to reactivate you and put you back into circulation. So that's something that we see a lot more happening in the digestive system. So that's really important to note. When we talk about estrogen dominance, as well we're talking about two types. So there's frank and relative. So frank estrogen dominance is simply when you have too much estrogen. And relative is when estrogen dominance is when you have like too much estrogen relative to the amount of progesterone you have around. And so this is where I think it's really, really important for us to talk about the charts we usually see and how we see, you know, the 28-day cycle, so annoyed by that, you can have a 26 or a 25 to 34-day cycle and that's completely healthy. You don't need to be 28 days. That's just a population statistic. Only 15% of women worldwide have an exact 28-day cycle. It's nothing to stress out about. But what we usually see on these charts when you look up, hey, like what does a hormone fluctuation chart look like throughout the four phases? And it shows you the follicular of urlatory, uludial and menstrual phases and what's happening with your hormones. Generally, you'll see estrogen, FSH, progesterone, and LH. What we see that I think is really fucking problematic is we generally see this big influx of estrogen and then this influx of progesterone. So estrogen is ovulatory and progesterone is in your luteal phase. What we generally see is that on these graphs, we have the exact same amount of estrogen and progesterone. And that's just not true. Generally, we need to have about 20 to even up to 40% more progesterone than we have estrogen. And when I tell that to women in my clinic, they are shocked. They are shook. But that's what we want to be seeing. Even when we have equal amounts, we generally start to see some symptoms of estrogen dominance. And I will say the very, very outset, if you have symptoms of estrogen dominance and you haven't done lab testing to make sure that that actually is the problem, do not pass go, do not collect $100 because you might just have low progesterone. And you don't want to get into a situation where you've done all this work, spent all this money on lab testing, or I guess you haven't done lab testing, like vitamins and food and perhaps even acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine to get your estrogen down when it was never estrogen. That was high. You just had low progesterone. That's a completely different thing. And you need to deal with that differently. Okay, say you go and get your lab done and they show that you do have high estrogen. So there are a few different constitutions that we generally see. You have high estrogen and normal progesterone. You could have high estrogen and low progesterone. And we generally see this in cases of women who have endometriosis, breast cancer, fibroids. So we have quite advanced estrogen dominance because when estrogen stays high for such a long period of time and crowds out progesterone, we actually see that the cell receptor sites start to become resistant to progesterone. So we've heard a lot about insulin resistance, but I feel like the next thing, at least in human biology, women's human biology in the zeitgeist of health, we're gonna start hearing a lot about progesterone resistance. And how we're seeing a lot of this because, unfortunately, we do have a lot of women in Western societies that have quite advanced estrogen dominance. And this is what we're starting to see. And I will say if you have high estrogen and low progesterone and any type of progesterone resistance, then yeah, you have to work with practitioner that is not a fix at home situation at all. So when you get your lab testing done, get estrogen, progesterone, FSH, maybe even get LH, testosterone, cortisol, and sex hormone binding, globulin. I feel like that would be great. And then you need to be doing it kind of midway between your, your, your phase. So if you have that classic 28 to 30 day cycle, you need to be testing on day 21 or day 22. But again, work with the practitioner and make sure you're testing on the right day. So how does estrogen impact a few different organ systems? So we're gonna be talking about thyroid, our immune system, central nervous system, and the brain, microbiome, and the also the vaginal microbiome, which I think is really interesting. Eliva and also our central nervous system already said our central nervous system, our blood system and our circulatory system. So the liver, let's just start with that because the liver is probably one of the most important organs when we're talking about estrogen dominance. It's really crucial for metabolism, detoxification, nutrient absorption, blood sugar balance, and immune function. Our modern lifestyles really burdened the liver more than the past as it constantly processes chemicals from foods, beauty, and cleaning products. So how does estrogen impact this? So we have detoxification enzymes in the liver and they convert estrogen into metabolites that 2, 4, and 16 OHE1, I should say, and then we excrete it, right? So we have a methodization and nutrient requirements that we need to activate that hot-compt gene, that breaks apart this estradiol into 2, 4, and 16 type metabolites, and we need magnesium and puvitamins. So if you have any deficiencies in magnesium and puvitamins, very quickly, we actually start to see that we have problems with digesting estrogen. We might even start to see estrogen dominance symptoms as well. So we usually PR that 2 and 4 type metabolite, if the comps gene is working successfully, whoa, that's great. But what the problem is and how this connects to gut health is that we can see something called beta glucoronadase. It activates estrogen in the gut. And so if we have too much of beta glucoronadase around, it can overactivate it and push it back into circulation. That's going to make sure that it goes right back into the liver again and then it can really impair the liver's detoxification. So estrogen dominance really overwhelms the liver's ability to process and eliminate excess estrogen. So in that can lead to toxin buildup as well. So your liver is so overwhelmed with dealing with all of this estrogen, that all of these toxins that we're exposed to throughout the day, we're exposed to them. And so this is going to increase inflammation. This is going to alter our bile production. We're going to start seeing liver enzyme in balances. And then this is something we actually do see, is if you have chronic estrogen dominance, it's going to raise the risk of liver conditions like alcohol-y fatty liver disease or non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. So if you're a big drinker, if you're a big smoker, and you have the symptoms of estrogen dominance, girl, what you doing and stop it, you are staring down the barrel of non-alcoholic or alcoholic fatty liver disease and maybe even benign liver tumors, which are dangerous. You know people are like, ah, benign tumors, no worries. But no, if they burst, they can bleed. And they hurt that you're going to land in hospital. And your blood system is going to be filled with toxins, which is going to down the line, affect all of these other organ systems as well. So you really need to look after your liver. Next is the cardiovascular system. So when we have elevated estrogen, it's going to promote inflammation. So what we know about estrogen is it upregulates the immune system. When we talk about the inflammation, we're talking about the immune system. Inflammation is a tool used by the immune system. So we're going to see if you have estrogen dominance, you're going to have cardiovascular strain because we have inflammation. Right? That's going to increase the risk of heart disease. It's going to pull a lot of strain, your blood vessels, not so fun. So that means down the line, you're going to get blood pressure fluctuations. You might have blood clotting disorders. And we actually start to see lots of iron loss. So again, one of the most-- common denominator things that we see with estrogen dominance is ion loss because we're bleeding so, so much, which is going to negatively impact your cardiovascular system as well because that's where all of it is carried around. Basically, ion is used by our red blood cells to capture and then release oxygen. And if you have low ion, then you're going to have really short shallow breaths, which is going to, you know, activate your sympathetic arm of your central nervous system, and that's going to maybe lead to anxiety. And I've spoken about that in my ion episode. So if you have low ion, if you have really heavy periods, after you've finished listening to this, go and listen to that ion episode because it's really interesting, there's labs, there's some actionable steps that you can use in that podcast that you can apply right now before you book in and with anyone before you even do any labs. I just think it's really important to have a really good understanding about the ion recycling system and ion as it is before you change anything around. If you're loving this podcast and imagine how much you would love the estrogen ease masterclass, I designed it to help women reclaim hormonal balance and understand the role of estrogen in their bodies. This comprehensive masterclass guides you through complexities of estrogen dominance and empowers you with the knowledge to optimize your health. So you can understand the origin of estrogen dominance and you can do lab testing, the specific labs and tailored healing and there is optimized lab testing there for you. So it tells you the optimized levels that we're looking for, not what the levels are based off of populations statistics. So you don't get your labs back from your doctor and they say that everything is normal. You have this guide inside of the masterclass that teaches you what you're looking for for each of the organ systems. In the organ systems we cover are the liver, brain immune system, gut microbiome, vaginal microbiome and your thyroid. So you can learn the best foods, herbs, supplements to aid in estrogen metabolism, improved detoxification and prevent estrogen dominance. It's really wonderful and I wanted to make it a holistic practical approach for managing estrogen health, whether you're addressing estrogen related issues or you're aiming to enhance your overall well-being, this masterclass offers valuable insights to help you take control of your health. If you'd like access to this amazing masterclass, head over to my website to the masterclass tab, click on estrogen ease and use discount code estrogen for 10% off. We have the thyroid, so the thyroid produces T3 and T4, so T4 is made out of four iodine molecules and its active form is T3. So the thyroid sets the metabolic pace of the body, regulates heart rate, blood pressure, digestion and mental health, I love the thyroid, I think it's such an amazing organ system. So what we know about estrogen dominance is that it increases thyroid binding globulin. So a globulin, remember sex hormone binding globulin? Thyroid binding globulin does the same thing that's SHBG does, so high estrogen levels elevates TBG and so that means it binds to thyroid hormones and it reduces the amount of free active thyroid hormones available in the body. And what we also know is that when estrogen is high activates that immune system, the immune system becomes inflammatory, where is most of our immune system? It's in the gut, where does most of our conversion of T4 into its active T3 form occur in the body, in the gut. So we start to actually see reduced conversion of T4 to T3 and so when we have less thyroid hormones available to attach to receptor sites in the body and we have reduced conversions of the active form of T3 in the body, that's going to lead to potential hyperthyroidism. So this is where we have low thyroid hormone in the body, maybe it's not activated, maybe it's not working properly in the body and that means that you're going to have fatigue weight gain, right? So we're not actually using this energy in the body because there's no T3 and T4 around, so what's your body going to do? It's going to throw it a sap. And then you're going to have silagish metabolism, your hair's going to start falling out, your nails are going to start getting brittle, your lips and your skin are going to start getting really, really, really dry. And then if it's very advanced, generally we start to see the development of things like hashi-modosyroiditis, which is where the immune system starts to form immune antibodies that attack the thyroid, which stops it from producing T3 and T4 all together. So we've spoken a little bit about the immune system, I should have started with the immune system. But let's start talking about the immune system and how estrogen impacts it. So we generally see, as I said before, estrogen up regulates the immune system, so we see an increase in white blood cells, which, you know, not a bad thing, but this can lead to chronic inflammation and tissue damage if it's over-reactive. And again, we start to see autoimmune responses and because we're up regulating that immune system, we're up regulating the metabolites of those immune system and the tools that those immune system cells use. So histamines and cytokines. So histamines are released from a white blood cell. And so this is great when we're trying to attack something, but if your estrogen is just increasing the mast cell release of histamines, it can give you things like headaches, skin rashes for T, digestive issues, and it can even exacerbate allergic reactions as well. So if you're sneezing a lot when you're ovulating or if you're starting to get rashes or exomeric psoriasis around the time you're ovulating or it flares around that time, you might have estrogen dominance baby. The other one is cytokines. So this is also an inflammatory molecule. These are released from a different white blood cell. And so these are released in the central nervous system in the brain. And so this is what can give you things like headaches and migraines as well. Talking of the brain and the central nervous system, what we know about estrogen is that it up regulates and helps the neurotransmitters dopamine and serotonin bind to receptor sites. But if we have too much of that happening and we have almost competing binding for receptor sites in the central nervous system when we're in our progesterogenic phase, when gathers supposed to be there and supposed to be calming us down, we can start to get mood swings. You might even have PMS and PMDD symptoms. I have seen in my clinic with some of my clinic members are like clients. I should say clinic members. The ones that have PMDD, some of these women who have PMDD. What we generally see is if they have estrogen dominance, when we work actively to decrease estrogen dominance, their PMDD symptoms really get a lot better. That's because those mood swings aren't happening anymore. And Gava is actually able to do its job and attach to those receptor sites. But we can also see anxiety and even mania because we have this huge surge of so much serotonin in the dopamine when we're in our ovulatory phase. And then we can have this huge drop off and maybe even get depressive in our progesterogenic and progesterone dominant phase in allodial phase. And because this happens within neurotransmitters, it can really negatively impact insomnia, it can disturb your sleep. And I also was talking about before headaches in my brain. So high estrogen, that can trigger hormonal headaches, migraines, especially in the menstrual cycle. We can also see it a little bit in pregnancy and also when you're ovulating as well. And estrogen dominance conversely for some women can cause some problems with cognitive function and brain fog. And then we also see at a huge rise in cortisol levels because it's inflammatory. And whenever our immune system is activated, it kind of tells the adrenal glands, hey, can you release cortisol? So we have this anxiety and almost these exacerbated stress related mental health issues that we usually see in women. Let's talk about the gut microbiome and the vaginal microbiome. So just to start off the vaginal microbiome, four or five women will have a main dominant species of lactobacillus, chraspatus, and this creates an acidic environment. As opposed to the gut microbiome where we want so many different species of beneficial bacteria, we want some fungi, we want some yeast, in there sometimes we can find some viruses as long as it's in good balance for you, you're safe. So the vaginal microbiome, we don't want diversity and in the gut microbiome, we want diversity. And in the gut microbiome, we have something called the estero bloom. So the estero bloom is the gut microbiome's role in estrogen metabolism. So this influences estrogen levels in the body. And so we have certain gut bacteria that activate or deactivate estrogen. So we have this last force call in the gut microbiome that's going to activate estrogen. If we have low estrogen, it's going to deactivate if we have too much. So the estero bloom aids in detoxifying estrogen. It imbalances in the gut microbiome, therefore can disrupt this process. So we have bacteria like interococcus and we also have things like bacteriodes that are involved with estrogen metabolism. And then we also have things like beta glucuronidase that reactivate it. Right? And so we usually see imbalances in the estero bloom and they're linked to conditions like endometriosis, fibroids, breast cancer. We also see it with PCOS as well. So we need to have a really healthy balance estero bloom. And then how does that gut microbiome impact on this? So estrogen dominance can disrupt the balance of gut bacteria, which is going to negatively impact the estero bloom, which is going to negatively impact how we digest and get rid and activate or deactivate estrogen. And then also when we see excess estrogen, it alters the vaginal microbiome and we can see an overgrowth and a promotion of the overgrowth of certain bacteria and yeast, including that candida. So we can get yeast infections and it has a really strong connection to excess candida. So if this is you and you have all the other symptoms of estrogen dominance then this is something you need to look out for. And then that kind of lays the groundwork for possible things like like BV as well if you have a really dysbiotic environment. All right so now we've gotten past the bit where we've spoken about estrogen. It's impacts on the systems positively and when it's overloaded and how it can impact each of those systems. And there's so many other things that we could talk about. There's so many other organ systems but I just thought that those were the most important ones that we could focus on. So now what you can you do? So first of all connect with a healthcare practitioner test. So conduct blood and stool that's specific to your symptoms. So I don't want you just doing every single test. You just need to work with someone to do test that as specific to a certain So say you have all the symptoms of hyperthyroidism, then you need to go and look at a comprehensive thyroid check. If you have low eye end, then you need to be doing a comprehensive blood analysis. And then you need to adjust and work with your practitioner because everyone's health journey is going to be so, so, so different and you can't just apply what everyone else is telling you to you. It's not going to work that way. But here are some basics that you can do before you work with anyone, protein. So if you listen to anything I've spoken, this has probably been in every single one of my podcasts because this is so, so, so important to women's health. Protein. You know I was going to say it, 9,220 grams of protein per day. It gives the liver ample amino acids to make the enzymes to do catabolize estrogen. Catabolize is just a fancy human biology word that means break things apart. Anabolize and anabolism is when we put things together. So we need 9,220 grams. So that equals 30 to 40 grams of protein a day. I say that to literally every single one of my clients and very often I just don't see a lot of women eating enough protein. We need to give our body an liver, the protein it needs to make these enzymes enzymes are made out of amino acids. All the amino acids do the work of the body. Secondly, fiber. So you need to be eating a little bit more fiber, right? So 30 to 40 grams of fiber allows a smooth transition of this 16 type metabolite to be digested. And finally, hydrate. You need to be drinking a lot of water, right? and making sure that it's mineralized water. If you want to get super fancy, like sun's structured and making sure it doesn't have any things like sodium fluoride in it. So having a good source of water and drinking ample amounts of it, maybe in having things like net or tea that have a little bit of iron in them, if you are low in iron, it's going to be great and it's going to increase the absorption and the hydration capacity of that water as well. So increasing your water uptake is going to help that two and four metabolite leave the body. We're increasing our protein to give, live it what it needs to metabolize these metabolites of estrogen. We're giving it the fiber so we can pull out this estrogen metabolite that's more dangerous and then also reset the gut microbiome because prebiotics are really important to regulate the diversity of the gut as well. And then hydrating to make sure we're getting rid of again, store, we need a lot of water to make sure we have regular store movements and then getting rid of that two and four metabolite through the kidneys. And so a few things that I recommend to most women who have estrogen dominance is something called sephoraffane so you can find them in broccoli sprouts. They stimulate the liver to detoxify estrogen out of the body, fermented food. So kimchi, salar, kaffir, really, really great. Do not go for salar or kombucha because they have a high yeast content and as we know, estrogen can really exacerbate the amount of yeast in the body. If you don't have a yeast problem, we don't want to form one. So let's just avoid it for now. And if you want to take a probiotic because you have an aversion to these foods, you have a reaction to these foods, that's something I actually do see with women who have a really pronounced and advanced estrogen dominance problem. So go for a probiotic that's really rich in things like bifurbacterium and lactobacillus. That's going to be great. Also omega-3 is from fish. So so so great. It produces beneficial estrogen metabolites, so that too in that form instead of the 16. And it supports liver and brain health as well. It's citrus vegetables. Oh my gosh, you're probably already eating them. Don't eat them raw because they contain something called goitrigins which should can negatively impact your thyroid. And we don't want to have that right now because your thyroid might be under attack because of the estrogen dominance as we've just spoken about. But they contain something called dim which supports the estrogen breakdown in the liver and stimulates your liver to break down estrogen more effectively. And the fiber component that's also really, really great. But never having it raw, you know, you can get past your estrogen dominance journey and then you can start working raw, cruciferous vegetables in. But now it's just not the time because of the goitrigin risk. So bringing things in really, really helpful but we need to avoid things as well. Caffeine. Oh my gosh. You hate me. I know it. Caffeine. So caffeine uses the same enzyme as estrogen in the liver which means that your liver is always going to prioritize things that are exogenous and outside of the body, right? So it just means to be having a cup of coffee a day and then you're topping up in the middle of the day or you're having a gyoiter from that day or you're having your green tea or your matcha. Even cacao has a little bit of caffeine in it. I will admit tiny amounts. I'll be it. So caffeine is going to stop phase one and phase two digestion of estrogen in the liver. So girls stop it. Phytoestrogens as well. So we have some evidence to show that it can have an estrogenic and anti-estrogenic. But if you have estrogen dominance, you are so far off the recta that having phytoestrogens like soy, beer, wine will be talking about alcohol in a second. It's really going to make it hard if you're liver to digest the excess estrogen you already have in your body. So I once had a client. She had such advanced estrogen dominance. We went through a diet and she was having a soy milk coffee and then she was having a dame for dinner and then she was having a wine every single night and I was like, oh my god, your diet is so estrogenic. You need to take all of these things out. And just taking those things out was positive for her. Okay, alcohol. Consuming one alcoholic drink a day can increase estrogen levels by 10%. Not because alcohol in of itself is estrogenic except for beer. But alcohol blocks estrogen digestion as well by 10%. So if you have three drinks a week, you increase your estrogen by 30%. So let's avoid it. Also things like plastic, BPA is a weak synthetic estrogen that's found in many rigid plastic products. It's in formula can linings, dental sealants. In paper receipts. So don't touch those receipts. Don't eat out of plastic. Please avoid plastic. Please don't cook in plastic. Also things like inflammatory fats like trans fats, canol, oil corn, oil, cotton seed oil, peanut oil. And those seed oils are really controversial. Some people say they're good. Some people say they're bad. I'm kind of in the middle. I think it's, you know, I think there's interesting science both ways. I haven't really made a decision either way. But I do find if women have estrogen dominance avoiding these fats, these seed oils is really, really effective because it just gives you a liver or a break. Also sugar. So when I mean sugar, I don't mean whole grains and I don't mean sweet potato and dates and fruit. I mean process sugar. Please avoid process sugar because one of the 500 jobs your liver has is to balance your blood sugar. Let's just do want. Let's just have it do one less thing. And also environmental toxins. Your perfume, your makeup, your face wash. Oh my god. There are some amazing apps out there that you can use that show you what toxins are in. Or cleaning products, your personal products. I'm not saying chuck them all out. All I'm saying is use them if you're using perfumes, please spray it on your clothes, not on you. And then as soon as you're done with it, throw it out and find something else that's not an endocrine distraught. You can find really beautiful hydrosols that aren't essential oils. Also things like essential oils. So lavender and tea tree are known estrogenic and then known to be endocrine destructors. And it causes like early breast development and girls and things like that. And it's highly correlated with breast cancer. So you need to be careful with those things. Anything fragrance. I'm really, really, really sass on. The other thing is copper. So estrogen copper, they have such a strong affinity for one another. Copper tends to accumulate in the liver as well, which means it stops estrogen from making its way out. And then when we have too much of it around, it can stop our liver from making a protein that properly digests it. If you want to listen to more on that, I have a copper cure masterclass. I think it's really interesting that a few women who have estrogen dominance go on the copper coil or have the copper IUD. And their symptoms just get so awful. And I just, my heart goes out to you if that's one of you. And that's probably what's going on. So yeah, like the estrogen and masterclass and the copper masterclass, if you had the copper coil or the copper IUD and you have estrogen dominance, those two are absolutely for you. They're going to give you some really beautiful guidance. And there's also a copper IUD podcast you can listen to as well. The other one is hormonal birth control. Specifically oral hormonal contraceptives, they're known to cause elevated plasma copper levels, right? And there's limited data on the impact of hormonal birth control, but existing research suggests that these have a large impact on the liver. And therefore they have a large impact on how our body can get rid of this excess copper out of the body. We need copper in the body. We love copper. It starts 18 different enzymatic reactions in the body that are absolutely essential and you might be thinking 18, that's not too many, but you literally have trillions of cells. 18 enzymatic reactions in each of them is a pretty large amount and we need copper, but it's a trace mineral. And if you have too much of it, that's a huge no bueno. You can do hair tissue analysis testing. That's going to give you a really good idea on how much copper you have, but of course work with a practitioner. The basic thing that you can do is move. So exercise stimulates your lymphatic system, boost blood flow and facilitates waist flimination. Please lift weights. You're not going to get bulky. It's going to be so good for you. You have estrogen around if you have estrogen dominance. So we may as well put your bones into a bit of stress, use that estrogen to bind and upregulate the production of more bone so you can have really strong bones later in life. Another one is cast oil packs. So even putting cast oil in your belly button or using a cast oil pack over your liver is really going to be helpful. Just don't overdo it. Please don't ingest it. Dear God, there are some really interesting people online saying that that's completely safe. It's a no bueno for me. And absolutely no bueno. All right, I feel like that was a really beautiful breakdown if I don't say myself about estrogen dominance. It's impacts on the organ systems and vital systems in the body and some basic things that you can do. Those things that I spoke about, just some dietary changes, talking about how you can move, cast oil packs. If you did that, you're going to eliminate most of your bones. your symptoms. But then you want to work with a practitioner and do labs and work on those specific organ systems and figure out what supplements and dietary changes work for you. And if you wanted a step-by-step guide, my estrogen ease masterclass is amazing. I made this because I had so many women coming into my clinic and I just felt like I was regurgitating information all the time and I was like, you know what? I'm just going to make a resource that's really affordable that most women can afford. They can work with a practitioner if they want to. And it's just going to tell them everything they need to know what labs you need to take, what supplements, what herbs are really good for each organ system. So you can sit down with your practitioner and you can do all of it. And you just will have more effective change faster, basically, because estrogen dominance is something that can negatively impact you for a long haul and it can predispose you to things like breast cancer. And if we can avoid forming these diseases and cancers early, why wouldn't we? You know, I think the best cure is prevention. So you can head over to my website and click on masterclass estrogen ease will be there. And if you want 10% off of the class, you can use discount code estrogen. And thank you for being here. I hope you have a beautiful morning, afternoon, evening, wherever you are in the world and I'll catch you next time.