Estrogen dominance and hypothyroidism
Posted by Wen Dan Jiang on
Estrogen dominance and hypothyroidism
If you want to better understand the link between estrogen dominance and hypothyroidism, first you need to understand the individual elements!
What Is Estrogen Dominance?
The hormone estrogen 's function is to save energy in the form of fat, and thus each of these hormones works in a manner contrary to the other, and estrogen has many other functions, including the appearance of female signs and the increase in endometrial thickness, while progesterone has an anti-estrogen function that works to inhibit the action or balance of estrogen; It prevents the estrogen hormone from having an adult or dominant effect on the body.
The dominance of estrogen is when your body has too much estrogen, but that does not automatically mean that your levels of estrogen are too small. It could mean that your levels of progesterone are too low and hence the balance of these hormones becomes out of whack. Progesterone and estrogen regulate each other, so if your progesterone levels are too low, you will dominate estrogen, even if your estrogen levels aren’t outside the normal limits.
Symptoms of estrogen dominance
Weight gain, Brain fog, Infertility, Mood swings, Slow metabolism, Water retention, Fatigue, Headaches, Insomnia, Severe PMS, Fibroids, Irregular periods, Polycystic Ovaries.
How does hypothyroidism lead to estrogen dominance?
High levels of estrogen may impair the effect of thyroid hormones and may result in decreased activity; because estrogen significantly stimulates the production of globulin-carrying thyroid hormones, and globulin is the protein that binds thyroxin in the blood, making it inactive and therefore inactive; increased estrogen causes a decrease in the amount of free thyroxine present in the blood. The level of thyroid hormones carrying globulin usually increases during pregnancy, during the period of consumption of estrogen (such as birth control pills, hormonal replacement therapy), and during the acute stage of hepatitis infection. This will cause the level of the free T4 hormone to decrease.
Increased estrogen often stimulates the body to retain copper, and copper competes with zinc, so a high level of estrogen can lead to zinc deficiency, which is essential for thyroid functions and is required to convert T4 to T3. Thus, a higher level of copper can interfere with thyroid hormone production and utilization.
Women with hypothyroidism and taking thyroid hormones need to increase the dose when they start taking estrogen, such as hormone replacement therapy (HRT) or take birth control pills. If you have hypothyroidism and have recently started taking estrogen therapy, a test is necessary to estimate the level of thyroid-stimulating hormone, as well as the free T4 and T3 hormones measured six weeks after you start taking the estrogen hormone.
Treating estrogen dominance is an essential aspect of treating thyroid diseases. There are many things you can do for yourself, or use the natural progesterone hormone in the form of creams that apply to the skin of the inner part of the elbow once daily after showering.
References
National Academy of Hypothyroidism. 2020. Estrogen Dominance And Hypothyroidism | National Academy Of Hypo. [online] Available at: <https://www.nahypothyroidism.org/estrogen-dominance-and-hypothyroidism-is-it-hypothyroidism-or-hormone-imbalance/> [Accessed 23 June 2020].