The Importance of Diet in Maintaining Hormone Balance
Hormones perform countless essential tasks in your body—they regulate your immune system, help you digest and extract nutrients from food, regulate your mood, and keep your energy levels high and your libido strong. Maintaining adequate hormone levels is critical, not only for your long-term health, but also for your day-to-day functioning. Hormonal imbalances and deficiencies can quickly cascade into a multitude of problematic symptoms and even major health issues. And when it comes to keeping your hormones in balance, what you eat can make all the difference.
Certain foods stimulate the production of certain hormones, while other foods inhibit production. Healthy, organic fats and proteins can help to naturally increase your levels of DHEA and progesterone while green leafy vegetables, nuts, seeds, fish, and beans can help to elevate magnesium levels, which can increase the production of sex hormone levels, including testosterone. Many fat-soluble vitamins also tend to have positive effects on sex hormones levels. On the other hand, a diet high in sugars and processed grains decreases the productivity of some of your body’s most important hormones while soy, factory-farmed meats, and even licorice can all disrupt your hormone balance through their estrogenic properties.
An unbalanced or endocrine-disrupting diet can be a contributing factor in hormonal fluctuations leading to low testosterone, estrogen dominance, or progesterone deficiencies. No matter the cause, these hormonal imbalances can cause a multitude of health issues. If you suspect you are living with a hormonal imbalance due to symptoms such as weight gain, fatigue, and sleepless nights, you should make an effort to bring yourself back into balance as soon as possible in order to restore your body to a healthy equilibrium.
Tailoring a Plan for Success
So how do you manage the complex and confusing task of balancing your diet and hormone health? Researchers are realizing that how your body reacts to food is a very individual process, which means that one of the best ways to reevaluate your current eating habits is to speak with an expert who can assist you in attaining your overall wellness goals. A study published in the November 2015 issue of the journal Cell that followed 800 people between the ages of 18 and 70 found that participants’ blood sugar levels varied widely in response to identical foods, suggesting that a one-size-fits-all diet is hardly the most successful approach to diet. The study further found that a diet that was personalized to the individual was much more successful in lowering blood sugar levels and thus decreasing the risk of diabetes, obesity, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease.
The experts of the BodyLogicMD network specialize in bioidentical hormone replacement therapy and custom-creating diet and nutrition plans for each and every patient. They can help you identify food sensitivities, assist you in achieving blood sugar balance, and monitor your hormone levels to ensure proper balance. Get started on a tailored diet and nutrition plan that fits your physiology, lifestyle, and health goals by contacting a physician within the BodyLogicMD network today.