As I continue to read and research ways in which to incorporate a healthy lifestyle, I have recently been focusing on hormone balancing. And after a recent trip to Bahrain, I was awoken to the environmental contributions to our health! Read with caution!
After many women’s lab tests come back, they are summarized as being estrogen dominant. I was also diagnosed as estrogen dominant and so it is of great interest to find out exactly what this means and how we can naturally re-balance the hormones. First of all being estrogen dominant can mean the following symptoms for many women;
- Anxiety
- Allergies
- Breast tenderness
- Decreased sex drive
- Depression
- Fat gain, especially around the abdomen, hips and thighs
- Fatigue
- Foggy thinking
- Headaches
- Irritability
- Migraines
- PMS
- Thyroid dysfunction
- Water retention, bloating
Sound familiar? If so, you may have gone to your doctor who has prescribed HRT. Unfortunately, more often than not you are administered synthetic drugs, which can cause more unpleasant side effects than you originally had!
According to John Lee, author of ‘What your doctor may not tell you about menopause’ “ The history of creating synthetic drugs consistently shows that separating the so-called active ingredient from the rest of the plant to create substances not found in nature almost always creates harmful side effects, whereas plant medicines, used properly, rarely have harmful side effects.” In addition to increasing unpleasant side effects, this allopathic approach deals with the symptoms only and does not tackle the root of the problem in the first place.
Functional Medicine as you may or may not already know tackles the heart of the problem by checking how your organs are “functioning” and whether they are functioning at an optimal level or sub optimal. Through a series of lab tests we devise nutritional and supplementation programmes, bespoke to you, which may take a number of months (depending on individual case). In addition, recommendations in adopting a healthier life are provided. I have plenty of tried and tested ways to help make small but significant changes. However, when I recently attended the forum in Bahrain, I found it cause for concern of how our environment contributes to harming our health and found it of great interest from an estrogen dominant point of view.
Yes, after recently attending a forum on the Challenges and Experiences of Family Businesses, organized by UK-based Women in Business (WIB) in association with the Bahrain Businesswomen's Society (BBS); I nearly got to shake hands with Camilla Duchess of Cornwall, anyway that’s another story!
The forum had a number of key female speakers from successful businesses in the UK and spoke about the triumphs of being a female entrepreneur. A speaker, by the name of Samantha Burlton, founder of SOORGANIC.com an organic online shopping service, spoke about her business. She specializes in only organic products such as cosmetics, bath, beauty and products for the house and home. It is a highly successful business and I would recommend anyone to take a look at the site after reading the following:
“Xenoestrogen…… foreign substances originating outside the body that have hormone and estrogen like activity in the body, and thus a profound impact on hormone balance.” (John Lee, What your doctor may not tell you about Menopause). He continues to say that xenoestrogens are petrochemically based products and can behave as potent estrogens. Thus increasing the amount of estrogen found in the body.
The alarming concern is just how many xenoestrogens are found in everyday products that could be harming your health and leading to estrogen dominance and as a result leave you suffering the unpleasant symptoms listed above.
We live in a petrochemical world and here are a few of the xenoestrogens that contain or are made from petrochemicals; Car exhaust, solvents and adhesives such as nail polish, and nail polish remover, nearly all plastics, medicines, clothing, foods, soaps, pesticides (sprayed onto your fruit), herbicides and perfumes! How many of these products are you in daily contact with?
Some brief but good advice regarding plastics would be to; Don’t routinely drink hot beverages from plastic cups, nor microwave your food in plastic containers, and don’t reheat food with cling film on. Actually, there is more evidence about the harms of using a microwave so if you can, stop using it all together.
Alarmingly, is how much of the makeup and beauty products we use on a daily basis contain petrochemicals. Just have a look at your lip balm and read the ingredients! Or even worse your lip gloss!
There is a lot to take on board and I’m not asking you to stop using your everyday products, but just become more attuned to reading ingredients of external products and you may find that, if after your lab tests, you are estrogen dominant then you may have to make the changes needed to go more Organic both from an internal AND external approach.
Remember, small steps are all that I ask for, as this is not a magic bullet process! But, wouldn’t you rather make the changes now, then become life threateningly ill and spend thousands on synthetic drugs! And think about the future of your children!
For more information about the programmes that Core-PTS run or ways to clean up your house, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Have a healthy and happy day. Samantha
