Welcome to Part 4 of the series of blogs about progesterone. If you haven’t read Part 1, Part 2 or Part 3 please click on these links.
What else is affecting your progesterone levels? Well, it’s progesterone’s “sister” estrogen. Progesterone and estrogen are the two main female hormones. They work as a team. If estrogen goes up, progesterone comes down and vice versa. Therefore if your estrogen levels are high, most likely your progesterone levels will be low.
What causes high estrogen levels?
1. Environment
Xenoestrogens are man-made chemicals in the environment that mimic the body’s own estrogen. Xenoestrogens, such as PCBs, phthalates, pesticides all-cause estrogenic effects. Avoid drinking out of plastic bottles or using plastic containers for food storage. Chlorine and hormones residues in meats and dairy products can also contribute to high estrogen levels.
2. Overloading the liver
The liver is the main detoxifying organ in your body. If you are overloading your body with too many toxins through food, environmental toxins, medications, alcohol and so on, your liver becomes sluggish and it is unable to detoxify estrogen and therefore estrogen will accumulate in your body. This applies to estrogen produced by your own body, but also external estrogen such as xenoestrogens.
3. Weight gain
Fat cells are “estrogen factories”. A study published in the Journal of Oncology found that estrogen and testosterone levels dropped quite a bit when overweight and obese women lost weight. Fat cells have an enzyme called aromatase, which converts testosterone into estrogen.
4. Oral Contraceptive Pill
It promotes continuous high levels of estrogen. A woman’s natural cycle includes rising and falling levels of estrogen and progesterone. The oral contraceptive pill works by keeping estrogen at a high level to fool our body into thinking it’s pregnant. This will also suppress progesterone levels.
What can you do about it?
Avoid any synthetic hormones, eat fresh unprocessed foods, avoid chemicals wherever possible, avoid medicines and alcohol as your liver needs to detoxify them. Lose weight if you are overweight and be kind to your liver.
