How to Fix Estrogen Dominance

There are many, many reasons for hormone imbalance symptoms in females.

This is one of the things that makes these types of health issues so frustrating. If you struggle with:

• PMS
• infertility
• hot flashes
• low libido
• heavy or irregular periods
• mood swings
• anxiety and depression
• weight gain
• hair loss
• muscle loss
• chronic UTIs
• acne
• endometriosis, 
• dozens of other hormone-related problems common in females,

You’re not alone.

And in this article, we’re going to demystify one of the most common hormone imbalances I see in my clients - estrogen dominance, otherwise called dysestrogenism.

There are four important things you need to know right away about this condition, before we go any further.

First of all, estrogen dominance can happen at any time in a female’s life, including during perimenopause and menopause. Even though we often think about estrogen being low during these phases, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s balanced.

Secondly, estrogen dominance is the main reason women have a harder time losing weight regardless of age when compared with men. The way that estrogen interacts with your other hormones can dramatically impact your metabolism, which then determines whether the food you eat is burned or stored as fat.

Thirdly, estrogen dominance can happen independent of estrogen excess. That means that you could still be estrogen dominant even if your doctor tells you your blood levels are “normal.” In fact, I see it all the time!

Speaking of estrogen levels, the fourth thing you need to know is that reliable testing of your estrogen levels is the best way to rule in or rule out estrogen dominance as the underlying cause of your symptoms.

I’m telling you this as a Functional Medicine consultant with more than a decade of helping women sort out their hormones - test, don’t guess. Because even I have been surprised by what’s revealed when my clients get the right, appropriate data, collected at the right time.

So, if you’re suspicious that hormone imbalances could be causing or contributing to your symptoms, keep reading, because there’s more to the story of estrogen than you might think.

Let’s start by investigating estrogen - where is it made? What does it do? Who does it hang out with?

Estrogen is made in three main places in females - in the ovaries, in adipose or fat tissue, and in the adrenal glands, especially post-menopause.

While estrogen has gotten a bit of a bad reputation for being inflammatory and disruptive, we need to remember that it’s not the enemy. Estrogen is a growth-oriented hormone - it helps develop the lining of the uterus, also known as the endometrium, preparing the body for egg implantation and pregnancy.

It supports the integrity of your bones as you age, and recent research has found that it plays a large role in preventing cardiovascular disease and Alzheimer’s disease. It can also protect how well your brain functions under stress - sidenote, this is one of the reasons why brain fog and mental fatigue is such a common symptom for women in menopause.

The trouble with estrogen comes when it is not balanced by progesterone, the calm, cool, collected cousin of estrogen made in the ovaries of pre-menopausal females.

Progesterone supports sleep, positive mood, relaxation, and memory. It also protects against cardiovascular disease as well as endometrial cancers.

Between the ages of 35-50, it’s common for progesterone production in the ovaries to decline, which is one of the reasons many women in peri-menopause start to notice symptoms of estrogen dominance.

As progesterone goes down, estrogen often stays the same…resulting in a relative excess of estrogen. Remember, estrogen levels don’t have to be above the normal range for this to happen - they’re just relatively higher.

This mis-match can result in extremely heavy periods, unexplained weight gain or weight loss resistance, fatigue, breast tenderness, fibroids, and ovarian cysts and polyps. And if you have a history of fertility struggles or endometriosis, you’re more likely to be estrogen dominant.

Many women who have had ablations or hysterectomies to manage hormone problems later find out that they have estrogen dominance - and these procedures only band-aided the issue.

So, how can you find out if your estrogen levels are relatively higher than your progesterone levels?

You can test them using the DUTCH test. DUTCH stands for dried urine test for comprehensive hormones, and it’s the best way to assess your body’s production of hormones like estrogen - all three estrogens AND their active metabolites, to be specific.

It also measures progesterone, testosterone and a host of other crucial pro-hormones and hormone metabolites or detox products.

Whenever I talk about hormone balance, I talk about the DUTCH, because it gives folks a reliable, accurate, actionable window into their hormone balance and overall health that they’ll never get from blood or saliva tests.

The DUTCH is also convenient, because you collect the dried urine samples using a simple at-home test kit.

One of the most common reasons for estrogen dominance is inefficient or overwhelmed estrogen detoxification.

Your liver could be overloaded with estrogen - perhaps from extra body fat, which produces estrogen on its own, independent of the ovaries’ regulation.

You could also have overactive aromatase, which is an enzyme that turns testosterone and other androgenic hormones into estrogen, resulting in an estrogen overload.

You could have a problem with the bacteria in your gut, resulting in the recirculation of detoxified estrogens from your intestines back into the bloodstream.

Or your body could have a tendency to utilize a less-than-helpful detox pathway in the liver, resulting in inflammation or even damage to the DNA of your cells - which may increase your risk for certain types of cancer.

The other massive reason for estrogen overwhelm in women today comes from a class of toxic chemicals called xenoestrogens or endocrine disruptors.

Skin care products and plastics are the most common environmental source for external estrogens to make their way into your body and contribute to estrogen dominance and toxin overload.

The unfortunate reality is that the modern woman probably has several of these root causes in play - and there are even more that I won’t get into in this article.

Because of the increased toxic load that we all face, supporting healthy estrogen detoxification pathways is my first and favorite way to decrease estrogen dominance.

Not only are you helping rebalance your hormones, but you’re also helping your body efficiently detoxify other important toxins and compounds.

Foods that support healthy estrogen detox include: cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, cabbage, and cauliflower, Rosemary and other plants high in a compound called flavinoids, raw, unpeeled carrots, and flaxseed.

As for micronutrients, iron is crucial for phase 1 of estrogen detox, so make sure both your iron and ferritin levels are optimized.

B vitamins, magnesium, choline, and others are helpful for making sure phase 2 estrogen detox happens smoothly. N-Acetyl-L-Cysteine, Diindolylmethane or DIM, and Indole-3 Carbinol or I-3-C are also powerful detoxification boosters.

I’ve included my favorite estrogen-detoxification supporting products in my Estrogen Dominance Checklist - you can download it HERE after we talk about progesterone’s role in all of this.

If you don’t have enough progesterone, estrogen dominance may still be a problem even if you’re detoxing properly and not making too much estrogen.

Progesterone levels can be sub-optimal at any phase in a woman’s life for many reasons, but this is especially problematic during perimenopause and menopause, and your strategy for supporting progesterone levels will also change based on age and life phase.

Quick but important sidenote - if you’re taking a progestin-based birth control, it is not having the same effect on your body as real progesterone. In fact, it shuts down your body’s own production of progesterone, which can have many significant side effects (including estrogen dominance).

If you’re pre-menopausal, one of my favorite ways to boost progesterone is with an herb called Chasteberry, also known as Vitex agnus. Vitamin B6, Vitamin C, and Melatonin can also help support production of progesterone.

If you’re post-menopausal, and your ovaries no longer respond to these supports, I often recommend low-dose, bioidentical progesterone supplementation.

There are more specifics in my FREE Estrogen Dominance Checklist.

While it’s true that female hormones can be complicated, I want to reiterate that they’re not as mysterious and unknowable as some conventional doctors make them out to be.

Accurate, comprehensive testing is available and can give you valuable insight into the reasons behind your hormone symptoms, at any phase of your life.

And once you know the “why” behind your symptoms, there are loads of Functional Medicine options for shifting them - not only to relieve your symptoms, but to prevent further hormone and health issues down the road.

Don't forget to download your FREE Estrogen Dominance Checklist HERE!