Healing Hormones

Your hormones are chemical messengers that are all interconnected. If you’ve been told you have “estrogen dominance” or “hypothyroid,” these are not root causes. They are byproducts of deeper dysfunction, and as such we have to do a bit of digging to figure out why they are out of whack. 

Consider the communication loop between your thyroid, adrenals, sex hormones, and your liver like a four-legged stool. The fourth leg is the liver because the liver makes cholesterol, which makes pregnenolone, a precursor to all the sex hormones (estrogen, progesterone, testosterone). If cortisol is involved the thyroid is messed up. If there’s liver stagnation, it can impact sex hormones. Whichever leg of the stool is off-kilter, the other three legs will be impacted and try to compensate. It is never one gland that is imbalanced, and this is why we need to consider the whole system together if we want to restore balance. 

But first, let’s zoom out a bit.

The Impacts of Chronic Stress

When the adrenals have been stuck in fight-or-flight mode, our blood sugar regulating hormone gets dysregulated and we get a negative response to thyroid hormone.

Your gut is one of the major thyroid hormone conversion sites, which means that it takes the inactive thyroid hormone and activates it so you can feel vibrant and energized throughout your day. 

If your gut is leaky or inflamed, your microbiome is imbalanced due to toxins and pathogens, and/or you're nutrient depleted, this can impact the activation process. On the other hand, without optimal thyroid function, your gut can't function optimally either, which becomes a vicious cycle. If the thyroid levels fall too low, the stomach doesn't produce enough hydrochloric acid, the gallbladder doesn't drain properly, and then the gut doesn't move (i.e., constipation). 

Autoimmune thyroid issues can be triggered by parasites, Lyme, radioactive elements, glyphosate, industrial and environmental toxins, etc., and often causes a disruption in hormone production and hormone balance. 

Even if your thyroid is healthy but your gut is not functioning optimally, you may still experience symptoms of hypothyroidism because inflammation inhibits active thyroid hormone (T3).

Master Signaling Hormones and the Importance of Light

Cortisol

The popular term "adrenal fatigue" is not a true diagnosis but more of a catch-all phrase. When the body has been exposed to chronic, prolonged stress, the adrenals overcompensate by overproducing and then eventually under producing cortisol.

Cortisol is the stress hormone that allows us to run from the angry bear (fight or flight). Your body is intelligently designed to make sure that cortisol production stays readily available so that you can protect yourself from a threat at a moment's notice, but under chronic stress this comes at the expense of the other hormones (thyroid, estrogen, progesterone, testosterone) that are made from the same precursors. 

Pregnenolone is the precursor that ties all of these hormones together. Pregnenolone is made from cholesterol, and cholesterol is made in the liver from LDL. Whenever the body is stressed or inflamed (needing to run from the proverbial bear), cholesterol production is up-regulated to make more life-saving hormones. Our bodies need adequate active thyroid hormone (T3) and vitamin A (retinol) in order to complete this step. 

Yes, you read that correctly. Cholesterol is made by the body as a protective mechanism, and blocking cholesterol with statins leads to cellular distress, inflammation, and hormonal chaos. Low cholesterol has also been linked to increased risk of dementia and cancers in the literature. (1, 2, 3, 4)

LDL levels are designed to rise to protect the cells in times of stress or infection so that the body can make ample hormones–chemical messengers–to improve communication between the cells.

Vitamin A

Most people know that vitamin A is important for vision and uses opsins. What you may not know is that vitamin A is crucial for the photo-transduction of light in our retinas. 

This is why your mama told you to eat your carrots to help with your night vision… She just didn’t know that the plant form, beta-carotene, is significantly less effective than retinol, which is vital for not only vision but also our hormone health. So be sure to eat your eggs, organ meats, and raw dairy. ;)

Vitamin A (specifically retinol) in the brain is very important to help to sync our body’s 24-hour circadian rhythms with the sun. It is designed to work with visible light from the sun. 

If we are vitamin A (retinol) deficient we also lose our ability to convert cholesterol to pregnenolone in the brain and in the peripheral tissues where the rest of the hormones are made.

Melatonin

Melatonin is the master hormone and neurotransmitter of circadian biology, and its release, production, and transportation throughout the body are completely controlled by light. Melatonin pumping through the body allows our mitochondria to repair and stabilize, cueing restorative processes such as autophagy and apoptosis (natural cellular clean-up). 

Melatonin is responsible for synchronizing your circadian rhythms and is the master regulator of hormone and neurotransmitter release. Melatonin is made in your skin and in your eyes in response to red and infrared light during the day.

Leptin

Leptin is a master circadian rhythm signaling hormone that helps coordinate things like insulin and thyroid hormones. We regulate leptin levels in the body by our circadian rhythms, our body’s 24-hour clock that is designed to be set by the rotation of the sun.

Our bodies are designed with a built-in hibernation time. It is crucial for leptin to dock to the hypothalamus each night between 12 pm-2 am when you’re getting deep, restful sleep to signal appropriate energy output and hormone production for the next day. “Hormonal problems” such as satiety, fatigue, and weight gain arise when this download of crucial information cannot happen. This leads to “leptin resistance,” which occurs when the stored energy in your body is unable to communicate with your brain. 

If you are missing out on this key window of sleep at night, or it’s getting interrupted, the download between leptin and the hypothalamus isn’t happening, and your body is skipping these deep repair processes.

Leptin resistance is a precursor to insulin resistance and affects all of the downstream hormones, thyroid, sex hormones, as well as the immune system. Leptin resistance leads to insulin resistance because insulin competes for leptin’s docking space at the hypothalamus, which ultimately can lead to adrenal resistance. 

Lepin resistance also leads to vitamin D deficiency, and decreases bone metabolism and production of sex hormones. This contributes to low libido, amenorrhea, fertility issues, and/or early onset perimenopause in younger women or andropause in younger men, as well as osteopenia/ osteoporosis in postmenopausal women. 

The body does not prioritize these activities when your stress hormones are high. It’s focused on survival and your ability to run from that bear.

How do we support our hormones?

Prioritizing sunlight as part of our wellness routines is the single most important thing we can do to support hormone health. Aim to get at least 10 minutes of unfiltered light into your eyeballs at dawn (preferably within 30-60 minutes of waking) and at dusk whenever possible. This will help to cue your body’s innate circadian rhythms and promote deep and restful sleep.

We also want to reduce artificial blue-light exposure that dysregulates our circadian rhythms and elevates our body’s cortisol levels, especially in the evenings after dark. If you choose to use screens after dark, you may want to consider using blue-blocker glasses. You may even consider changing some of your lightbulbs in your house to ones that are lower in blue light.

Concurrently, cleaning up the body’s terrain by clearing pathogens and toxins is often necessary for hormonal balance. I always recommend starting with opening drainage pathways, supporting digestion and nutrient absorption, and clearing parasites before working on deeper detoxification of toxins and pathogens. This is the exact process I walk my Gut Connection Blueprint students through to support not only hormone balance, but numerous other innate healing processes.

Want more info about the next launch for my Gut Connection Blueprint program? Looking for more practical tips to get started with in the meantime? Click here to download my FREE Detox Essentials Guide and you will automatically be subscribed to email updates about future FREE live trainings and course openings.