What Does Pollution Have to do with Hormones?

admin — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 04:17:57 +0000

Estrogen. It’s one of a woman’s two main sex hormones. Men have estrogen too! Too much is bad though, and I’ll tell you why. Read this if you suffer from bad PMS, painful periods, or infertility, or if you have a wife or girlfriend that suffers from these conditions.

Estrogen regulates the menstrual cycle and causes things to grow during puberty. It creates curves. It also stimulates cell growth in preparation for pregnancy. Progesterone opposes estrogen, protecting against its possible undesirable side effects. Progesterone and estrogen exist in a ratio in the body, and progesterone is actually needed to make estrogen. Progesterone is super important because it helps with sex drive, sleep, prevents anxiety, burns body fat, and is the hormone needed to get and stay pregnant. Here’s the thing, though: when estrogen & progesterone become imbalanced, health problems can surface. And more often than not, that means too much estrogen and not enough progesterone. Women (and even men, too) are experiencing massive problems with their female hormones: heavy menstrual cycles, endometriosis, ovarian cysts (remember, estrogen makes things grow, including cysts, endometrial lining, whatever), painful periods, bad PMS, PCOS, infertility, irregular periods, periods in girls starting as early as 8 or 9 years old. What is the cause?

In our food supply, in our environment, in our medications, in our water–we are bombarded by too much estrogen. Synthetic estrogens called xenoestrogens are making this problem worse. They are shaped like our body’s own estrogens and cause our estrogen levels to sky rocket. Xenoestrogens are present in the hormones given to animals so that they fatten up before slaughter. We eat the meat & ingest the hormones. Pesticides on fruit and vegetables & environmental pollution & plastic water bottles & household chemical cleaning agents contain xenoestrogens. Add to that hormonal birth control, which is a hefty dose of estrogen (birth control needs to suppress progesterone, the pro-gestational hormone that allows for pregnancy), and the fact that 2/3 of us are overweight (fat has an enzyme that converts adrenal hormones to estrogen), and we are ESTROGEN DOMINANT.

In addition to those dietary & environmental factors, stress makes this issue worse because it disrupts your other hormones, which in turn affects your estrogen levels. The hormones are a very complex and sensitive orchestrated dance, you see. Very susceptible to stress, diet, lifestyle. So if you are overweight, eating a lot of sugar and non-organic meats and produce laced with pesticides (or no veggies or fruit at all), not getting to bed early or suffering from insomnia, you are prone to estrogen dominance. It’s bad because it leads to the conditions I listed above (period problems, PCOS, fibroids) and can eventually lead to hormonal cancers like breast cancer, uterine, or ovarian cancer. These cancers are a result of too much estrogen.

What to do about it? Clean up your diet. Eat organic. Eat a plant-based diet with organic meats. Get enough greens. Don’t over-booze (booze causes estrogen dominance, too). Address your lifestyle: use chemical-free cosmetics & skincare stuff, natural cleaning products, and balance your hormones! How? Reduce stress, take wild yam or chasteberry if you suffer from any estrogen-dominant conditions, and do a liver cleanse a couple times a year. Your liver metabolizes hormones and if it is congested, your hormonal balance will suffer. We cannot prevent exposure to pollution, but a clean liver will help your body process these toxins. Get a water filter, too. Estrogens coming from meds have been found present in drinking water. Yuck. Contact me if this sounds like you, or even if you are doing everything right and you still suffer from the below symptoms. I help women achieve hormonal balance & overcome estrogen dominance.

Estrogen dominance symptoms:
Breast cancer • Breast tenderness • Cold hands and feet • Decreased sex drive • Mood swings • Dry eyes • Depression, anxiety, irritability • Fatigue • Fibrocystic breasts • Irregular menstrual periods • Headaches • Hypoglycemia • Insomnia • Infertility • PMS • Osteoporosis • Uterine fibroids • Uterine cancer • Water retention, bloating • Weight gain • Hair loss • Fat gain around hips and thighs • Polycystic ovaries • Endometrial cancer • Memory loss, foggy thinking • Thyroid dysfunction • Prostate cancer • Ovarian cancer

To Microwave or Not to Microwave

admin — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 19:55:01 +0000

I emit harmful radiation and render your food void of nutrients.

I threw out my microwave almost five years ago and never looked back. (ok, i donated it to prevent e-waste, feeling all the while guilty about possibly subjecting some other poor soul to nutrient-scrambled, radiation-dense food). In the constant quest to reduce exposure to radiation and electromagnetic frequencies (EMFs), I decided I could live without it.

Over 90 percent of American homes (and most restaurants) are equipped with microwaves for food prep ease. Microwaves are a form of electromagnetic energy, like light waves or radio waves. They work by creating agitation, causing molecular friction, which heats up the food from the inside. This unusual type of heating causes substantial damage to the surrounding molecules, often tearing them apart or forcefully deforming them. This radiation results in the destruction and deformation of food molecules. Eating microwaved foods with denatured proteins can cause oxidative damage.

Studies have revealed that microwaving can destroy more than 90 percent of a food’s important nutrients. A 2003 study published in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture showed that broccoli cooked in a microwave lost the highest percentage of flavonoid antioxidants: 97 percent! Phytonutrients (such as flavonoids) play an important role in preventing disease. Because foods already begin to lose nutrients shortly after they are picked, and even more after they are shipped to you and sit on store shelves (another reason to buy local), it’s important to preserve foods’ nutrient levels as much as possible. Other foods containing heat sensitive vitamins, such as eggs and other meats (B6 and B12), are also susceptible to losing nutrients.

If you are microwave-heating foods in plastic, or covered in plastic wrap, you are in for a double whammy. When heated, plastics release dioxins and other chemicals into your food, and these chemicals have xenoestrogenic effects, causing hormonal problems and infertility issues in both men and women. This is especially important to note for heating milk in plastic baby bottles: NEVER heat a baby’s bottle in the microwave. Aside from the fact that microwaves heat unevenly, subjecting the milk to hotspots, these chemicals can leech from the plastic into the milk and contribute to developmental problems. Also, microwave heating destroys the vital nutrients and immune constituents in breast milk. Don’t use plastic baby bottles at all, for that matter. Use glass bottles for baby.

Combine microwave radiation with other sources of EMFs, such as your cell phone, computers, and wireless internet connection, and it’s clear that we are bombarded. It’s really too early to know the extent of the cellular damage that occurs as a result of these devices and their harmful output. There have been accounts of people suffering headaches, insomnia, and nosebleeds from living under cell phone towers. Modern society is not without risks, but personally, I prefer not to be subjected to human testing with devices that may or may not be safe. Plus, food heated in the microwave doesn’t taste good. It turns gummy and hard and no longer tastes like food.

Minimize exposure wherever you can. It’s not difficult to live microwave free. Use a teapot to heat water. Use a stove to heat soup. Use a convection oven or a toaster oven to reheat leftovers. If you do choose to microwave, at the very least, don’t stand in front of it while you’re heating your food. You’re tripling your EMF exposure right there. I don’t miss it at all, and it makes me feel good to know i’m not exposing myself further to potential cell damage. Abnormal cells potentially turn into cancer cells. Do you want to take the risk?

Holistic Nutrition Bytes--San Francisco Nutrition Consultation » xenoestrogens

What Does Pollution Have to do with Hormones?

To Microwave or Not to Microwave