Do You Have Hormone Imbalance? This Integrative Medicine Doctor Explains How to Tell

Do you have PMS, hot flashes, night sweats, brain fog, depression, chronic fatigue, weight gain, hair loss, and/or decreased libido? Did you know that those symptoms may be due to a hormone imbalance?

Hormones are produced and released in your body each day from several different organs. When the body is “stressed out,” hormones begin to shift from being produced and released properly. They can be converted to other hormones, produced in excess, or even not produced at all.

When the body is “stressed out,” hormones begin to shift from being produced and released properly.

Several organs make and release hormones: ovaries, testes, hypothalamus, pituitary gland, thyroid gland, and the adrenal glands . . . to name a few.

Do you have adrenal fatigue? Here are some of the symptoms and natural preventative treatments.
 

What Causes Hormonal Imbalance?

Many triggers can throw off your hormones and cause hormonal imbalance . . . starting with stress.
 
Stress, emotional and physical, impacts your adrenal glands. Think of your adrenal glands as the gas pedal in your car. Too much stress in your adrenal glands is like smashing the gas pedal down in your car.
 
When you’ve over-stressed the adrenal glands, they will release more cortisol, among other hormones. High amounts of cortisol make you retain weight, cause brain fog, fatigue your muscles, and destroy your gastro-intestinal lining.
 
Not only that, but high cortisol tends to suppress your appetite, leaving you craving sugary foods. Have you ever noticed that it’s easy to pig out on sugary foods when you are stressed out? These high levels of sugar can contribute to Candida, which affects hormones as well.
 

Hormonal Imbalance in Your Thyroid Gland

The biggest issues with high cortisol levels is thyroid gland dysfunction. Specializing in thyroid dysfunction, I have seen hundreds of thyroid patients have decreased levels of thyroid hormones due to adrenal gland dysfunction.
 
Your thyroid directly impacts female and male hormones. When working with thyroid patients that are struggling with hormone imbalance, I focus on fixing the problem (the thyroid) before addressing the hormones.
 
Go after the problem, not the side effect!
 

How Eating Too Much Contributes to Hormonal Imbalance

High levels of insulin will cause the ovaries to produce more androgen hormones, such as testosterone. High levels of testosterone will cause PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome) in women. PCOS happens to be one of the leading causes of infertility in women.
 
As testosterone rises in women, the female hormones get pushed to lower levels and women may start to grow body hair, have more acne, and have irregular or fewer periods. Plus, high levels of testosterone can increase a woman’s risk of cardiovascular disease.
 
To prevent large spikes of insulin, focus on eating smaller meals throughout the day.
 

Focus on Your Liver to Prevent Hormonal Imbalance

Your liver plays a crucial role in your hormones. We discussed how the thyroid directly impacts female and male hormones, and the liver does the same. If the liver is not working optimally, your thyroid hormone conversion will be decreased.
 
Essentially, your metabolism will slow and it will be difficult to lose weight, acne begins, the body may feel cold, and hair loss may occur.
 
Your liver helps to “clear out” extra hormones. For example, if you’re on birth control the liver has to filter those hormones. After many years of filtering, those extra hormones will impact your liver’s ability to do its job: detoxify the blood, convert the thyroid hormone, making cholesterol, and more.
 
If your liver can’t detox the hormones, then more hormones build up in the body. This throws off your normal levels of female and male hormones.
 
Some patients, especially thyroid patients, have gene mutations that impact the liver’s ability to do its job. You can test for this by running a genetic test. However, you will need a knowledgeable doctor to explain the genetic results to you.
 

Hormonal Imbalance: The Takeaway

If you’re struggling with any of these symptoms, my first advice is to find a doctor that can help you. I am a little biased, as I am an Integrative/Functional Medicine doctor, and I have seen thousands of patients thrown through the “medical merry-go-round.”
 
Because of that, I recommend more of an integrative approach vs. seeing a “hormone specialist” that only looks at your hormones.
 
And remember, there are many pieces to your health puzzle! Don’t work on just the side effects, try to get to the root of and fix the problem. Keep an eye out for my follow up article with tips to prevent hormonal imbalance.
 

 
Dr. Corey King, D.C., B.C.I.M. utilizes Integrative/Functional Medicine to help his patients heal. Dr. King has been specializing in autoimmune diseases, thyroid gland dysfunction, diabetes and gastro-intestinal dysfunction for the past 12-years. You can learn more by visiting his website and you can also check out his online course, Fundamentals For Healing.

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