Our modern world is saturated with excess estrogens.
When your body has too much estrogen, you feel it. You can have any have low energy, mood swings, hot flashes, and belly fat. Your libido fades, you can’t sleep, and you become depressed. Your skin dries out and wrinkles.
Even worse, you can have symptoms of mega-menopause, or develop cancers in parts of the body that have estrogen receptor. Not just breast cancer, but endometrial, cervical and ovarian cancer.1
I work with my women patients here at the Wellness Center to reset their body’s natural production of estrogen. When your body makes the real thing, your other hormones know how to respond in perfect harmony.
In a minute I’ll show you how to get rid of fake environmental estrogens and help you balance your body’s natural estrogen 100% naturally.
It’s a necessary solution because it’s not easy to just “avoid” estrogens anymore.
- They’re in food because industrial farms shoot animals full of hormones so they fatten up faster.
- Pesticides and fertilizers used on your produce fool your body into thinking they’re estrogen.
- Manufacturers of plastics use synthetics called bisphenols to make their product. You might know one of them already, BPA. These also have a chemical structure very similar to a woman’s estrogen.
- Fake estrogens are also in beauty products. Some are called parabens, and some have long, unpronounceable chemical names. But they all act like estrogen. They show up in deodorants, perfumes, moisturizers, and hair spray … and cosmetics, toothpaste, nail polish, shampoos, conditioners, and cleansers.
When these chemicals get into your bloodstream, they attach to your estrogen receptors. They mimic real estrogen. But here’s a big difference. These chemical hormones are MUCH stronger than the estrogens your body produces naturally. All of that excess estrogen knocks your other hormones out of balance.
- The first thing to do to reverse this dangerous situation is to minimize your exposure to fake estrogens. Here’s what I tell my women patients:
- buy only pasture-raised meat and dairy
- eat mostly organic fruits and vegetables
- avoid using plastic bottles and food storage containers and stick with glass, ceramic and steel.
- check your personal care products for parabens and petroleum derivatives
- The next thing to do is to flush away the fake estrogens.
While you can’t block all fake estrogens, you can help your body metabolize them and help your body remove them naturally. You can do this with a compound extracted from cruciferous vegetables called DIM (diindolylmethane).
Eat broccoli, kale, and cauliflower and you can produce some. But in this case, a supplement is more useful because you’d have to eat two pounds or more of broccoli every day to get the effect. I suggest you take 100 to 200 mg of DIM every day.
- The third thing to do is to eat the kinds of foods that have estrogenic effects in your body that send estrogens down the helpful C-2 pathway, and not the damaging C-16 pathway.
These phytoestrogens occupy estrogen receptors so that fake estrogens have nowhere to land. At the same time they can help gently raise natural estrogen levels if your hormones are out of balance.
- Pomegranate is a great source of phytoestrogens. Studies show pomegranates provide the same three estrogens as a woman’s ovaries – estradiol, estrone and estriol. In fact, one study showed that pomegranate is the richest plant source of estrogens.2
I suggest drinking just two ounces of pomegranate juice a day. And eat the seeds, either fresh or dried. Throw a handful on top of salads, or in your smoothie or yogurt.
You can also find pomegranate extract in supplement form. I recommend taking 500 to 1000 mg per day. But make sure you find a supplement made from the seeds, fruit, juice, and peel to get the full range of pomegranate phytoestrogens.
- Red clover is another plant that naturally senses your body’s estrogen needs. It’s rich in isoflavones. These plant compounds adapt their action to your hormone levels. If your estrogen is too high, it blocks the fake hormones. If it’s too low, red clover produces a gentle estrogen boost.
Look for red clover tea on the internet or in your health food store. Drink several cups daily for two to ten weeks to get the benefits.
Red clover is also available in tablets, capsules, and extracts. You can take 400 mg a day. But talk to your doctor first if you have breast cancer or fibroids, or take hormones or birth control pills.
- Herbs are another great source of natural phytoestrogens. Parsley, thyme, cumin, turmeric, and sage all help gently raise low estrogen levels.
But if you need more help, Black Cohosh is one of the best herbal treatments I’ve found for symptoms of low estrogen. I recommend 250 mg in tablet form, three times a day.
To Your Good Health,
Al Sears, MD
1. Falk R, Brinton L, Dorgan J, Fuhrman B, Veenstra T, Xu X, Gierach G. “Relationship of serum estrogens and estrogen metabolites to postmenopausal breast cancer risk: a nested case-control study.” Breast Cancer Res. 2013;15(2):R34.
2. Heftmann, E., Ko, S., Bennet, R.D., “Identification of estrone in pomegranate seeds.” Phytochemistry 1966;5,1337-1339