Before we get started on today's episode Bitesize Biohack, Just a quick note from me, if you are enjoying the show, I would absolutely love it. If you could give it a positive review on the platform you're listening, whether that is Spotify or iTunes or Amazon or wherever it is that you love to listen, because it really helps to get the podcast out to more listeners. And I appreciate it more than, you know, so if you have a few moments that can leave a positive review, we will be super grateful to you. Now let's get into the. Hi, Friends, I am back with another Bitesize Biohack, and we are going to be continuing with the H in my SHIFT protocol for health optimisation and higher performance, which is all about hormones.And you've been hearing about cortisol in particular over the last couple of weeks. And what I wanna start covering now is the sex hormones and specifically, first of all, oestrogen, because I know that many people struggle with oestrogen dominance or actually going on a bit of a roller coaster with oestrogen, particularly in the perimenopausal years, when it can really fluctuate and go high and then low and when it's going low, you get all kinds of symptoms, like hot flashes and poor sleep. And as you know, from previous episodes and things, progesterone kind of sneaks out the back door. And if there isn't enough progesterone to counter the effects of oestrogen, then that in and of itself is gonna lead to oestrogen dominance. So first of all, where is oestrogen made? Well it's made in the ovaries. It's also synthesized from another hormone known as DHEA. And you really need to have good levels of cholesterol because this is a precursor to all steroid hormones. So eating a low fat diet, unless you're doing it for medical reasons, isn't something that I would generally advise, but always consult with your doctor, but after menopause, the ovaries stop producing oestrogen and so the adrenal glands take over the hormone production and the biggest takeaway that I want you to take away from this episode, particularly if you're in perimenopause, is that for you to have a successful transition into menopause with the minimal amount of symptoms you really want to have good adrenal function and health.That is an absolute priority. If you are really burning the candle at both ends and really stressing yourself out and your adrenals are pumping out a whole load of cortisol, generally speaking, you're gonna have a harder time. The other thing to be aware of is your metabolic health. So your insulin sensitivity and your blood glucose management, that also makes a tremendous difference, as does your sleep and countering the effects of any kind of inflammation in the body that's also important, but essentially there are three main types of oestrogen that are produced. The first one is estrone or termed E1. And that's the second, most potent oestrogen after estradiol. It's about 12 times weaker than estrodiol or E2 as it's commonly called and in premenopausal women, it mainly comes from the conversion of estradiol, which is excreted by the ovaries.But in post menopausal women, it's actually made predominantly in fat cells through aromatization. And so an obese woman will actually produce more E1 than a thin woman. And then we have estradiol or known as E2. And that's the major oestrogen produced by the ovaries in premenopausal women. So in your cycling years, In postmenopausal women that is mostly derived either from E1 from this inter conversion, or actually interestingly from testosterone via a process known as aromatization now, estradiol is the strongest and most active form of oestrogen in the body.And it can be converted both into E1 and E3, and that's really based on receptor availability and need. And then the third one out to talk about is estriol or E3. And that's the predominant oestrogen that's produced during pregnancy now in non-pregnant women, E3 is derived from that conversion from E1 and E2.It is 80 times weaker, approximately than estrodial. And it seems to have some protective effects against stronger oestrogens, like E1 and E2, because it competes with E2 at receptor sites. So it's kind of both oestrogenic and anti oestrogenic. It does not current convert backwards into E1 or E2, but it does.Interestingly convert with a different pathway known as the 16-OH pathway. And this is a potent oestrogen metabolite. So this is important because if you're seeing a lot of oestrogen go into the 16-OH pathway, This can lead to more symptoms of oestrogen dominance and it can also proliferate the growth of things like fibroids and endometriosis.So a test that I love to use with my clients is the Dutch test. And that is because we can actually see what pathways, first of all, we can see what, how much oestrogen you're producing. But also what pathways it's going down. And generally we want to see most of your oestrogen going down the 2-OH pathway, with minimal amounts going down the 4-OH, which
is where DNA damage can occur. And has been linked to things like breast cancer and then in terms of the 16-OH pathway, we want some going down. It, we don't want too much. It's that Goldilocks effect that we talk about so much with hormones, because actually the 16-OH can help with bone density, but we don't want too much of it because it can proliferate the growth of things like fibroids, for example. So how do you know what you have? Well, the Dutch test is a great test for understanding this. And if you're interested in that we will put links in the show notes, but you can also email us info @angelafosterperformance.com, but just to go over the kind of symptoms you might be experiencing. So if you've got low oestrogen, the kind of symptoms you might experience would be things like hot flashes or night sweats. You might get some vaginal dryness can make, intercourse quite painful. Some people will experience things like brain fog and forgetfulness and poor concentration. That again is very common during perimenopause, and it can also have impact on mood.So things like anxiety and depression or irritability and tearfulness. You can also feel quite tired. as oestrogen drops, we tend to see drier skin, it can impact collagen. So you feel like you're getting more wrinkles and things coming and it can also affect weight gain as well. Oestrogen is actually a significant trigger as you'll know, from previous episodes for muscle protein synthesis. And so if we're working out in the gym, as oestrogen starts to drop, we need to provide a stronger stimulus. Now, the reasons that you might have total oestrogen could be things like your body fat's too low. You've been consuming a low fat diet. Maybe your cholesterol is low, or if you've been under chronic stress and we have which known as HPA axis dysfunction. So that's the hypothermic pituitary access dysfunction can also be down to things like gluten sensitivity, poor diet and lifestyle habits or nutrient deficiencies. And it's also very common as I say, towards the very end of perimenopause, as you are moving into menopause. Well, one of the key things we want to do as you learned last week, all about cortisol stress is really to support the HPA access. And if you've got low estrogen, the kind of natural therapies that you can look at is including things like flax seeds in your diet, which is great. I don't generally recommend soy because it can interfere with thyroid function. It's a common allergen. And to be honest, it's often genetically, modified, but flax seed is generally one of the best things for trying to naturally boost oestrogen levels and also relieve symptoms of low oestrogen. However, in many cases, as you make that transition, many women will choose, to have some hormone therapy. I think that's very much alongside lifestyle issues. I think the combination of hormone therapy alongside these lifestyle things can really, really help, The other thing is that there are studies that show in terms of flaxseed that 30 grams or around four tablespoons of ground flaxseed per day, has been shown to be effective for hot flashes. But as I say, it really is dependent on the women. Some women will get some relief with things like this, and also with adaptogenic herbs, like Ashwaganda for example, and other women do need more help in terms of hormone therapy as well. Make sure you're eating plenty of healthy fats. So things like olive oil, avocado, nuts seeds, grass fed pasture raised meat. Wild caught fish, things like that. That's really important as well. You can also do some seed cycling. It's not that there's lots of scientific literature on this. It's just, it does get really amazing results. And that is where you, add flax seeds, ground flax and pumpkin seeds, or even pumpkin seed butter, to your smoothies, for example, or you can sprinkle these things on salad, flax seeds and pumpkins in days one to 14 at the beginning of the month, that can help to promote oestrogen. And then after ovulation days to 28, you move to sesame and sunflower seed to promote progesterone production or you can just consume two tablespoons of one seed or even one of each of the two seeds during each phase. And that's really for premenopausal women that have more regular cycles. If you have irregular cycles, you're in perimenopause, for example or, you are post-menopause then what you can do is follow the moon cycle. So in that situation through days one to 14, that would be the new moon to full moon. And then in days 15 to 28, the full moon to the new moon. So you can actually follow that protocol around the moon. That's another way of doing it. Other kind of nutritional support things to think about would be zinc and magnesium, making sure you've got enough B vitamins, vitamin D and vitamin E and also boron. What about if you've got a high oestrogen, how would you know that? Well, you tend to have a lot of fluid retention and bloating, breast tenderness, very common one,
sometimes breast cyst, or fibro cystic breast that can also be down to iodine. So that's worth something to consider. You try and fibroids endometriosis. These are very oestrogen dominant conditions. Again, you can get mood swings, brain fog, depression, tearfullness, pMs as well. That's very common. If you're oestrogen dominant, you can also get things like sugar cravings and blood sugar issues, and sometimes thyroid problems as well. The kind of things that cause high oestrogen can be down to high estrogen supplementation if the dose isn't correct. It can be that you're having actually too many phyto oestrogen in your diet in terms of the plant foods, that are phyto oestrogen. It could be that you are exposing yourself to too many xeno estrogens. And there are a lot of oestrogen disruptors in our environment that we want to avoid things like BPA, for example, and plastics, it could also be that you've got poor elimination. So if you are constipated and you are not moving that oestrogen, once it's been detoxified and packaged up by the liver, if you're not moving that through quickly enough, what can happen is you can have some bacteria that actually open up the envelope of that oestrogen. It gets recirculated in the body. So. That is through glucosidase activity. Now things like calcium D glucarate can help with that, but also you can get that checked out through a gut test with something like the Genova diagnostics test, is a really good one, the GI effects. And that's one that I tend to use with clients. We want to make sure that that elimination process. Is working effectively. It's really important. A lot of women, when they feel like they've got oestrogen dominance, they think about taking the supplement DIM. I would always recommend testing first because DIM can be very effective in terms of helping to move the pathways. I was talking earlier there about the pathways that your oestrogen is going down and moving it into the more favorable 2-OH pathway, but it can also lower overall estrogen. And sometimes women can end up with things like hot flashes, because what we need to understand is why is that oestrogen dominance happening is oestrogen overall high. What are the pathways it's going down? And actually, or is it high?
Have you got oestrogen dominance? Just because at this point you don't have enough progesterone to counter the effects of oestrogen. So understanding that information and working with a practitioner is really important before you kind of start going and using different supplements, which actually can be quite powerful. The other thing to think about is your liver health. If you've got sluggish clear liver clearance of oestrogen that again can lead to oestrogen dominant symptoms or things like poor bile production. And then as always, we come back to stress. This can aggravate things as well. As can toxicity, particularly things like heavy metal toxicity, or if you've got low sex hormone binding globulin, or SHBG. So when you're looking at nutrition and lifestyle support for high oestrogen, as I say, dim, which is a compound, which is produced in the body from I3C the, which is the indole that found I cruciferous vegetables can be very effective. Dim supplements actually have concentrated therapeutic amounts of I3C does tend to lower E1 and E2 oestrogens as well as promoting that healthy metabolism. So it's really best used when we're looking at optimizing those phases of detoxification of oestrogen, but also when overall oestrogen is high, otherwise you can get effects like things like hot flashes. And that's really why I do recommend that you get checked out. calcium d glucarate is another good one to help keep, oestrogen bound so the body can get rid of it and minimize Beta – glucuronidase, Beta – glucuronidase activity by your gut bacteria, it does lower oestrogen, but it doesn't shift the pathways effectively. So really that's best to use when you've got really, you know, high levels of oestrogen and the body is favoring the good pathway anyway. So, that's something to think about and talk to your practitioner about. The other thing is if you are not very good in terms of methylation that can lead to a third tier of oestrogen dominance. And in that situation, looking at things like broccoli seed extract, which actually up regulates the Nrf2 pathway and supports phase two detoxification is gonna be really, really helpful. And supporting your liver, supporting, certain nutrients in the body like magnesium B12, folate B6, vitamin E. Iodine and also supporting progesterone, but you always wanna be careful with iodine, itself and consult a practitioner, in relation to any kind of supplementation. So that's really kind of oestrogen in a nutshell, but with all the sex hormones, the key thing is really to be looking after the health of your adrenal function and actually understanding, you know, Don't guess is the best thing to do is to test, so that you know what you're doing, you can get advice from a practitioner to really help you. But managing stress with all these things is key and looking at ways of moderating, we can't necessarily control the amount of stress we're exposed to, but we can control our reaction to it. And if you'd like more help with any of this, then please email us at info@angelafoster performance.com. And also if you'd like to be around a wonderful community of women, All looking to optimize their health, then check out my membership, the female bio hacker collective at angelafoster.me/biohacker. That's it for me on Bitesize Biohacks this week. And I'll see you next week for another episode. Please know that while I try to cover as much information to help you as I can on these Bitesize episodes, none of the things I mentioned should be taken as a substitute for medical advice and before taking any supplements or anything else, please consult first with your doctor
