The term polycystic ovarian syndrome is actually quite misleading,” Dr Ingrid Granne is telling me. Granne is gynaecology consultant at Aneira Health and she’s scanning my ovaries to check their health. I have been suffering with PCOS for years. In fact, my hormones have been “unbalanced” since my teens – which is exactly what I’m having my scan and consultation today.
Like many women, I’ve tried most things to try to help myself: medicines, foods, supplements and lifestyle adjustments in an attempt to manage my symptoms and restore equilibrium. Over the years I’ve dabbled with infrared saunas and drinking kefir for gut health, giving up sugar and exercising regularly. Granne tells me I couldn’t really be doing any more for myself if I tried, which is reassuring. And yet I often feel I’m not doing enough for my hormones, thanks to the “balancing” boom.
Right now many of us are being subjected to an onslaught of products, social media coaches and practices that boast they have the ability to “balance” or hack hormones. I am regularly targeted by these coaches and by people selling supplements that contain nutrients like myoinositol, berberine, maca root and folic acid.
I’ve been in more doctors’ offices than the average person and my interest in health and wellness has stemmed from my personal quest to get well, so I know a thing or two about how hormones function. I also know that my PCOS prevents me from ovulating and that my body produces very little progesterone. As a result my periods are largely absent and I often feel very fatigued and experience heightened anxiety. They say progesterone is nature’s Xanax – it relaxes you, helps you sleep and regulates mood, which explains a lot.
So, if anyone would benefit from so-called hormone balancing, I suppose, it’s me. Still, I’m sceptical of the coaches who claim they can sell a hack for hormone health.
Hormones are essential chemicals that are well known for affecting our fertility, menstrual cycle and moods. But what many people don’t realise is the huge impact that they have on our whole body, from our skin to our hair and even our gums. Hormones are playing a vital role every day without you even realising, so can a coach telling you to drink more herbal tea really make a difference to that?
“Hormones have had millions of years of evolution in how to self-regulate themselves to maintain homeostasis,” says Dr Nicky Keay, endocrine expert and author of Hormones, Health and Human Potential. “So it’s more a case of balancing our behaviours than our hormones. This, in turn, will harness our hormones to support health.”
Doctors like Keay agree that there’s no one way to balance your hormones and that the term isn’t a medical one, despite what a coach on Instagram might tell you. Endocrine issues are myriad and range from person to person and there is no magic bullet or cure-all solution for hormones that are dysregulated.
What is hormone balancing?
“Hormone balancing” is an expression often used, but it’s not a term used by medical professionals. It could mean any number of things. Hormones fluctuate naturally each month according to a person’s menstrual cycle, and due to various physical, energetic and mood changes and external lifestyle factors. So technically, your hormones are never in or out of balance as long as they’re doing the jobs they’re supposed to be doing. However, as Keay says, there are conditions that cause irregular imbalances and these usually require medical attention.
“If there is a medical condition that is causing a hormone imbalance, then this will need medical treatment.” She says. “For example, if you have Type 1 diabetes mellitus, you will need an insulin replacement and your doctor will see to this.
“Regulated, licensed, prescribed hormone medications for proven endocrine conditions are legitimate, but it’s advisable to be wary of products which are not regulated, or evidence-based, as you can end up spending a lot of money for no effect, aside from a placebo.”
Essentially, you can’t address and treat a real imbalance or dysfunction yourself. But you can support a healthy endocrine system by doing things that are good for it.
How can a person know if their hormones are unbalanced?
Endocrine dysfunction can be caused by a number of factors such as infections, medications, stress, anaemia, environmental toxins such as mould, phthalates, heavy metals and synthetic materials. Common causes for imbalance are nutrient deficiencies, insulin resistance, oxidative stress and lack of sleep.
Factor that in with normal peaks and troughs it can be difficult to know if changes in mood, skin health and energy are irregular or normal. So how can you know if your hormones are well-balanced or if there’s something wrong that might require medical attention or intervention?
“We have different organs and systems, as well as levels of those hormones,” says Leslie Northcutt, director of nutrition for 28, an app that uses cycle tracking to optimise health. “Men run on a 24-hour cycle, while women typically run on a 28-day cycle. So, at different times of the month, women can have more or less energy, mood stability, metabolic speed, physical strength, and many other variations in attributes that affect every part of daily life.”
Many symptoms of endocrine imbalance might be due to a perfectly normal phenomenon, but issues like hyperthyroidism, adrenal issues like Addison’s Disease and conditions like diabetes share some of the symptoms of normal shifts in hormonal levels.
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“Symptoms could be an indicator that we need to rebalance behaviours around food, exercise and sleep,” says Keay. “Ultimately, a blood test is the gold standard when assessing hormone health and your results must be interpreted by a medical doctor, ideally with expertise in endocrinology.”
What are the symptoms of hormone imbalances?
There are many indicators that your hormones are in flux. One of the most common symptoms of an endocrine imbalance is anxiety. “When you experience stress, your cortisol level, a steroid hormone, increases,” explains Dr Martin Kinsella of BioID Health, a company that provides hormone testing and bio-identical hormone therapy. “This slows down the body’s ability to make testosterone. The increased cortisol, combined with the lowered testosterone, makes many people feel more anxious.”
You might also experience bloating or gut issues like cramps, constipation or diarrhoea which can be a sign of low progesterone or too much oestrogen. The smell of your body might also change if your oestrogen levels drop. This causes sweating because the body thinks it’s overheating.
You might also feel like your skin becomes dry and itchy and your fingernails and hair more brittle if your oestrogen levels have decreased. “Oestrogen helps to regulate the moisture levels of your tissue and stimulate collagen production,” explains Kinsella. But a drop in certain hormones can also cause a spike in others, such as cortisol and testosterone.
Hormones are made from proteins, created by amino acids, and broken down directly from our food. The old saying, ‘you are what you eat’ is not that far from the truth
Testosterone increases during menopause and when progesterone levels are low, and this can cause the hair to thin as well as to become finer in texture.
“Oestrogen and progesterone can also affect the health of your gums,” says Kinsella. “You may notice that your gums are more likely to bleed during your period or the week after. This is because high levels of progesterone are released during your period, as well as a few days before and after.”
Hormonal issues like PCOS can also affect hair growth and you may experience more hair growing on the face and body due to dysregulated insulin, female hormone and stress hormone levels.
What can you do to support healthy hormone function?
Posting publicly about my health issues has meant that I’m regularly targeted by supplement companies selling “hormone balancing” blends. While some nutrients in supplements can be helpful for supporting hormonal processes, the best thing you can do is look at your diet for deficiencies before taking any pills or powders.
Supplements aren’t always absorbed by the body and many that promise to balance hormones are expensive. I take some supplements, but only after blood tests and consulting with a qualified nutritionist and with my doctor.
“A hormone-friendly diet can directly affect hormones and even positively influence the way they are expressed,” says Northcutt. “Hormones are made from proteins, created by amino acids, and broken down directly from our food. The old saying, ‘you are what you eat’ is not that far from the truth.”
For example, after each menstrual cycle, hormones reach a low point which can affect sleep quality. “It’s in this follicular phase we want to focus on proteins that contain the amino acid tryptophan, promoting more restful sleep,” says Northcutt.
“Closer to ovulation, higher vitamin C-containing foods foster more progesterone, leading to potentially increased fertility. In a broader sense, organic grains, unrefined fats, grass-fed protein, whole unpackaged foods, as well as local, seasonal fruits and vegetables are essential to a healthy and stable endocrine system.”
If you suffer from an endocrine issue, your doctor will prescribe the right dose of a treatment to lessen your symptoms.
And if you are menopausal or perimenopausal, your healthcare provider may prescribe HRT to ease symptoms. This might not be right for everyone, but in the right circumstances, it can ease uncomfortable symptoms like hot flashes, anxiety, dry skin and muscle and joint pain.
It’s important to note that hormonal birth control, such as the pill, implant and coil, actually function effectively by switching your endocrine system off, blocking the connection between your brain and your ovaries. The withdrawal bleed you might experience once a month while on the pill is not a real period and therefore, hormonal contraception can’t technically be used to effectively regulate periods or balance hormones.
The pill is often recommended for people with PCOS to create a cycle and a bleed, even temporarily, to prevent the lining of the uterus from building up and for those who prefer to have a regular period rather than guessing when one might arrive. It’s a personal choice and one that can help ease symptoms of a hormone imbalance, but not cure it.
Experts also advise limiting your interaction with known endocrine disruptors like alcohol, refined sugar and toxic ingredients in household cleaners and cosmetics. Starving your body of food, sleep, exercise and water can also spike your stress hormone levels and affect your entire endocrine system negatively, causing the entire system to disregulate.
Over the years, I’ve swapped fasting for high protein meals, late nights for a consistent bedtime and swapped makeup, skincare and household products for low-tox options. These behaviours, along with a host of others, have helped to ease my symptoms, but they haven’t cured my hormone imbalance. The only other option is medication, prescribed by a doctor, which is why it’s good to be sceptical of any coach or supplement company telling women they’re imbalanced and can be treated by someone who isn’t a medical professional or prepared to do a blood test.
Herbal remedies and healthy habits, aren’t a panacea, especially if you have a genuine hormone imbalance. If you don’t, you probably don’t need to waste your money on a coach or a pill and don’t let Instagram or TikTok convince you otherwise.
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