People at various stages of life have changing hormone balances that either support or detract from one’s mood, mental focus and energy level. We assess your hormonal status with tests and symptoms and utilize scientifically proven supplements or hormones to support you in feeling and functioning your best at each stage in your life.

Our hormonal balance is one of the foundations of health. A key to a long and healthy life is ensuring your hormones are optimally balanced. Yes, the body has its own checks and balances to keep us level, but often our hormonal equilibrium becomes askew.

Some of the common causes of this conundrum are age, chronic stress and infection, anxiety and depression, overfatness, eating the wrong diet, sleep deprivation, hypoglycemia, chronic pain and inflammation. Each of these conditions always has hormonal consequences. What follows is a brief discussion on a few key hormones.

Stress And Your Body Short term stress raises our adrenal cortisol level, a wonderful adaptation to help our bodies cope. Long term stress keeps cortisol high, which subverts our metabolism to accumulate fat and burn muscle for energy, thins the bones, ages skin prematurely and degrades brain tissue (irreversible neuron loss).

In some of us, chronic overproduction of adrenal cortisol will eventually deplete our glands and result in a cortisol deficiency. Low cortisol can be just as bad as elevated levels as it causes fatigue, allergy, joint pain, hypoglycemia, and it invites our immune system to attack our own tissues (aka autoimmune illness, such as Lupus, thyroiditis, rheumatoid arthritis). Salivary, urine and blood testing are ways to find out if your cortisol levels are normal.

Thyroid Gland Function Our thyroid gland function is influenced by many factors. A common cause of hypothyroidism (low thyroid function) is an immune attack on our thyroid tissue (autoimmune thyroiditis). Contributing factors to the development of autoimmune thyroiditis can be a chronic Lyme Disease infection, a gluten allergy and low cortisol levels. Identifying the cause when possible, and orienting treatment accordingly is the best way to correct this imbalance.

Diagnosis of hypothyroidism is best made by a careful review of symptoms, daytime body temperatures and blood tests. Blood testing alone can be inadequate to determine if your thyroid is under functioning, and a normal thyroid blood test does not identify all individuals who will benefit from taking thyroid hormones.

Treatments can include dietary modification, identification and elimination of food allergies, plant medicines, nutrients and bio-identical thyroid hormone supplementation. With proper treatment, your symptoms due to an underactive thyroid should get better within a few weeks or less.

DHEA Dihydroepandrosterone (DHEA) is a hormone secreted from the adrenal gland and has profound effects upon the body, relevant especially as we age. Replacement in elderly men and women who measure low can increase bone density, lean muscle mass, growth hormone, testosterone and decrease body fat. Giving it to diabetics can also decrease body fat, thus increasing insulin sensitivity and helping with blood sugar control. Low DHEA levels are also a risk factor in smokers, predicting an early death (in addition to the tobacco habit).

Hormone Balancing for Women Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) has received some deservedly bad press a few years ago when the Women's Health Initiative Study demonstrated a few percentage points increased risk of breast cancer in women who were taking HRT after menopause. Women were taking horse derived estrogens (containing many estrogens not found in humans) and synthetic progestins, not human bio-identical hormones.

Recently, a study involving almost 30,000 women in the journal Cancer showed women taking HRT with synthetic progestins had significantly increased the risk of breast cancer, while women using human bio-identical estrogen without the progestin did not have increased risk.

Appropriate use of human bioidentical estrogen has been shown to have extremely beneficial effects in women who are deficient including increasing elasticity of the skin, improving mental performance, retarding dementia and Alzheimer's disease, protecting the brain after stroke, decreasing abdominal fat, decreasing urinary incontinence and urinary tract infections. The right kind of estrogen also ameliorates the symptoms of MS and arthritis by modifying the autoimmune process.

The other female hormone is bioidentical progesterone. All I will say about this hormone is it helps keep estrogen safe in a woman's body, cures PMS, and a very intriguing study showed a woman's survival after breast cancer surgery is dramatically higher when progesterone levels are higher. It can also promote sleep when given by mouth.

Treating Hormone Imbalances The good news is that you can do something about your hormonal imbalances if you have them.

When you take any of these hormones, follow up laboratory testing is essential to determine how the hormone is being metabolized, and to what effect it is changing other hormones. I don't recommend taking these hormones without careful review and follow up with your doctor.

Feel free to speak with your naturopathic doctor about achieving optimal hormone balance.

The Web of Cause & Effects Everything in the body (and planet) is related to everything else. You push on one system and the consequences are felt in all interrelated systems. Stress affects our skin and sunlight affects our bones. A tick bite can cause low thyroid function and a fulfilled life enhances immunity.

The art and science of naturopathic medicine is knowing when, where and to what extent to effect change in the body and mind. Doctor means teacher and we take this to heart. By educating you about your imbalances, you can be your own best health coach and advocate.

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