The Natural Hormone Makeover: 10 Steps to Rejuvenate Your Health and Rediscover Your Inner Glow

By Phuli Cohan, M.D.

Summarized with permission of Wiley (www.wiley.com). All rights reserved.
All rights reserved.

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Hormone Metabolism

Bioidentical hormones are safe to use when their breakdown products are properly disposed of by your body. How well your body metabolizes, or breaks down, your estrogen largely determines your risk of breast cancer.

Estrogen

Women are usually amazed that their body makes over a dozen forms of estrogen. Some estrogen is good and some is bad. Most estrogens convert into an estrone. A good estrone prevents your bones from crumbling and your vessels from becoming inflamed, thereby helping to ward off heart attacks and strokes.

A good estrone will do you no harm and, in fact, will protect you from cancer, heart disease, and bone and memory loss. A bad estrone, on the other hand, can turn cells into cancer or make them grow into fibroids or cysts. It gives estrogen a bad reputation. So you need to produce lots of good estrones and not too many bad ones.

The Liver and Chinese Medicine

The Chinese say that a woman is as happy as her liver.

For a healthy liver, you need a diet rich in cruciferous vegetables, green leafy vegetables, fruits, a clean environment, and avoid exposure as much as possible to pesticides, preservatives, plastics, and food dyes. You also need to limit your alcohol and caffeine intake.

The Bowels

In addition to liver metabolism, digestion is also key. Most hormones leave your body in your stool. For this reason, your bowels are important for good hormonal health. There is an established link between healthy gut function and cancer, particularly hormone cancers such as breast, prostate, and colon cancers.

For a healthy bowel, avoid overusing antibiotics, and if you do use them, replace friendly bacteria with probiotics. Consider bowel cleansing with herbs and/or testing for overgrowth of bacteria and yeast if your bowels are not moving regularly. Follow a diet high in antioxidants.

Hormones and a Healthy Lifestyle

What you eat, think, do, and live near affects your risk of cancer and heart disease. Your lifestyle affects your hormone metabolism, fat metabolism, immune function, and sugar control. They are all interconnected.

Fortunately, positive lifestyle changes can help prevent heart disease, stroke, and cancer. Exercise regularly (at least three times a week) and eat four to six servings of fresh fruits and vegetables each day. Take time out to enjoy yourself and your family. Avoid fast foods, pesticides, hidden hormones and carcinogens in foods and cosmetics.

Eating the right foods can reduce your chances of heart disease, cancer, bone loss, constipation, irritable bowel syndrome, insomnia, high cholesterol, moodiness, fatigue, and more. Whole foods contain antioxidants, minerals, vitamins, and fiber as well as the nutrients needed for our cells to detoxify and metabolize.

Fats

The types of fats women eat matter more than the amount. The most harmful fats are trans fats and hydrogenated fats.

Essential fatty acids are good fats that our body is unable to make on its own. There are two types: omega-3 and omega-6. Omega-3 fatty acids are most important, as they bring balance to our hormones, reduce inflammation, regulate our blood sugar, prevent blood clotting, keep our cholesterol and triglycerides in balance, relax our blood vessels and make our cells healthy and resilient.

Some Ways to Improve your Lifestyle:

• Exercise regularly three to four times each week.
• Maintain a normal body weight.
• Avoid excess alcohol (ideally limit to two or three drinks per week).
• Eat two to four servings of cruciferous vegetables daily.
• Aim to eat four to five servings of fresh vegetables and two to four servings of fresh fruits daily. The more colorful foods are high in antioxidants and should be consumed regularly.
• Eat one to two tablespoons per day of ground flaxseeds. They help metabolize estrogen more safely.
• Drink filtered water. (Use a filter that removes chlorine and heavy metals)
• Eat organic, hormone-free meats and dairy.
• Choose paraben-free skin creams, makeup, and deodorant.

• Store leftover foods in glass or ceramic. If wrapping cheese in plastic, cover it with parchment paper first. Oily foods absorb plastics more readily than other foods.

• Do not microwave foods in plastic containers or freeze water in plastic bottles.
• Drink green tea instead of coffee.
• Avoid fabric softeners or laundry detergents that use nonylphenol or octylphenol, which place petrochemicals in contact with your skin.
• Use natural forms of pest control.
• Avoid condoms with the spermicide nonoxyl-9.

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