Hormone Health Part Two

Hormone Health Part Two focuses on the most important hormone gland, the Thyroid, and goes on to explain the fundamental role our gut plays in the regulation and production of hormones.

Who knew gut health was the cornerstone of hormonal health?

The endocrine system controls the level of hormones circulating in our bodies. If one or more of the hormones within this system is even slightly imbalanced it can cause serious health problems….

This article is the second in the series of articles about the importance of hormone health. As with this article, The Introduction To Hormones is also published in the Wild As The Wind blog. You can find a list of all the other Hormone Health articles by following the link.

Hormones Are Messengers

Not many people appreciate hormones are the way in which major parts of the human body communicate with each other, and that if our hormones are out of whack then our physical and mental health will be compromised, sometimes to an extreme extent.

Gut + Thyroid Connection

STOP PRESS: A lot of hormones and neurotransmitters (another major way the body communicates with itself), are MADE and REGULATED in the GUT!

So, gut dysbiosis, (read IBS, Crohn’s, Colitis, Diverticulitis, or just plain old non-specific gut issues), can lead to depression and serious endocrine problems like Hyperthyroidism (Graves disease), or Hypothyroidism, (Hashimoto’s).

In This Article:

• Hormone Health Part Two
• Major Hormones
• Thyroid & Adrenal Glands
• Nascent Iodine
• How To Heal Your Thyroid & Adrenals
• Hormonal Health & Modern Medicine
• Hormonal Health & Alternative Medicine
• Using Essential Oils For Hormone Health
• Hormones Can Be Grouped Into Three Main Types
• How The Key Hormones Work
• How To Detect An Hormonal Imbalance
• Oestrogen Dominance
• Digestive Health Is A Precursor To Hormone Health
• Which Foods Are High In Oestrogen & Progesterone?
• Our Gut Is Behind Some Of Our Hormonal Issues!
• The Microbiome Is The Hormonal Master Controller
• The Microbiome Makes Neurotransmitters
• So, What Are Neurotransmitters?
• Seretonin
• Anxiety & Depression
• Chemical Reward Systems
• The Gut & Hormone Production & Moderation
• How The Microbiome Affects Oestrogen
• The Estrobolome Connection
• How Do We Get The Gut To Produce More Estriol & Estrobolome?
• So Which Probiotics Support Estriol & Estrobolome Production?
• The Role Of Systemic Inflammation
• Systemic Inflammation & Thyroid Function
• Progesterone In The Mix
• Menopause In The Mix
• Thyroid In The Mix
• Belly Fat & Hormone Production
• Xenoestrogenic Skincare & Beauty Products
•  

Hormone Health Part Two

Many hormone issues are badly misdiagnosed leading to entirely unnecessary surgical and pharmaceutical interventions. Most of these interventions are irreversible.

This article will deal with some of the ways in which modern medicine deals with hormone health… as well as alternative methods of achieving, safe and lasting hormone balance… Wild As The Wind offer an essential oil based hormone detoxing blend that is incredibly effective at helping to restore hormone balance.

Major Hormones

• Oestrogen
• Testosterone
• Progesterone
• Adrenaline
• Insulin
• Vitamin D3

These extremely important chemical messengers, produced in the glands, and the gut, affect many aspects of our overall health.

Insulin manages our sugar intake, Vitamin D3, (which is a hormone), ensures restful sleep, and adrenaline gives us the energy to deal with traumatic circumstances, allowing us to mount the fight of flight response…

Without hormone health we get sick pretty fast…

And, yes, Vitamin D3 really is a hormone!

Thyroid & Adrenal Glands

Our Thyroid and Adrenals are critical for hormonal health, but they are seemingly failing us at epic levels…

The Thyroid gland uses Iodine from the foods we eat to make two main hormones: Triiodothyronine, (T3), and Thyroxine, (T4).

Unfortunately, the soil in which our food is being grown is becoming excessively depleted, and so there are less and less nutrients left for the plants to absorb. Iodine is so depleted in parts of Asia that goitres are quite commonplace.

Thyroid cells are the only cells in the body which can absorb iodine.

*It is projected that there a re only 60 harvests left on our wondrously beautiful planet, if we continue to live and farm in the way that we are currently living and farming.

According to Gove in The Guardian in January 2019, the UK is 30-40 years away from ‘eradication of soil fertility’… However, Our World Date makes a case for things not being anywhere near as bad as we are being told:

The reason I group the Thyroid in with the Adrenals is because when the Thyroid doesn’t work properly the Adrenals are put into play.

The Adrenals use cholesterol, which is made in the Liver, to make hormones and so there’s also a systemic connection between the Thyroid and Adrenals as well as with the Liver and Gall Bladder.

Thyroid Dysfunction

There is rampant misdiagnosis of Thyroid dysfunction due to modern medicine’s insistence on viewing body parts and sets of symptoms in complete isolation, instead of in the context of the rest of the body.

For example, Thyroxine (T4) needs to be converted into the active form of this hormone, which is Triiodothyronine (T3). T4 is converted into the more active T3 by the deiodinase system (D1, D2, D3) in multiple tissues and organs within the body, but this is mostly achieved in the liver, gut, skeletal muscle, and brain as well as in the thyroid gland itself.

Vitamin D3 is also required to convert T3 into an inactive form of Thyroid hormone within the Liver, ready for expulsion. BUT, Magnesium and Selenium, as well as Iodine, are also essential nutrients required to convert T4 into T3… and this is what the doctors and specialists are not taking into account when diagnosing Thyroid dysfunction.

A simple Selenium deficiency can be the cause of Thyroid dysfunction, and so something as rudimentary as eating a couple of Brazil Nuts a day, which are swimming in Selenium, will fix the issue. But, Selenium, like Iodine has sadly been farmed out of the soil in the last half century in many parts of the world.

Also :: see later on in this article: Systemic Inflammation & Thyroid Function

Kelp & Nascent Iodine

If you are concerned about your Iodine intake, especially if you eat a lot of sugar and processed food, it is best to supplement with Iodine.

Kelp is an ideal whole food option. Time and again it is whole food, rather than dietary supplements, that seem to work best.

However, if you have serious issues with Kelp then a single drop of Nascent Iodine daily will help.

If you have a Hashimoto’s diagnosis, supplementing with Iodine can, in some cases, cause more problems than it solves.

If Iodine deficiency isn’t the cause of your Hypothyroidism, then Iodine supplementation will not be beneficial and shouldn’t be used.

Iodine can worsen hypothyroidism for some people with abnormal thyroid glands, so it is best to test for Iodine deficiency before supplementing with it.

***However, we used to get a lot more Iodine in our food than we do now… so, deficiencies in the soil, created over the last sixty years or so, are responsible for Iodine deficiency in food. Kelp is a good way of introducing gentle amounts of Iodine into you diet.

****Thyroid Hormone is four parts Iodine and one part Tyrosine, making Iodine vitally important for Thyroid function. The inactive form of Thyroid Hormone, T4, needs Iodine to convert to the active form of Thyroid Hormone, T3.

Thyroid Dysfunction Due To Dioxins

Dioxins are produced via the combustion of waste incineration as well as fossil fuels used for cars and planes as well as wood. Dioxins are lipophilic, which means that they tend towards combining with or dissolving into lipids, aka fats.

Dioxins, therefore unsurprisingly are most commonly found in animal fat, where it tends to bio-accumulate.

Other foods which have the highest Dioxin concentrations are dairy products, poultry, eggs, fish.

Dioxins negatively impact neurodevelopment, and they alter thyroid function.

Thyroid Problem Misdiagnosis

I have covered the endocrine disrupting power of chlorine in the previous article, but I haven’t mentioned fluoride, found in most big brand toothpastes and some water supplies in the UK, but much more so in the poorly regulated US… Then there’s bromine, found in soft drinks, pesticides, baked goods, asthma treatments and nasal sprays etc…

These are all Halides.

Iodine is also a Halide, without which, as we know, the Thyroid cannot function properly…

A halide ion is a halogen atom bearing a negative charge. The halide anions are fluoride (F−), chloride (Cl−), bromide (Br−), iodide (I−) and astatide (At−). Such ions are present in all ionic halide salts. Halide minerals contain halides.

Wikipedia

So, because there’s very little Iodine left in the soil our Thyroid is desperately trying to use the much more comprehensively available chlorine, bromine and fluorde to fulfil it’s functions…

***All Halides can attach to Iodine receptors… so when there’s no Iodine around the body grabs onto anything else instead…

This is disastrous, as you can imagine, and not only leads to goitres, but means that the Thyroid dysfunctions on a fundamental level. This then leads to widespread Thyroid problem misdiagnosis, followed by a lifetime on Thyroxine, usually accompanied by yo-yoing weight and emotional states.

The Thyroid and adrenals are revisited in Hormone Health Part Eight, where reverse T3, (RT3), is discussed alongside the issues of anxiety and depression, which is comprehensively covered in Hormone Health Part Four.

You may also like to read Thyroid & The Skin Connection

What does Iodine do?

• Stabilises metabolism
• Stabilises weight
• Stabilises brain function
• Supports fertility
• Supports immune function.
• It is anti-parasitic, antibacterial, antiviral, and anti-cancer agent

What happens with insufficient iodine?

• Infertility
• PMS
• Irregular menstruation
• Menopausal symptoms
• IBS
• Auto-immune conditions
• Skin conditions like Acne, Eczema & Psoriasis
• Depression
• Low libido
• Weight gain
• Early onset dementia
• Heart disease
• Fibromyalgia
• Chronic fatigue
• High cholesterol
• Gum disease
• Fluid retention
• Poor memory
• Unhealthy hair & nails
• Hair loss
• Cold hands and feet

So, nothing much to worry about there then!!??!!??!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GrOuuVTOg8

Thyroid & Adrenals 

To learn about the inter-connectedness of our bodily functions with regard to thyroid and adrenals I strongly advocate this video by the superbly watchable John Bergman.

Wow! That inimitable laugh!

But finish reading this article and come back to the video later to get the most out of it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDphVgAA4ik

Hormonal Health & Modern Medicine

Modern medicine’s approach to hormonal imbalances normally includes the prescription of synthetic hormone replacement therapies to attempt to restore hormone health. These include birth control pills, insulin injections, Thyroxin for the thyroid etc….

Unfortunately, these do not restore hormonal health.

What they actually do is mask the problem whilst making users dependent on drug protocols for the rest of their lives that largely don’t get broken down by the digestive tract. These are then released into the water supply so everyone can have a dose of synthetic hormones that are ultimately making us all really sick.

Whilst symptoms are being masked, but the root problem remains, sufferers continue to develop abnormalities in other areas of their body, as the original disorder progresses. And, those of us, who were problem free, develop synthetic hormone induced hormonal abnormalities.

The wanton irresponsibility of this act leaves me incredulous!

Long term use of artificial hormones, (and there’s no non-artificial ones… bio-identical is a scam!), often results in:

• stroke
• osteoporosis
• anxiety
• reproductive problems
• cancer
• and more…

Hormonal Health & Alternative Medicine

There are many alternative ways of achieving hormonal health.

The body is a beautiful self-regulating and self-healing system… So, learning the facts, (and not modern medicine’s fiction), around hormonal health is the first step to recovery.

And, the first step in achieving hormonal health, without modern medicine, is actually rather elegant. It simply entails cutting out exposure to Xenoestrogens and other hormone disrupting elements as much as is possible.

Diets can be adapted, homes can be made more natural, aerosol fragrances and hand sanitisers can be thrown out…

The next step is to use complimentary ways to regain normal hormonal health as easily as possible.

Using Essential Oils For Hormone Health

There’s quiet a few essential oils that help support hormonal health.

Clary Sage is the queen of them all. But the following all have a part to play in achieving hormonal health

• Rose Essential Oil
• Frankincense Essential Oil
• Rosemary Essential Oil
• Lavender Essential Oil
• Geranium Essential Oil
• Sandalwood Essential Oil
• Peppermint Essential Oil
• Thyme Essential Oil
• German Chamomile Essential Oil
• Fennel Essential Oil

You can read more about the hormone balancing effects of most of these essential oils in FACIAL OIL No. 2 and FACIAL OIL No. 8.

Wild As The Wind use these oils in facial oil blends with the intention of inducing improved hormone health.

Hormone His & Hers has also been developed for men and women who do not wish to use a face oil, although many do.

FACIAL OIL No. 2 + FACIAL OIL No. 8 + Hormone His & Hers have been developed as an accompaniment to Thieves Oil 2020 for Hormone Detox, as there is a three stage detoxification process of hormone receptor sites. Thieves Oil 2020 blasts Xenoestrogens out of the hormone receptor sites and FACIAL OIL No. 2 et al. takes care of stage two and three, restoring the damage to the receptor sites caused by Xenoestrogens, and then performing a ‘factory reset’ allowing the hormone receptor sites to be receptive to our natural hormones once more.

As mentioned, Hormone His & Hers is the alternative product to FACIAL OIL No. 2 and FACIAL OIL No. 8 for those that don’t want to use a facial oil.

Hormones Can Be Grouped Into Three Main Types

There are hormones that are derived from amino acids, including; protein hormones, peptides and amines, and there are those that are derived from lipids, which are essentially natural steroids.

• Amines: which are simple molecules
• Proteins and peptides: made from chains of amino acids
• Steroids which are derived from cholesterol.

How The Key Hormones Work

These major hormone groups can be broken down into hormone subgroups…

*But, with mention of steroids in the previous paragraph, and synthesising hormones in the next, it is perhaps important to mention that both of these things are entirely natural.

The fact that pharmaceutical companies synthesise drugs and synthetic hormones by chemically creating what appear to be similar to those found in nature so that they can patent their work, and turn a tidy profit, doesn’t mean that our bodies are doing the same thing.

Instead, our bodies are synthesising natural substances to arrive at different substances, that are altogether, well… natural…

Hormone Subgroups

Amine hormones: like melatonin, the ‘sleep hormone’, which is synthesised from the amino acids tryptophan, and the thyroid hormones, which are synthesised from tyrosine. Dopamine is another one.

Steroid hormones: which are derived from cholesterol and include testosterone, oestrogens and cortisol.

Peptide hormones: which consist of short chain amino acids, including oxytocin the ‘love hormone’, because oxytocin levels increase during hugging and orgasm, and the antidiuretic hormone, called vasopressin

*Clearly, oxytocin is the hormone giving Aspartame the middle finger as it flushes around our bodies!

Protein hormones: that consist of longer polypeptides and include growth hormone and FSH (follicle-stimulating hormone).

Our endocrine system, responsible for all of this good work, is a beautiful self-regulating system as long as all of the hormones remain natural within it… but, of course, this doesn’t happen.

Women take the synthetic contraceptive pill which then flushes around in our water supply waiting for a new host, and the chemical, the cosmetic, and the food industry keep on inventing new ways to poison us with Xenoestrogens.

The consequence of this is the potential for widespread health problems that affect all aspects of our being:

• growth
• sexual development
• sexual function
• our sleep
• and our metabolisms, even to the extent we feel hungry when we’re not… does this sound horribly familiar…?

How To Detect An Hormonal Imbalance

A lot of the time hormone imbalances are not hard to spot… There are plenty of outward signs to go on…

• Acne and other hormonally related skin conditions
• Erratic, emotionally charged behaviour
• Extremes in emotional states
• Depression and anxiety
• Infertility
• Irregular periods
• Insomnia
• Exhaustion
• Weight gain… usually in specific areas of the body.
• Weight
• Sexual dysfunction
• Low libido
• Fatigue
• Digestive problems
• Thinning of the hair loss hair loss

Hormonal imbalances display in dramatically different ways depending on the type of disorder they ultimately cause.

Oestrogen Dominance

For example, being oestrogen dominant will cause weight gain on the stomach, inner thighs and the lower half of the bottom. There will be an increase in cellulite and changes in sleep patterns, as well as increases in weight and changes to appetite due to a slowing down of the metabolism, in addition to a lower tolerance to stress.

Oestrogen dominance can contribute to issues that cause reproductive disorders like endometriosis etc…

*I will cover other forms of hormone imbalance later on in this article…

Digestive Health Is A Precursor To Hormone Health

The following information is pretty ground-breaking, and will hopefully help you to transform your diet so that you can transform your hormonal health.

This, will of course, permit you to transform your physical and emotional health as well.

Read it, and embrace the solution to many of your problems!

Which Foods Are High In Oestrogen & Progesterone?

Before we jump into gut and hormonal health, here’s a very handy list of foods with naturally occurring hormones so that you can knowingly moderate your diet to help balance your hormones.

*I personally like a desert spoon of linseeds, (aka flaxseeds), soaked over night, to help balance my hormones, and I don’t like soy products, unless they are fermented.

• Seeds: flaxseeds / linseeds and sesame seeds
• Fruit: apricots, oranges, strawberries, peaches, and many dried fruits
• Vegetables: yams, carrots, alfalfa sprouts, kale, celery
• Soy products: tofu, miso soup, soy yogurt
• Dark rye bread
• Legumes: lentils, peas, pinto beans
• Olives and olive oil
• Chickpeas

*List from Magdalena Wszelaki 

Our Gut Is Behind A Lot Of Our Hormonal Issues!

Complementary health practitioners can be as guilty as medical practitioners when it comes to focusing on the endocrine system with a view to putting a treatment plan together for hormonal imbalances.

Or, they look to adaptogenic herbs and other supplements to affect hormone balancing within the body.

But, the one thing that’s largely ignored is the microbiome within the gut.

The microbiome is actually a complete endocrine system in and of itself, although I prefer to look at the entire bodily system of good bacteria as the ‘holo-biome’, rather than the microbiome…

But, whatever the case, the microbiome, or holo-biome is now considered to be a virtual organism that’s as powerful than all our other endocrine glands put together… the ones I mentioned at the beginning of this article… the thyroid, adrenal glands etc…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWHH9je2zG4

The Microbiome Is The Hormonal Master Controller

The gut produces and secretes virtually every hormone that the body uses whilst at the same time regulating the expression of those hormones. It can, therefore, inhibit or enhance the production of certain hormones within the gut.

The microbiome consequently, plays a pivotal role in controlling how hormone health is achieved within the body.

It is small wonder then, that even complementary practitioners only achieve limited success when it comes to treating endocrine issues. Only those that embrace the central role that the gut plays within the endocrine system are likely to achieve complete success.

The Microbiome Makes Neurotransmitters

Who Knew?

So, What Are Neurotransmitters?

Neurotransmitters are chemical messengers that can influence mood, sleep, memory and learning etc…

A neurotransmitter is defined as a chemical messenger that carries, boosts, and balances signals between neurons, or nerve cells, and other cells in the body. These chemical messengers can affect a wide variety of both physical and psychological functions including heart rate, sleep, appetite, mood, and fear. Billions of neurotransmitter molecules work constantly to keep our brains functioning, managing everything from our breathing to our heartbeat to our learning and concentration levels.

In order for neurons to send messages throughout the body, they need to be able to communicate with one another to transmit signals. However, neurons are not simply connected to one another. At the end of each neuron is a tiny gap called a synapse and in order to communicate with the next cell, the signal needs to be able to cross this small space. This occurs through a process known as neurotransmission.

Read the rest of the article here

Seretonin

Approximately 90% of serotonin, the neurotransmitter that’s believed to be responsible for our emotional health, is largely produced in the gut.

This is a recent, and very important, discovery because serotonin is actually a master regulator of the communication between the gut and the brain.

It is known as the ‘happy hormone’ that controls our propensity to stay in a happy frame of mind. This is why modern medicine tries to create drugs to mimic serotonin for people with depression, although this approach actually reveals a profound lack of understanding about what needs to be done to increase serotonin levels.

Serotonin also influences the parasympathetic system and thus our ability to sleep and relax. It also governs gut motility, so sometimes the cause of indigestion and constipation etc can be an indicator of low serotonin levels.

Of course, if this is the case then it can spiral into mood and sleep disorders. This is why it is so common for people suffering from depression to also have a lot of gut issues!

And, the tragedy is that it’s often triggered by something as simple as antibiotics.

Anxiety & Depression

This is why people with a predisposition for anxiety and depression could have a single gut infection, like food poisoning, or some kind of flu bug that affects the gut, which will become the precursor to a cascade of events leading very quickly back to a depressive, anxious state.

And, of course, a prescription of antibiotics, which will massively disrupt the microbiome, can trigger a downward spiral of low serotonin, low dopamine and thyroid hormone imbalances that start the whole anxiety process off.

The gut also produces dopamine which is extremely important for reward the centres of the brain, and thus, for making us feel happy. If we have insufficient dopamine it’s very hard to get satisfaction from the things we do.

A lack of dopamine leads to addictions and to things that create dopamine spikes, like tobacco, jogging and food. We become chemically dependent on the reward that these things provide us with momentarily.

The way that chemical rewards work is interesting….

Chemical Reward Systems

The body requires a chemical reward in order to motivate us to do things. That’s why dopamine makes us feel happy. We wouldn’t do anything unless we got our dopamine reward.

This is why depressives don’t wash, go out for a walk, read a book, or anything else for that matter. They do as little as possible because there’s no dopamine reward in it for them.

Sometimes depressives don’t eat either…

When we receive a dopamine response, and we feel happy when, for example, reading a book, this means that the dopamine is programming our bodies to continually seek activities that make us feel good.

I know it all sounds very Pavlov’s dog… but, it’s reward behaviour, plain and simple… and there’s no point feeling a tad disappointed about how little control we have over the whole thing, because without it we wouldn’t even get out of bed of a morning!

Because our gut bacteria is responsible for producing our dopamine gut dysbiosis can be responsible for tragic shifts in our emotional states of mind.

I cover this in great detail in Hormone Health Part Four

The Gut & Hormone Production & Moderation

Our gut is also responsible for producing things like norepinephrine, one of the stress hormones, (the other two main ones are adrenalin, (aka epinephrine), and cortisol), that triggers the flight or fight response.

What is very interesting is that some bacteria like; e.coli, Pseudomonas, Salmonella, and Campylobacter produce high levels of norepinephrine and epinephrine which will lock people in the fight-or-flight response… so chronic infections with these bugs will exhaust the host through adrenal fatigue etc…

This is where this feeling of anxiousness comes from even if there is nothing in our world to feel anxious about. In many cases it’s just because we have an overgrowth of these bacteria.

How The Microbiome Affects Oestrogen

There are three types of Oestrogen, as mentioned in the introduction to hormone health.

• Estradiol
• Estrone
• Estriol

*These oestrogens have different potencies from each other..

Believe it or not, it has been proven recently that the microbiome actually produces all of them! So, not only do our female sex organs produce oestrogen, but the microbiome produces it as well!

And… a healthy microbiome will produce more estriol than the other two versions… which is very advantageous… Because estriol is the weakest of all of the oestrogen hormones it doesn’t have all of the oestrogen-dependent cancer issues and hormone imbalance issues. And yet, it gives us all the benefits of oestrogen, with the big one being the reduction of menopausal symptoms! YAY!

It, therefore, reduces vaginal dryness and hot flushes as well as all of the other good things that oestrogen does, like reducing osteoporosis!

Who knew that low levels of estriol are correlated with higher degrees of bone loss!?!

The Estrobolome Connection

Estrobolome is basically a collection of enzymes produced by microbes in the gut that break down oestrogen and metabolise it so the body doesn’t build up too much of a reserve of oestrogen.

With an inadequate amount of estrobolome function we will end up in an oestrogen dependent hormonal dysfunction. And trust me, the last thing we all want is an oestrogen dominant state of affairs, because it’s goodbye sleep and hello hot flushes!

But, the discomforts of menopause are not actually the least of it. Gut dysbiosis elevates the risk of developing breast cancer, which is an oestrogen dependent cancer.

How Do We Get The Gut To Produce More Estriol & Estrobolome?

Because estriol prevents elevations in the more destructive oestrogens an elevation in estriol is desirable.

We also want to see more estrobolome…

This means we need the microbiome to be well populated with the right kind of probiotics and prebiotics.

So Which Probiotics Support Estriol & Estrobolome Production?

Unfortunately, the answer to that is that we don’t know… and we may never know…

So, the way forward is to repopulate the gut with the most diverse range of microbes as possible. So, a good probiotic, taken first thing in the morning, 20 minutes before breakfast, is a good idea.

Also, diminishing the risk of infection from the norepinephrine and epinephrine producing bugs will ensure that the right flora are able to flourish within the gut.

Additionally, the reduction of the inflammation in the gut seems to be a vital part of ensuring hormone health. There’s a fair amount of data which shows that Crohn’s disease, colitis, and irritable bowel syndrome, or IBS, and all other pathologically chronic inflammatory diseases of the gut, significantly disrupt hormone production within the microbiome.

Thus, if we reduce inflammation we will get a better production, metabolism and regulation of hormones within the gut.

The Role Of Systemic Inflammation

Systemic inflammation really disrupts our endocrine system, especially the neuronal hormones. Neuronal hormones are dependent on the neurons to function.

Systemic Inflammation & Thyroid Function

Also, systemic inflammation will increase adrenal function, which will in turn lower thyroid function, But, because doctors view everything in isolation they don’t make the connection between systemic inflammation and a person’s low thyroid function…

So, they diagnose hypothyroidism and prescribe Thyroxin for life, at a very tidy profit to the drug company… and, if you manage to wangle the good stuff, from organic sources, (read: pigs), it will be at huge expense to the tax payer…!

Progesterone In The Mix

Progesterone is another hormone that’s heavily produced by the microbiome. The stimulation of progesterone production by the glands is actually initiated by the gut. So, the microbiome actually produces progesterone and it also signals to your body to produce more progesterone as well.

This means that the microbiome actually reads hormone levels within the body and can trigger the turning on of our glandular systems to produce hormones!

Menopause In The Mix

Both estrodiol and progesterone are reliant on increased diversity in the gut microbiome. Achieve this, and we will sail through menopause!

Thyroid In The Mix

The microbiome also plays a role in thyroid health. A low diversity of microbes in the gut is correlated with an increased production of thyroid stimulating hormone, which leads to hyperthyroidism

If we have an overproduction of T3 and T4 we have an eruption of anxiety and depression as well as a bad case of the jitters and unexplained weight loss. This can then lead to hypothyroid because we overwork the thyroid which results in the development of a fatigue syndrome… all due to reduced amounts of bacteria in the gut!

Research at a London University revealed that a single dose of 600 milligrams of an augmented broad-spectrum antibiotic reduced the gut microbiome content by 90%… so, a full course must entirely obliterate our gut flora!

A 90% loss of microbiome will result in the pH of the gut increasing, making it more alkaline, because the lactic acid producing bacteria have mainly been destroyed.

With a dramatic reduction in lactic acid the bacteria that flourish in an alkaline gut like clostridia, salmonella, streptococcus, staphylococcus and other pathogenic organisms repopulate the gut.

These unfavourable organisms proliferate, which means we continue to produce much less lactic acid. This perpetuates the downward spiral of the gut becoming increasingly more alkaline, which in turn supports the continued proliferation of the bad bacteria.

Of course, all of this means more norepinephrine and epinephrine, more thyroid stimulating hormone and a descent into emotional turmoil.

*This is why the Germans dispense a course of probiotics with every course of antibiotics.

But, I would even go one step further… not only is it critical to take probiotics after a course of antibiotics, but it’s equally important to ensure that all of the good bacteria, being deposited into the gut by the probiotic, can flourish, so… I recommend taking a really good prebiotic also. Or, make sure you eat plenty of really healthy prebiotic foods.

These include onions, apples, asparagus, seaweed, chicory, Jerusalem artichoke, garlic, leeks and cocoa.

Gum Arabic is considered by some to be the best prebiotic, but yacon is also good and it’s full of inulin, which is immensely good for getting rid of belly fat.

Belly Fat & Hormone Production

As belly fat can produce it’s own oestrogen autonomously to the gut and endocrine system, reducing belly fat is a must to reduce menopausal symptoms!

*I make an homemade dairy free, sugarless chocolate with yacon that’s pretty darned good. Hassle me in the comments section for the recipe if you’d like to give it a go.

Rosehip tea is also known for it’s belly fat reducing properties…

Xenoestrogenic Skincare & Beauty Products

There’s plenty of things within our beauty regimens that are xenoestrogenic as well…

Read Skincare Ingredients To Avoid for more information on the lotions, potions and shampoo ingredients that are making us sick. Don’t forget to check out the Wild As The Wind essential oil based hormone balancing blend to help you to restore your hormone balance in a purely natural way.

Read Hormone Health Part Three  

Hormone Health Part Three covers the role of vitamins and minerals in hormone health

Here’s another John Bergman presentation. Produced in 2018 it presents the latest insights into hormone health.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqrR7M4R1C8

Don’t forget to check out the Wild As The Wind essential oil based hormone balancing blends to help you to restore your hormone balance in a purely natural way.  

Disclaimer

The information provided is not intended to replace the medical directives of your healthcare provider. This information is not meant for the diagnosis of health issues. If you are pregnant, have serious or multiple health concerns, consult with your healthcare provider before using essential oils or associated products. If you experience any complications or adverse reactions contact your healthcare provider.

Deepen your knowledge by using the Wild As The Wind Recommended Resources

Another resource you may find useful can be found by following the link below. *Please note, I use sources from the Recommended Resources list as well as sources from the Healthcare and Skincare Information Sources list when researching articles for the Wild As The Wind Blog.

Best Healthcare and Skincare Information Sources.

Wild As The Wind use a number of resources when deciding which formulas to put together for optimal healing and efficacy, as well as to support any health claims we may make.

We owe a particular debt to GreenMedInfo