If hormonal balance turns over, there is too much or too little of a certain hormone, and these will affect each other leading to imbalance of the hormone system.Just think of the quite simple mechanism of action of what happens when you are exposed to increased stress. Through stress the adrenal gland will start to protect you, it will begin to produce cortisol increasingly, but for the increased cortisol production it will require progesterone, thereby depriving the body of the hormone progesterone. If this condition is frequent or continuous, the body will be deprived of so much progesterone that estrogen will certainly overweigh progesterone, irrespective of its amount. This imbalance (called estrogen dominance) will also affect the production of other hormones, thus leading to a hormonal upset caused by stress, for example.  That is why it is said that based on the reference range stated in the laboratory report, it cannot be determined whether a certain hormone is normal or abnormal, we always have to talk about their proportions and their influence upon each other. Even small changes may have a serious effect on our organism, the whole of the human body.

Think about hormones like a cake recipe. If there is too much or too little of one of the ingredients, this will affect the end result. While some hormone levels will fluctuate during our lives, and their change is only the result of natural ageing, other types of changes occur when endocrine glands receive the false “recipe”.

Each and every member of the hormone system affects the regulation of other hormones in some way, therefore we cannot speak clearly of an estrogen-progesterone rate even in gynecological disorders, but a total hormone system disturbance.

Evaluation of hormonal changes means testing other gynecological and endocrinological hormones in addition to progesterone/estrogen rate, which are all required to declare real estrogen dominance. It is very important to assess the relative proportion of hormones, rather than the reference range stated on the laboratory report.

Following adequate hormone system evaluation, an individual treatment strategy should be set up to treat hormonal changes. The treatment should be complex, including restoring possible changes of female hormones and, if needed, thyroid hormones, adrenal function and metabolism.

CHECK YOUR HORMONE LEVEL WITH OUR CALCULATORS >>