How Your Liver & Gut Health Impacts Hormone Health

How Your Liver & Gut Health Impacts Hormone Health

by | Aug 30, 2021 | Hormones

When we talk about the liver, we usually focus on its role in detoxification. Your liver performs about 200 very important functions. These impact hormones, cholesterol, bile production, protein synthesis, blood purification, and more.

When your liver is working efficiently, it purifies the blood, regulates metabolism, stores vitamins and minerals, and even protects you from parasites and other infections. 

But what happens when your liver isn’t working efficiently? 

And do you understand how your gut health impacts hormone health? 

It’s important to realize that the labs can still appear normal even when your liver is sluggish. A lot of people come to me saying their doctor ran their bloodwork and their liver is fine. 

So if your lab tests are normal, how do you know if you are suffering from a sluggish liver?

What Happens When The Liver Functions & Malfunctions

The liver plays a crucial role in your body. But are you aware of the symptoms of a malfunctioning liver?

Gut Health: Digestive Problems

The liver produces bile that helps to aid in digestion. But what happens when the liver is producing less bile? Or when the gallbladder is no longer doing a good job of storing bile to use when you eat? If this occurs, you may experience bloating, constipation, and loss of appetite. 

Are you tired of digestive problems controlling your life? 

Get in touch with me and together we can get to the root of the problem so that you can truly heal.

Gut Health: Blood Sugar Problems

The liver plays an important role in maintaining healthy blood sugar levels. So what happens when you have a sluggish liver? 

If you are suffering from a sluggish liver, then your blood sugar levels will tend to fluctuate. This may leave you feeling weak and dizzy. Nausea, vomiting, and a total lack of energy are common.

Hormonal Imbalance

Think of your liver as a filter for your hormones. When this process is not working efficiently, you may experience sleep disturbance, depression, irregular periods, hot flashes, mood swings, and fibroids.

Skin Related Issues

When clients come to me with any kind of skin problem, one of the first things to come to mind is the liver. This is because it plays a huge role in eliminating toxins from the body. 

One of the ways we detox is through the skin. When the liver isn’t working efficiently, toxins can come through the skin, and you may develop rashes such as psoriasis, eczema, itching skin, or even acne and moles. 

Detoxification

Our livers take a beating regularly due to the toxic world we live in. Several things in our environment expose us to toxins on a daily basis, including:

  • Air pollution
  • Toxic cosmetics and skincare products
  • Home cleaning products
  • Prescription medications
  • Herbicides and pesticides in our foods
  • Toxic cookware
  • Plastics
  • And even tap water

Aside from your liver, you can also detoxify through your skin, lungs, kidneys, and digestive tract. However, when one of those areas becomes overloaded, it can take a toll on your body.

So where does the gut-hormone connection actually come in?

How Your Liver & Gut Health Impacts Hormone Health

Clients often ask me to investigate their hormone health. To do this, I start by asking questions to determine whether the gut is playing a role in their hormonal imbalance.

In my years of practice, there have been client cases where diet and supplements alone improve the hormone imbalance. This was the case for Tanya, one of my younger clients.

She had debilitating menstrual cycles that would even land her in the hospital. The biggest change we made was upgrading her diet to include more natural and whole foods, and eliminating processed foods. Doing this cleaned up her liver. And with targeted supplements, we even repaired her gut lining. 

Are you seeing how your gut health impacts hormone health? Contact me so that you can finally get back to the life God intended for you to be living. 

Understanding The Phases Of Detoxification

Your liver goes through more than one phase of detoxification. That’s why it’s important to know what you need for proper detoxification to take place. 

If you feel the temptation to grab a detox in a box, you might want to reconsider to avoid wasting your money. Unfortunately, the juice cleanse trends don’t offer true detoxification benefits, because they don’t have everything needed to truly allow you to detox. 

Phase One

During the first phase of detoxification, your liver makes the toxins more water-soluble using oxygen. Then your liver uses enzymes to burn up the toxins. This allows toxins to more easily expel through the liver and kidneys. This process stirs things up and causes the liver to produce more toxins. It sounds like we’re taking a step backward here, but it is a necessary step in the process.

Phase Two

In the second phase of detoxification, the oxidized chemicals combine with specific amino acids and organic acids. Then, they excrete through bile or urine.

There are six different pathways in phase two that are responsible for different substances, like estrogen, heavy metals, thyroid hormones, nicotine, bacterial toxins, caffeine, and more.

Other Detoxification Methods & Issues

Not all clients have it as easy as Tanya. When working with my clients, I use advanced hormone testing that looks at the pathways rather than just the hormone alone. This testing also looks at organic acids as well as methylation pathways. 

Methylation Pathways

It’s fairly common to see problems with methylation pathways. They are responsible for detoxifying estrogen, dopamine, histamine, and heavy metals. However, when methylation is slow, we can increase certain types of B vitamins to strengthen the pathway.

Sulfation

Sulfation also plays a role in the detoxification of neurotransmitters, thyroid hormones, and excess bile acids. It’s important to realize that over-the-counter anti-inflammatories negatively impact this pathway. We can, however, support this pathway with sulfur-rich foods and supplements. 

Estrogen

When it comes to estrogen, detoxification pathway blockage can lead to estrogen excess. This can result in fibrous tissue in your uterus or breast, thyroid nodules, heavy menstrual cycles, miscarriages, infertility, hot flashes, insomnia, weight gain, and fatigue. 

Too many times, women have come to me after their doctors dismissed some of these as normal hormonal symptoms. That’s exactly what happened to Tanya. But when we completely assessed the situation, we were able to naturally balance her hormones and do away with her unwelcome symptoms – by addressing the root. 

My Gut Hormone Connection

My own challenges spurred my interest in the gut hormone connection. As a child, I developed constipation issues. At the age of 12, I was put on birth control. This was followed by me dealing with fungal and candida infections for many years. I never made the connection between my symptoms and birth control. But by the time I was in my late teens, I received my IBS diagnosis.

In my mid-twenties, I lost my menstrual cycle for about three years. 

Then at 27, I was diagnosed with perimenopause. 

But even with the bioidentical hormones, my digestive symptoms never seemed to completely correct themselves. In fact, some of my symptoms even got worse. The cravings, weight gain, and inflammation in my body were still part of my daily life.

To be honest, I did feel slightly better. But I could tell the prescriptions were simply covering up my symptoms, just like birth control did for so long. 

Turns out, I was being over-prescribed hormones. Under the guidance of a functional medicine doctor, I stopped taking those prescriptions. Instead, my new doctor was helping me to support my liver and detox my body in a way no one ever had. The funny thing is, I was suddenly feeling better than I had in years. 

What I Learned From My Journey

Being a practitioner myself at the time, I took advantage of my resources. I started running the advanced assessments and labs that I use with my clients today. While looking at my digestive system, it was revealed that I had parasites. 

So I started strategically working on those areas. By implementing a healthy lifestyle and a very specific supplement protocol, I brought my body back into balance. I was able to heal my IBS symptoms and rid myself of parasites. 

The best part is, after years of struggling with hormone imbalance, from my first cycle at 11 through the age of 30, I was finally able to balance my hormones. 

And I did it naturally with food and supplements!

Heal Your Entire Body & Your Gut Health (The Liver, Gut, & Hormones) Will Follow

When you’re looking to heal or stop symptoms, it’s important to address the entire body. The problem you are aware of may not be the actual problem after all. Instead, it may be the result of a problem in another area.

It’s important to remember that the entire body is connected. One area can greatly impact another. And it’s understandable if you’re not sure how it’s all connected or not understanding how to do the detective work on your own. 

Putting the puzzle pieces together took me a lifetime and lots of training to accomplish. But that doesn’t mean you should continue in your cycle of trial and error. It’s time to hire someone with experience. I can help you get to the root of your health issues so you can make a bigger impact in this world. Reach out today to start your own healing journey.

Detox and Balance Your Hormones to Protect Your Reproductive Health

Detox and Balance Your Hormones to Protect Your Reproductive Health

by | Feb 4, 2020 | Detox

February is the month of love. While the heart shaped chocolate boxes and swoon-worthy acts of love come out in full force, it’s time to talk about why you need to detox and balance your hormones to protect your reproductive health.

This is not your typical Valentine’s Day blog.

The reason why I want to talk about this very topic today though is because we probably do not fully consider how much of an impact our hormones have on our

health in general. Additionally, we often do not understand how the things in our environment impact our hormone health. This topic applies to both female and male reproductive health.

Let’s take the 40,000 foot view of where we’re going…

● What nutrients you need to help your hormones to work properly

● Consider what toxins in your environment impact your hormones

● How to resolve hormone disruptors or endocrine disruptors naturally

● What some birth control methods do to cause hormone imbalance

Put on your seatbelt, and let’s get started

Rather watch a 10 minute video with the same information?

Detox and Balance Your Hormones to Protect Your Reproductive Health  

What does detoxification have to do with balancing your hormones?

Everything!

When I work with my clients, I have them take a hormone test. This gives me a whole lot of information about their health. With a dried urine sample, I’m able to see the following:

● Whether or not you have enough estrogen
● If your body is utilizing it appropriately or taking a cancer causing pathway
● Whether you’re getting rid of it like you should or just recycling old estrogen

Knowing the amount of estrogen you have in circulation simply isn’t enough.

If we find that any of the markers mentioned above are moving in the wrong direction, then we can often course correct. Many times, I coach individuals through a little estrogen detox. This helps them balance their hormones.

If you’re ready to take your health to a new level, then click here to join me on the next cleanse challenge. Take this last step to balance your hormones, protect your reproductive health, and equip yourself with the tools you need to reclaim your life.

Hormone Imbalance & Replacement

Who has hormone imbalances?

Everyone that is breathing and can bleed red.

Women who experience PMS and other types of symptoms like cravings, bloating, water retention, mood swings, and severe cramping before their menstrual cycle likely have some hormone imbalance. Although this imbalance is often talked about with women (as previously mentioned), these imbalances can also impact men.

These imbalances also do not stick to any given age group. I’ve seen all ages experience these issues.

Hormone imbalance does not discriminate.

When I was 12 years old, my doctor put me on birth control for severe menstrual cramps. 18 years later, I was still on that birth control experiencing horrible hormone symptoms.

By the time I was 29 years old, I was in perimenopause – my ovaries were gradually releasing less and less eggs. This condition usually impacts women in their 40s and 50s.

After a little hormone detox and a little balancing act, my hormones are healthy as they would be for any woman my age now. I’m glad this was the case for me; however, many people don’t have the same experience.

The truth is, when we start giving the body what it needs, it will often course correct naturally.

Main Problem With Hormone Replacement

The main problem with hormone replacement – whether it be synthetic or bioidentical replacement – is that our own body will stop producing its natural hormones.

This is exactly what happened to me.

There is absolutely a time and place for hormone therapy, but I believe that giving the body herbal support when it’s able to make its own hormones is the best route. If you opt for hormone therapy, make sure you choose a safe alternative like bioidentical hormone therapy instead of using synthetics.

It’s the best way to prevent cancer and other diseases from forming in the body.

Hormone Disruptors In Our Environment

We come into contact with hormone disruptors in our environment on a regular basis. Unfortunately, there’s no way to completely avoid them. You can, however, start today by eating a nutrient-rich diet, controlling your stress, getting plenty of sleep, using resistance training, and supporting your body through detox if you want to naturally balance your hormones.

Let’s go deeper into how to resolve hormone disruptors.

3 Steps to Resolve Hormone Disruptors

When our hormones are disrupted, we experience weight gain, mood swings, insomnia, depression, hair loss, lack of energy, water retention, brain fog, miscarriages, and/or inability to conceive. Unfortunately, this list continues, depending on the hormones that are causing the issue.

Before I realized what was going on with my body, I remember having a similar laundry list of symptoms. It wasn’t until I found someone who could help me that I was able to bring my hormones back into balance.

If you’ve known me for a while, you know I do not address symptoms because symptoms always have a root cause – hormone disruptors. So if you’re experiencing any of the above indicators, take the following 3 steps to resolve hormone disruption.

1. Balance your diet (this will help more than hormone balance)

2. Avoid hormone disruptors found in your environment

3. Detox your body on a regular basis

1. Balance Your Diet

Focus on your diet. Balance your diet. Diet. We hear this on repeat, and sometimes, we simply ignore it. Your nutrition impacts more than just your health.

The animals we consume today are filled with hormones.

In today’s environment, they are stressed and filled with “bad” hormones like cortisol. Those stress hormones are released into the animal’s tissues, which then become a part of us when we consume them.

If you want to detox and balance your hormones to protect your reproductive health, you must look at where your food comes from. How are they treating their animals? Are those animals stressed or happy? These are all things that you need to consider if you want to improve your reproductive health.

2. Avoid Hormone Disruptors From the Environment

Just as animals have stressors in their environment, we too have stressors in our environment. Those stressors, if consistent or elevated, can disrupt our own natural hormone production.

Consider the things in your environment that are toxic to your hormones. Things like…

● Plastics
● Canned foods
● Non-stick pans
● Fire retardant
● Carpet
● Skin products

… can cause hormone imbalance and lead to negative symptoms in the body.

You can find plastic hardeners, like BPA and BPS, in everything from plastics to sales receipts to canned goods.

Many of the toxins we wear on our skin (lotions, potions, and shampoos) may have toxins that are disrupting your hormones and endocrine system.

Additionally, you’ll find more hormone disruptors in you the products you clean your home with. Those chemicals destroy hormones.

So, how do you practically avoid hormone disruptors from the environment? Read the labels. If you don’t know an ingredient, look it up. Chances are that if you’re not familiar with it, it’s probably not good for your hormone health.

You may not be able to avoid all hormone disruptors in your environment, but try to remove as many as you can. You can also look for non-toxic lines. My favorite skincare line is Beauty Counter. I also love Branch Basics for household cleaning and laundry.

3. Learn to Appropriately Detoxify the Body on a Regular Basis

Finally, you need to learn how to appropriately detoxify the body on a regular basis. It’s not a one-and-done situation. You’re continually exposed to toxins that build up in your system. In March, I’m starting another Seasonal Cleanse Challenge. This challenge happens only a couple times of the year to help people understand the importance of detoxification and how it is different from just cleansing the body.

We will never get rid of every single toxin that we’ve ever come into contact with. But we can literally remove years of toxins from the body if we provide the body what it needs and allow it to intelligently do its job.

Dig Deeper: Detox and Balance Your Hormones

In the event that you need to dig a little bit deeper, partner with someone who has an understanding of how to help you improve those hormones naturally without causing further disruption in your body. If you’re interested in digging a little deeper into this topic, schedule a free complimentary consultation with me OR sign up for my next Seasonal Cleanse Challenge here.