For awhile now, eating for hormone health has been a trendy recommendation in the media. Pregnancy and fertility, menopause, thyroid health, blood sugar regulation… just to name a few. First of all, what are hormones? What does this even mean? Do all people providing suggestions know the mechanism in which food and supplements impact hormones and their overall feedback loops? What steps have you taken to improve your hormone health? As a breastfeeding mama, I get the hype to want a regimen that will regulate your hormones NOW. However, hormone health is a lifelong journey, so sustainability by implementing the best practices for you are key, and may look different person to person. Improving your nutrition could be the way, or one of the many ways, to support your hormone health.
Simply, what are hormones?
If you think back to high school science, hormones were likely discussed in the context of health class, biology or anatomy as they do play a vital role in the human body maintaining homeostasis. Hormones are the body's chemical messengers, meaning they connect one system to the next by relaying information and are not just confined to one system. For example, estrogen and progesterone in the female body are produced in the ovaries, a part of the reproductive system. These hormones support having a regular period, fertility, and pregnancy, and their levels shift weekly relating to one’s menstrual cycle and throughout the life stages. Keeping healthy levels of estrogen and progesterone also positively impact bone health, mood, cognition, digestion, cholesterol levels and blood vessels– so their work goes far beyond reproduction. Symptoms of hot flashes, bloating or gassiness, mood swings and lack of flexibility, worsened mental health diagnoses, low bone mineral density and prone to fractures, irregular periods (is the cycle monthly or skipping months, bleeding level, timing, frequency, and/or duration) are just a few signs of that abnormal estrogen and/or progesterone levels may be at play.
What impacts your hormones?
Several factors have an effect on the body’s hormones. Here are some checklist, basic need items that can easily improve or throw off this balance:
Managing stress
Implementing time for play and self-care activities
Getting proper sleep- for adults this is at least 6-9 hours per night
Eating enough, ie in quantity and quality
Hydrating- with the majority from water, plus milk, juice, and electrolyte rich beverages also count
Limiting caffeine to 1-2 sources per day– not exceeding 400mg is the general recommendation for adults
Digestive health and regular bathroom habits
Moving your body in ways that feels good to you– ask yourself whether you feel energized after exercising or more fatigued and stressed, the answer should be the latter
Getting annual physicals
Having a treatment team in place that supports all your physical and mental health needs
Taking medications regularly
Incorporating supplements as needed
Nutrition and your hormones
Truly there is a lot of power in the food we eat, and missing out on certain nutrients can result in abnormal hormone levels or correlating symptoms; yet it’s not as simple as excluding or including one food or food group. One way to think about nutrition that fits for improving hormones is starting with the basics and asking yourself some of the below questions to tease this apart:
Are you eating enough food? How many times a day are you eating?
Are you counting calories, and then this leads into restricting or compensatory behaviors?
Are you restricting certain macronutrients, either carbohydrates, protein, fats, or multiple?
Are you eating enough fat?
What sources of fiber are you getting in your diet?
Eating enough in general needs to be step one. If you are skipping meals, eating snack-like portions for meals, regularly going 5+ hours between meals and experiencing extreme hunger by the next time you eat, not allowing yourself to honor your hunger, and/or underfueling for the amount of movement you do, then your nutrition basics need improvement. You need to feed your hormones to improve your hormones as supplements and tweaking the types of food you eat won’t have as great of an impact.
The three macronutrients all play a role in supporting hormone health. Carbohydrates are necessary to give your body energy for the day, to take on all your activities of daily living, thinking, talking, conceptualizing, focusing, and any exercise you participate in. Consuming enough carbohydrates helps replenish glycogen stores (another way to say carbohydrate stores), as a healthy adult typically stores about 500g of carbohydrates at baseline. Eating simple and complex carbs are necessary for creating hormone balance: simple carbs/sugar give our brain and the rest of our body energy, and paired with proteins, fats, and fiber help maintain healthy blood sugar levels, whereas fiber supports digestion by feeding our good gut bacteria, bulking our stool, and relating to reproductive hormone health it has been shown to regulate estrogen levels. Following low carbohydrate and calorie diets, and/or underfueling as an athlete, could disrupt any or all of the body’s hormone pathways because it does not have enough energy to start these, and in turn shows up as symptoms of fatigue, decreased performance, inflammation, decreased bone mineral density, cold intolerance, changes in hair, skin, or nails, low moods, brain fog, impaired digestion (constipation, diarrhea, or bloating), nutrient deficiencies, dysmenorrhea, and/or disrupted sleep.
Proteins act as the building blocks for hormone production, and certain hormones are protein-based, i.e. insulin, along with the important function of helping maintain muscle tissue. Meeting adequate protein needs also helps with blood sugar regulation by not only supporting the formation of hormones for this pathway, but also by slowing the release of glucose from food consumed and interacts with the feedback loop between glucagon and insulin. Our protein needs shift as we age to accommodate changes in hormone levels and body composition, and the more active someone is this increases protein requirements. Take the example of reproductive hormones and menopause in women: the drop in estrogen and progesterone leads to a decrease in lean muscle mass and an increase in fat mass, so meeting protein needs becomes even more important, where at least 1-1.2g/kg of body weight at baseline, rather than 0.8-1g/kg for healthy adult individuals, is recommended.
Fats are important for the production of several hormones and properly absorbing the fat soluble vitamins A, E, D and K, which all interact in some positive way with the hormone pathways in our body. Fats are an essential part of the brain, where approximately 60% of the human brain is made up of fats for transmitting messages and storing data. Fat stored in our bodies can be used for long-term, low-intensity energy activities. Relating to hormone health and our reproductive hormones, estrogen, progesterone and testosterone all require fat to form– it’s a part of their molecular structure. Without the proper intake of fat, the risk increases for insufficient levels of reproductive hormones with corresponding symptoms, such as impaired menstrual cycles, fatigue, brain fog, decreased bone mineral density and an increased risk of stress fractures, and decreased immunity.
A word on phytoestrogens
Several carbohydrate/ protein-rich foods have phytoestrogenic properties, meaning they contain compounds that mimic estrogen and may enhance their function in the body. Soy products (tofu, edamame, soy beans, tempeh, plant-based meats and dairy-alternatives), flax and other nuts/seeds, legumes, and various fruits and vegetables, especially cruciferous veggies, all have phytoestrogenic compounds. Some research lends to the idea that consuming more of these foods may help with balancing estrogen and progesterone levels. Finding ways to add these foods in for hormone health may be beneficial, but aside from hormones they provide balance and variety within a healthy eating pattern, add sources of fiber and protein, and contain a mix of saturated and unsaturated fats.
Questions or comments about this blog post? Reach out to one of the Enhance Nutrition dietitians to learn more about how to implement sustainable hormone health practices.